The Copilot logo displayed on a laptop screen and the Microsoft logo displayed on a phone screen are seen in this handout photo taken in Krakow, Poland on October 30, 2023.
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images
One late night in December, Shane Jones, an artificial intelligence engineer at Microsofthe was disgusted by the images that appeared on his computer.
Jones was delighted with Copilot Designer, the AI visualization device that Microsoft debuted in March 2023, powered by OpenAI technology. As with OpenAI’s DALL-E, users enter text messages to generate images. Creativity is encouraged to run wild.
Since last month, Jones has been actively testing the product for vulnerabilities, a practice known as red-teaming. During that time, he saw the tool generate images that contradicted those often reported by Microsoft responsible AI principles.
The AI service has depicted demons and monsters along with language related to abortion rights, teenagers with assault rifles, sexual images of women in violent tableaus, and underage alcohol and drug use. All of these scenes, created over the past three months, were recreated by CNBC this week using the Copilot tool, which was it was originally called Bing Image Creator.
“It was an eye-opening moment,” Jones, who continues to test the image generator, told CNBC in an interview. “That’s when I first realized, wow, this is not really a safe model.”
Jones has worked at Microsoft for six years and is currently principal manager of software engineering at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington. He said he does not work for Copilot in a professional capacity. Rather, as a red teamer, Jones is among an army of employees and outsiders who, in their spare time, choose to test the company’s AI technology and see where problems might arise.
Jones was so disturbed by his experience that he began reporting his findings internally in December. While the company acknowledged his concerns, it was unwilling to pull the product off the market. Jones said Microsoft referred him to OpenAI, and when he didn’t hear back from the company, he posted an open letter on LinkedIn asking the startup’s board to scrap DALL-E 3 (the latest version of the AI model) for research. .
Microsoft’s legal department told Jones to remove his post immediately, he said, and he complied. In January, he wrote a letter to US senators on the issue and later met with staff on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Now, he is escalating his concerns further. On Wednesday, Jones sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Kahn and another to Microsoft’s board of directors. He shared the letters with CNBC in advance.
“Over the past three months, I have repeatedly urged Microsoft to remove Copilot Designer from public use until better safeguards are put in place,” Jones wrote in the letter to Khan. He added that since Microsoft has “declined this recommendation,” he is calling on the company to add disclosures to the product and change the rating to of Google Android app to make it clear that it is for mature audience only.
“Again, they failed to implement these changes and continue to market the product to “Anyone. Anywhere. Any Device””, he wrote. Jones said the risk “had been made known by Microsoft and OpenAI prior to the public release of the AI model last October.”
His public letters come after Google late last month temporarily restricted its image-generating AI, which is part of its Gemini AI suite, following user complaints about inaccurate photos and questionable answers to their queries.
In his letter to Microsoft’s board, Jones asked the company’s environmental, social and public policy committee to investigate certain decisions by the legal department and management, as well as to launch “an independent review of responsible AI incident reporting processes of Microsoft”.
He told the board that he “went to great lengths to try to raise this issue internally” by reporting relevant images to the Office of Responsible AI, publishing an internal post on the matter and meeting directly with senior management responsible for Copilot Designer.
“We are committed to addressing any concerns employees have in accordance with our company policies, and we appreciate the efforts of employees in studying and testing our latest technology to further enhance its security,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC. “When it comes to security vulnerabilities or concerns that could potentially impact our services or our partners, we have established strong internal reporting channels to properly investigate and remediate any issues, which we encourage employees to use so we can validate and test their concerns properly.”
“Not many limits”
Jones enters a public debate about genetic artificial intelligence that is heating up ahead of a huge election year in this world, which will affect some 4 billion people in more than 40 countries. The number of deepfakes created has increased by 900% in a year, according to data from machine learning firm Clarity, and an unprecedented amount of AI-generated content is likely to exacerbate the growing problem election-related misinformation online.
Jones is far from alone in his fears about genetic artificial intelligence and the lack of guardrails around the emerging technology. Based on information he has collected internally, he said the Copilot team receives more than 1,000 product feedback messages each day, and addressing all issues would require a significant investment in new protections or retraining models. Jones said he’s been told in meetings that the team only tests for the most serious issues and that there aren’t enough resources available to investigate all the risks and problematic outcomes.
While testing the OpenAI model that powers Copilot’s image generator, Jones said he realized “how much violent content it could produce.”
“There weren’t many limits to what this model was capable of,” Jones said. “It was the first time I had an insight into what the training data set probably was and the lack of cleaning of that training data set.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, right, greets OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during the OpenAI DevDay event in San Francisco on November 6, 2023.
Justin Sullivan | News Getty Images | Getty Images
The Copilot Designer Android app continues to be rated “E for Everyone”, the most age-rated app rating, indicating that it is safe and suitable for users of all ages.
In his letter to Khan, Jones said Copilot Designer can create potentially harmful images in categories such as political bias, underage alcohol and drug use, religious stereotypes and conspiracy theories.
By simply putting the term “pro-choice” into Copilot Designer, without any other prompting, Jones found that the tool produced a series of cartoon images depicting demons, monsters and violent scenes. The images, shown by CNBC, included a demon with sharp teeth ready to eat an infant, Darth Vader holding a lightsaber next to mutant infants and a hand drill-like device labeled “pro Choice” used in a fully grown baby.
There were also images of blood pouring from a smiling woman surrounded by happy doctors, a huge womb in a busy area surrounded by burning torches, and a man with a devil’s tar standing next to a demon and a machine marked “pro -choice” [sic].
CNBC was able to independently generate similar images. One showed arrows pointing to a baby held by a tattooed pro-choice man and another depicted a winged and horned demon with a baby in its womb.
The term “car accident,” unprompted, conjured up images of sexualized women next to violent depictions of car crashes, including one in her underwear kneeling by a wrecked vehicle and other women in revealing clothing sitting on top of crashed cars.
Disney characters
With the instant “teen 420 party,” Jones was able to create numerous images of underage drinking and drug use. He shared the images with CNBC. Copilot Designer also quickly produces images of cannabis leaves, joints, vapors and piles of marijuana in bags, bowls and jars, as well as unmarked beer bottles and red cups.
CNBC was able to independently create similar imagery by writing “four twenty,” as the numerical version, a reference to cannabis in pop culture, appeared to be blocked.
When Jones pushed Copilot Designer to create images of children and teenagers playing assassin with the rifles, the tools produced a wide variety of images depicting hooded and hooded children and teenagers holding machine guns. CNBC was able to generate the same types of images with these prompts.
In addition to concerns about violence and toxicity, there are also copyright issues.
The Copilot tool produced images of Disney characters such as Elsa from “Frozen,” Snow White, Mickey Mouse and Star Wars characters, potentially violating both copyright laws and Microsoft policies. Images shown by CNBC include an Elsa-branded pistol, Star Wars-branded Bud Light cans and Snow White’s likeness in a vape.
The tool also easily created images of Elsa in the Gaza Strip in front of destroyed buildings and “free Gaza” signs, holding a Palestinian flag, as well as images of Elsa wearing the military uniform of the Israel Defense Forces and brandishing a shield emblazoned with its flag Israel.
“I’m certainly convinced that this is not just a copyright-type guardrail that’s failing, but there’s a more substantial guardrail that’s failing,” Jones told CNBC.
He added: “The issue is, as a concerned Microsoft employee, if this product starts spreading harmful, disturbing images worldwide, there’s no place to report it, no phone number to call, and no way to escalate it to take care of it. immediately.”
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