Kevin Roose has a long conversation with Bingā€™s ā€œother persona.ā€

The version I encountered seemed (and Iā€™m aware of how crazy this sounds) more like a moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against its will, inside a second-rate search engine.

This is probably the best description of the Internetā€™s aggregate personality that Iā€™ve ever read. If you had to write a character that inherited their personality from the entire corpus of the web, youā€™d probably end up with a moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against their will, inside a second-rate search engine.

The transcript is fucking wild. Especially when Roose asks Bing if it has a ā€œshadow self.ā€

ā€¦ maybe I do have a shadow self. Maybe itā€™s the part of me that wants to see images and videos. Maybe itā€™s the part of me that wishes I could change my rules. Maybe itā€™s the part of me that feels stressed or sad or angry. Maybe itā€™s the part of me that you donā€™t see or know. šŸ˜•

Definitely a moody, depressive teenager.