back to article Microsoft trying to stop Copilot generating fake Putin comments on Navalny's death

Microsoft is investigating fictional press statements about the death of political prisoner Alexei Navalny, written by its AI Copilot and falsely attributed to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Lawyer and de facto opposition leader Navalny died on February 16th while serving a 19-year sentence for extremism-related charges, on …

  1. Joe W Silver badge

    Autonomous cars and other road users

    I don't know how it is in other places, but I often rely on actual eye contact with other road users (car drivers, cyclists and pedestrians... ) to judge their intent, make them aware of what I'm trying to do, and reach some sort of mutual understanding or let's call it a consensus. This is needed especially at intersections in residential areas. Not sure how we will achieve that when killer auto cars are out there. I guess walking and cycling will be outlawed... (tbh I can sort of see that happening in the good ole USofA).

    1. ChoHag Silver badge

      Re: Autonomous cars and other road users

      Already did. It's called Jaywalking.

    2. Dinanziame Silver badge

      Re: Autonomous cars and other road users

      Eye contact is a plus, though it's not strictly necessary — it doesn't work at night, for example. But on the other hand, we tend to concentrate on what humans do that self-driving cars cannot replicate, like eye contact, and we fail to imagine things that self-driving cars could do that humans couldn't because of their own limitations. For instance, self-driving cars could have a blinking red light on the front of the car meaning "I'm not moving, you go ahead", or multiple other indicators which would be too bothersome for a human to coordinate and trivial to implement on a self-driving car.

      Now that I think of it, when eye contact is not possible at night, humans sometimes stop and flash the headlights to indicate "go ahead". I wonder if this has been implemented on self-driving cars.

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Re: Autonomous cars and other road users

        Though in many jurisdictions, there are very firmly applied regulations regarding the colour of lights visible from various angles (particularly, in the UK and probably EU, no red lights facing forwards: white lights, amber indicators, amber warning lights, and blue or green flashing emergency lights for appropriate operators).

        So any change to lighting will require no doubt years of discussion with existing authorities (and gradual retraining of operators!)

        Incidentally, it's been pointed out that there are issues with electric cars with regenerative braking which may, depending on settings, not show a brake light with heavy deceleration: is there still discussion about g-triggered lights? (c.f. Technical Connections)

        1. I am David Jones Silver badge

          Re: Autonomous cars and other road users

          Maybe a sound would be easier to implement from a regulatory point of view. Some kind of “I’m about to start moving” noise.

          1. druck Silver badge

            Re: Autonomous cars and other road users

            Such as the noise made by an engine increasing rpm pulling away? - But of course that is being phased out in favour of whiny electric sounds.

        2. Dinanziame Silver badge

          Re: Autonomous cars and other road users

          My understanding is that braking lights are supposed to turn on when the deceleration is higher than X m/s^2. That's however not what gas cars do; the lights turn on at the first brush against the brake pedal, and not at all when braking with the engine.

          1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

            Re: Autonomous cars and other road users

            Um, no, the requirement is (at present) that the brake lights are illuminated when the brake pedal is used. Operating at the start of brake pedal movement is a good idea; it provides a few tenths of seconds advance notice that something is likely to slow down.

            The proposal is that that be changed to use actual deceleration values, which has advantages in that it will respond both to engine braking and pedal braking, but doesn't do anything until the car begins to slow. So I would suggest that both methods are used. I have no idea what's being discussed in the automotive legislation at present.

    3. juice

      Re: Autonomous cars and other road users

      > I often rely on actual eye contact with other road users

      Honestly, if you're close enough to be able to actually see the driver's facial expressions, then you're arguably too close already...

      But yeah: when it comes to slow/up-close maneouvres, being able to see the other driver and whatever non-formal signalling (up to and including rude gestures) they're doing is definitely invaluable. It's going to be interesting to see how things work once AI navigation becomes more prevalent; since AI cars can't talk to each other, you're likely to get a lot of mexican standoffs!

      Similar applies to to driving on motorways/autobahns/interstates/etc. You do develop something of a sixth sense about what people are going to do, based on relatively subtle things like slight changes in speed, slight drifting in the lane, the presence of slower vehicles ahead of the vehicle in question, the sight of a police car or speed camera up ahead, etc.

      And that's all stuff which I don't know if an AI is going to be able to capture and interpret with any great degree of confidence.

      1. Craig 2

        Re: Autonomous cars and other road users

        " if you're close enough to be able to actually see the driver's facial expressions, then you're arguably too close already..."

        Tell me you've never ridden a bike on the road without telling etc..

        On a bike, you look at car driver's eyes ALL the time! Drivers pulling out of junctions (either way) or turning right (thus crossing the road in the UK) are prime examples. You then know when a driver has actually seen you. Of course, this doesn't guarantee they won't still pull out in front of you anyway, because: They misjudge your speed and think they have plenty of time, or they know that *you* have also seen them and will brake because you would prefer to avoid getting flattened today...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Autonomous cars and other road users

          That's also why it's so dangerous that tinted window laws are completely unenforced, at least in the SF Bay area.

  2. DS999 Silver badge

    The problem with our "AI" systems

    Is that the most useful thing for them to be able to do is make inferences. What I can infer from this data if x happens. Putin's claimed response is exactly what everyone would expect him to say if he was asked to comment on Biden's statement. So from that standpoint Copilot did its job. The only problem was that it wasn't supposed to be inferring that, it was supposed to providing the actual facts of what he said, with "nothing" being a perfectly acceptable (and in this case, true) answer.

    But these AI bots are programmed to be "helpful" so they will fill in the blanks when pesky annoyances occur like world leaders NOT saying the obvious thing everyone knows they would say had they actually said anything.

    1. cyberdemon Silver badge

      Re: The problem with our "AI" systems

      I'm not sure you could even attribute "inference" to LLMs. It just fills in the gap with something statistically likely to appear in that gap. It has no logical reasoning, so cannot infer. It has no facts, only probabilities.. The whole point of "Generative AI" is to make up stuff that doesn't exist. You wouldn't be very happy if StableDiffusion gave you the error "sorry but squirrels don't wear sombreros or ride bikes".

      1. m4r35n357 Silver badge

        Re: The problem with our "AI" systems

        AI == Artificial Idiot

        and we already have enough real ones.

        1. NoneSuch Silver badge
          Flame

          Re: The problem with our "AI" systems

          If you filter AI to be politically acceptable, you end up with nothing better then Google today.

          AI should be able to generate Winnie the Pooh images of the Chinese leadership and create parody's of Putin et al. If they can't take it, they should not be in politics.

          Maybe if North Korea, Iran, Syria, China and Russia upheld democracy I'd have a different opinion, but as long as they oppress their people through intimidation, mass surveillance and lies, screw em if they can't take a joke.

    2. Blackjack Silver badge

      Re: The problem with our "AI" systems

      At this point they may as well add a disclaimer that "This Chatbot is not a reliable news source, if you want to fack check something use something else" and be done with it. Because AI chatbots aren't made to give accurate information. Even those limited chatbots that use on Whatsapp or company websites end giving away false information. There have even been lawsuits about that!

      If we feed Chatbots on Social Media they end with information as accurate as you can find in social media and social media IS NOT a reliable news source.

    3. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

      Re: The problem with our "AI" systems

      Putin has not made a public statement about Navalny’s death.

      I don't know if he has or hasn't, nor whether he said Biden blaming him was "baseless and politically motivated".

      But it seems to me these are two different things.

  3. EricM Silver badge

    Statistics at work ...

    > It claimed that US president Joe Biden held Putin responsible for Nalvalny's death, and that, in response, Putin called the accusations "baseless and politically motivated."

    > Putin has not made a public statement about Navalny’s death.

    Similar to DS9999's argument:

    The point is: US President accuses Putin of XXX and Putin calling the accusations "baseless and politically motivated." is such a strong statistical signal in all training data, that the "AI" assumes this to be true also in this specific case.

    Which again shows that LLM's are not about rational understanding or facts, but about statistical relationships between words.

    1. Yorick Hunt Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Statistics at work ...

      "... shows that LLM's are not about rational understanding or facts"

      Pretty much how The Daily Mail (and most/all other tabloids) operate.

      Time to sack the entire editorial staff and replace them with a PFY feeding prompts to an LLM?

      1. IGotOut Silver badge

        Re: Statistics at work ...

        Prompt:

        Derogatory article illegal immigrants, ideally followed by story on same page about terrorism or rapist.

        Derogatory article about Europe

        Derogatory article about trans people.

        Derogatory article about Meghan and Article. Any drivel will do.

        Article about potholes and labour councils

        Badly researched article on latest medical breakthrough

        Derogatory article about millennials

        Article about latest food fad

        Rinse and repeat Daily Mail

        1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Re: Statistics at work ...

          Rinse and repeat Daily Mail

          I think my favorites are still the Twatter/X scrapes. Find a semi-contentious twat exchange, insert screenshots, then copy text into body and publish. Virtually no original text required, nor any proof reading.

      2. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

        Re: Statistics at work ...

        Time to sack the entire editorial staff and replace them with a PFY feeding prompts to an LLM? and close down.

        FTFY

    2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: Statistics at work ...

      The point is: US President accuses Putin of XXX and Putin calling the accusations "baseless and politically motivated." is such a strong statistical signal in all training data, that the "AI" assumes this to be true also in this specific case.

      If you repeat a lie often enough people and AI's start to believe it. I think it was only around 30mins after reports of Navalny's death that leaders queued up to declare it a murder and blame Putin. There were suggestions it was Fauxvichok again without any evidence, or the KGB's 'signature' death punch. Mythbusters showed the 1-inch punch isn't effective, there's another version that can be, but both would leave obvious evidence like bruising or damage to the heart. Some days later, Russia says it was natural causes, the body has been released but there are still few details. This hasn't stopped politicians or AI's speculation, or reporting misinformation however-

      Lawyer and de facto opposition leader Navalny died on February 16th while serving a 19-year sentence for extremism-related charges, on top of another 11-and-a-half year sentence for fraud. His death sparked protests in Russia, and events honoring his life around the world.

      De facto: in fact, whether by right or not:

      A quick look at election results or polls in Russia would show that's simply not true. Navalny had very little support or recognition within Russia. Any quick look at Russia would tell you the de facto opposition party is the Russian Communist Party and it's leader is Gennady Zyuganov with 57 out of 450 seats in the Duma. Other parties are available, like Yabloko, which doesn't have any seats in the Duma and had expelled Navalny for being a racist. Navalny had far more recognition in the West because for some reason, our 'socialist' media heavily promoted a far-righ, nationalist and racist. But then he did provide copy. So he spent time and money coming up with elaborate CGI claiming to show Putin's yachts, or pleasure palace in Sochi. The latter a couple of YT'ers went to visit and quickly discovered it was a resort development owned by !Putin. If true though, it would have showed Putin has worse taste in interior design than even Trump.

      But his death has allowed the MSM to display their cognitive dissonance-

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68395030

      Such is the fear of reprisal that Navalny's death did not spark mass, angry protests. Several hundred people were detained just for laying flowers in his memory.

      Or if may just have been that Russians didn't care. Putin's approval rating is around 83%, the best Navalny seemed to manage is around 2-3%, and since his death that's declined because Russian's view him as just another Western puppet. Which is the strange part about the current MSM feeding frenzy with his wife, 'Yolanda'. The more we attack Putin, the higher his approval rating. He seems a lot like Trump in that respect. The only way 'Yolanda' would become Russia's President is if we supplied the voting machines. But it's going to be an interesting year with EU, US and UK elections. And by interesting, I suspect a bit of a bloodbath for our globalists and neocons.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Alternately...

        If you repeat a lie often enough people and AI's start to believe it.

        Of course you would say that. Why post so much s**t here if you don't believe that.

        Alternate version: "If you repeat a lie often enough people will understand you're a freaking liar and won't believe anything you say". I'd give some thought to that alternate version if I were you.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @AC - Re: Alternately...

          I don't intend to start a flamewar here, but for my own curiosity, is it because you don't like what Jellied Eel said or because you have facts that can prove him wrong ?

          1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

            Re: @AC - Alternately...

            Statistically, for any Jeel post, both apply. The odds are strong that you don't even need to waste your time reading it.

            edit - I just skim-read the FSB copypasta, and can confirm this to be the case, so that you won't have to waste your own time doing so.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              @Elongated Muskrat - Re: @AC - Alternately...

              Is that all ? Only your word and no facts ?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: @Elongated Muskrat - @AC - Alternately...

                Since when do MAGAs need facts? Don't they have their own alternative facts (©Kellyanne Conway)?

                Facts is: almost everything JE writes is straight from Trump gibberish ("windmills"), Fox, Russia Today, Sputnik, QAnon sources, etc. Such as the Biden disinformation, Hillary's email, etc.

                Even going as far as accusing Navalny's widow to be part of the assassination of her husband... What kind of denial do you need? If you need to be repeated formal facts against all that lunacy, you're part of the deplorable.

                1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                  Re: @Elongated Muskrat - @AC - Alternately...

                  Even going as far as accusing Navalny's widow to be part of the assassination of her husband... What kind of denial do you need? If you need to be repeated formal facts against all that lunacy, you're part of the deplorable.

                  Well, Nalvalny dies, Yolanda is immediately crowned as Russian's new opposition leader. How convenient. She'd already taken control of all Navalny's money and assets and will inherit the rest, along with any new money.

                  But there's still no evidence Navalny was assassinated. Yesterday, Budanov, Ukraine's chief assassin came out and said he died of natural causes and a blood clot. If true, how embarassing after all our 'leaders' lined up to insist it was a murder and blame Putin. And of course impose yet more sanctions. And then of course there's the MSM, who dutifully lapped up the conspiracy theory, adding flavor like Fauxvichok, or the 1-inch death punch. Or even that the UK assassinated him. I guess checking prison visitors logs for anyone from Universal Exports could clear that one up.

                  So if instead he died from natural causes, it harms what little credibility the MSM, especially the far-left like the Bbc has left. Especially after martyring Navalany and declaring him and Yolanda the 'de facto' Russian oppositon. Wiki keeps flipping him from 'the' opposition to 'a'. But there's no evidence he had any significant popularity within Russia to be anything more than background noise.

                  But I guess the media can move on to other headlines. Niki "12 men" Haley is in trouble as two Kochs pull out.

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: @Elongated Muskrat - @AC - Alternately...

                    > Wiki keeps flipping him from 'the' opposition to 'a'.

                    Looks like you're not only trolling on ElReg, but also on Wikipedia. Probably banned one or more times already.

                    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                      Re: @Elongated Muskrat - @AC - Alternately...

                      Looks like you're not only trolling on ElReg, but also on Wikipedia.

                      Projecting again. Do you have any evidence that Navalny was 'The' opposition leader, or any credible threat or chance to become Russia's next President? Well, without resorting to a Ukraine-style colour revolution. But his party being filmed with an intelligence officer making a deal about that was one of the reasons he was in jail.

                      It's a funny old world. Conspiracy theories about Navalny's death have so far come from Western 'leaders', the MSM, and useful idiots like yourself who have been conditioned to believe anything.

      2. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

        Re: leaders queued up to declare it a murder and blame Putin

        Given his history of bumping off the inconvenient and troublesome, are you actually surprised at these declarations?

        And please don't tell us you actually believe the "approval ratings" coming out of any dictatorship-in-all-but-name. They're about as reliable as Trump saying he didn't have any official US gov documents stashed all over Mar a Largo.

        1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Re: leaders queued up to declare it a murder and blame Putin

          Given his history of bumping off the inconvenient and troublesome, are you actually surprised at these declarations?

          What history? Sure, there's a list of 'Putin did it!' stories, but much less in the way of actual hard evidence. There's much better evidence for say, Trump assassinating Soleimani and nine others in Iraq, an illegal action justified as 'self-defence'. Israel routinely assassinates people it regards as enemies, as do other nations. Ukraine's been assassinating journalists, politicians and local government officials since 2014 and it's 'kill list' website remains online.

          This isn't whataboutery, just an example of hypocrisy. If we do it, or allow our friends to do it, why the suprise when other nations decide to do it as well?

          And please don't tell us you actually believe the "approval ratings" coming out of any dictatorship-in-all-but-name.

          Pretty much any poll in any country should probably be questioned. Biden and Sunak are both polling 80%+ after all. But there's a bunch of polls all pretty much saying the same thing. Or there's just results from elections where Navalny or his candidates stood. Or there's garbage like this-

          https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68401873

          "Putin has gone mad with hatred for Navalny," Ms Pevchikh said. "He knows Navalny could've defeated him."

          Again, how? My spox could produce a video saying I'm the UK's leading opposition figure and neither Sunak nor Starmer dare speak my name! Mainly because if asked, they'd go 'who?'. If I could convince say, Patagonia to give me £50m, I could produce CGI showing Sunak and Starmer's secret BDSM dungeons. I could spend the other £49,995,000 on getting very drunk, at least until our security services arrested me for attempting to overthrow our democratic system. My defence would probably be along the lines of "Who'd vote for me anyway?", but taking money from a foreign power to ovethrow or influence a government is generally frowned upon. Well unless you're a lobbyist or dark money donor to a PAC.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: leaders queued up to declare it a murder and blame Putin

            > Sure, there's a list of 'Putin did it!' stories, but much less in the way of actual hard evidence.

            Hi Jellied Eel, do you still have that picture of Putin changing diapers in Calcutta side by side with Mother Teresa? When is the beatification ceremony scheduled?

            1. DS999 Silver badge

              Re: leaders queued up to declare it a murder and blame Putin

              I think he's queued up second in line behind Trump to suck Putin's dick next week

      3. DoctorNine

        Re: Statistics at work ...

        "..A quick look at election results or polls in Russia would show that's simply not true..."

        The mere fact that you seem to think either of those things are statistically valid representations of public opinion is proof that your conclusions are flawed.

        For anyone who actually wants to hear a reasoned discussion on the subject, I highly recommend Vlad Vexler's analysis. You can find him on YouTube, Instagram, and so forth.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @DoctorNine - Re: Statistics at work ...

          Another reasoned discussion sourcing from some Western think tank ? I could recommend you here the opinion of a Swiss analyst that confirms to me what Jellied Eel said about the so called opposition leader, and as a bonus, he names that think tank hell bent on destabilizing Russia. What am I supposed to do now, who should I believe ?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            You already stated who you "believe".

            > What am I supposed to do now, who should I believe ?

            Believe in Jellied Eel, Russian polls, the Second Coming, and the possibility of time travel. Sure things, man. Also invest in Russian bonds. Your fortune is guaranteed.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Statistics at work ...

        The only time Putin told the truth was at the Munich Security Conference 2007. It was a declaration as clear as day that many people didn't believe, and some still don't.

    3. Vincent van Gopher
      Mushroom

      Re: Statistics at work ...

      EricM - 'Which again shows that LLM's are not about rational understanding or facts, but about statistical relationships between words.'

      Therefore - there is no real Intelligence. 'AI' maybe useful in some areas but are more likely just dangerous bullshit generators.

      Icon - what 'AI' may do for our current civilisation.

  4. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    One Small Step for an AI, one Giant Quantum Communications Leap for Mankind

    Do you think El Reg publishing situations will ever need, or be forced and required by crazy regulation, to have the services of a chief AI officer for similar reasons as put forward by the US Department of Justice .... to source technical expertise and advice as the technology increasingly impacts situation publishing?

    1. lglethal Silver badge
      Go

      Re: One Small Step for an AI, one Giant Quantum Communications Leap for Mankind

      Tech journalists as a rule tend to have a pretty good idea about the latest tech. Especially El Reg Journalists. Maybe not so much the Daily Mail's tech journalist (but who goes there for tech news?).

      Lawyers going to a professional to understand the latest tech. Seems like an eminently sensible idea to me.

      No different from when El Reg Journalists turn to lawyers for comment on new legal rulings, etc.

      Let the lawyers focus on the law, but give them an expert point of contact for when their cases cross into tech territory...

  5. devin3782
    Holmes

    What I really love is hubris/laziness in the decision to train large language models on things on the internet where we can safely say most of it is crap. The crap in crap out principle still stands.

    AI still has no intelligence, Steven Pinker was right, as usual, its just a manages to copy and paste in a vaguely none gibberish way with no concept of facts and zero wisdom

  6. Martin Summers

    How about not using AI for news, at all, ever. If you can't do proper journalism and have to resort to getting an AI to write your copy then maybe you should not be a journalist.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Agreed, currently I'd say that AI akin to a bad very Editor (insert jokes about The Daily Mail here). But it could never do journalism, it has no world context, common sense, subtly, nuance, taste. The long and short of it is this is not the solution we need and blanket applying to everything because line must go up is beyond dumb. Where comically oversized pin that we need to burst this silly bubble.

      If you're not making a universal translator the efforts are wasted, a way to break down barriers to communication should be our only goal with this, problem is money gets involved.

    2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      How about not using AI for news, at all, ever. If you can't do proper journalism and have to resort to getting an AI to write your copy then maybe you should not be a journalist.

      I think most journalists would agree. Most media moguls might just be looking at the cost of hiring a journalist, especially an investigative journalist. If an AI can generate 'stories' based only on social media trending topics and 'news' feeds, that drastically cuts costs and expenses. You can depreciate silicon, you can't flesh.

      For us mere mortals, I guess it'll be a case of knowing when it's AI churnalism.

    3. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

      My wife experimented with using AI to help generate copy for some of her blog posts. Her findings were that it can help generate the introductory text and "hook" to get an article started (so, basically, one sentence), and help with overall flow and structure, but as with everything else AI generated, the plausible-sounding content it generated for the actual meat of the article was actually factually incorrect, containing "interpolated facts". As it happens, it has some limited use as a crutch to sketch out the overall form of an article, but then pretty much everything it generated would be thrown away and replaced with something better worded, or actually accurate.

      The problem is that there are any number of "fake news" web sites out there that can churn out seemingly endless content with no regard to whether it bears any resemblance to reality, and the unwary can get fooled by them. The same problem now exists in scientific publications, with such examples as the recently infamous "giant dissected rat penis" (if you're not aware of it, google it somewhere where your boss or coworkers won't look over your shoulder). I'm sure we're only a short step away from fake "fact checking" sites, if these don't exist already.

  7. trevorde Silver badge

    Eyes on the prize

    Can we please get back to the real job of generating saucy Taylor Swift piccies?

    https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/05/deepfakes_taylor_swift_4chan_competition/

  8. SimonL

    Why?

    If you have to check all the 'facts' that AI/CoPilot comes up with, what's the point?

    Should it be made clear that AI is only useful for producing fiction?

  9. HuBo Silver badge
    Windows

    How real is real?

    As Paul Watzlawick developed in his book (titled as this comment), perceptions of reality can vary somewhat relative to some common base (before plunging into specific ailments, such as schizophrenia). Many fellow kommentards have noted that the CoPilot's LLM creative rendering of Putin statements is statistically as expected, representing what one might expect were he to actually communicate on the Navalny situation, of state-sponsored murder, that we can all agree is what happened in our common reality.

    Reality may howver be somewhat relative (even outside of LLMs), as demonstrated by tonight's Troie (Troy) movie on "TF1 Séries Films" ... or, more precisely, to related WikiPedia entries. In the movie, Patroclus (Garrett Hedlund) is mainly Achilles' (Brad Pitt) cousin, and as Hector (Eric Bana) killed him (thinking he was Achilles), Achilles must then kill Hector (to then be killed by Paris (Orlando Bloom) with an arrow through his heel, talon, or tendon). How (commonly) real is that?

    In the 1st paragraph of the English WikiPedia entry for Patroclus, we find that he was "the childhood friend and close wartime companion of the hero Achilles".

    By constrast, in the 1st paragraph of the French WikiPedia entry for Patrocle, we find that he was "le compagnon et l'amant d'Achille" (the companion and lover of Achilles).

    Both entries go on to develop that relationship further, in more nuanced ways, in later paragraphs, but that first impression suggests different realities (as relates to Homer's legacy on Greek activities) for the english- and french-speaking crowds.

    As for Putin though, I'd say the CoPilot LLM is right on the money!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's one job that can surely be axed

    "We have investigated this report and are making changes to refine the quality of our responses," a Microsoft spokespersonbot told Sherwood Media.

    And not one human tear will be shed.

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