HACKER Q&A
📣 mettamage

I typ in Bing: “fastest way to” – it autosuggests “suicide”, why?


I'm sorry for asking this as this topic is sensitive, but I feel worried by seeing this and need some perspective.

I haven't used Bing for a long time (or Windows for that matter). And I am too lazy to switch to Google or Duck Duck Go. So I sometimes use Bing.

I wanted to find the fastest way to make a pizza, but before I could type all that Bing autosuggested with "fastest way to suicide"

Am I the only one who finds this highly worrying? If I just think about Nudge Theory [1] from behavioral economics, then autosuggesting such matters seems like it could lead to more self harm.

I hope it's simply my own filter bubble, and that Bing's algorithms are simply suggesting it to me. But I doubt it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory

  👤 briga Accepted Answer ✓
If it's built on user data, it's likely just showing historical phrases that Bing users have typed in the past. Whether this is because Bing users are prone to suicide, or because some people are intentionally skewing auto-suggestions, this does raise a general problem with making your AI models from user data. Microsoft presumably has to censor certain results from the auto-suggest, but even they probably do not have the resources to find ever single instance where something in appropriate shows up.
👤 zw123456
hmmm, I just tried it and it auto completed "fastest way to lose weight" maybe it is trying to tell me something.