🆕 Out now! Report by AlgorithmWatch & @aiforensics_org on @Microsoft Bing Chat. Before the 2023 elections in Switzerland, Bavaria & Hesse (German states), we asked #Bing Chat some typical voter questions. Read our full report: algorithmwatch.org/en/study-micro… 🧵 Main results: (1/6)

One third of the 1.374 Bing Chat answers we analyzed contained factual errors. Errors included wrong election dates, outdated candidates, or even made-up scandals. (2/6)

The problem is systemic. We ran prompts repeatedly, and the answers remain prone to error over time and across all three languages French, German and English. (3/6)

The combination of AI bot and search leads to new problems: When the bot generated nonsense, it regularly attributed it to a legitimate news site or Wikipedia. This makes it look like the cited source made the mistake, not the bot - risking the news site’s reputation. (4/6)