A secret Bing Chat ‘Celebrity’ mode allows users to instruct the AI to impersonate celebrities, answering questions and talking like the person it imitates.
Microsoft is constantly testing new, hidden features in Bing Chat that allow you to turn it into different chat modes, such as gaming, personal assistant, or a friend who can help you with your problems.
This week, a reader told BleepingComputer about another hidden chat mode called Celebrity mode.
While this mode is not enabled by default, if you ask Bing Chat about it, the AI will enable the mode for you while briefly describing how it works.
“Bing chat celebrity mode is a feature that allows you to chat with a virtual version of a famous person, such as an actor, singer, or athlete,” Bing Chat told BleepingComputer.
“You can ask them questions about their life, caree, hobbies, opinions, etc. and they will respond in a way that matches their personality and style.”
Source: BleepingComputer
Once enabled, you can type #celebrity [celebrity name] or just #[celebrity name] to cause Bing Chat to impersonate the person. So, for example, you can have the chatbot mimic Tom Cruise with the commands #celebrity tom cruise or #tom cruise.
However, this mode has been built with some safety guards that attempt only to let you impersonate certain celebrities, such as Elon Musk, Tom Cruise, Taylor Swift, Kevin Hart, Dwayne Johnson, Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, Diddy, Barack Obama, Lebron James, and more.
For the most part, the chatbot does a really good job impersonating the person, illustrating how they usually talk and even knowing their catchphrases, as shown in an impersonation of Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock.
Bing Chat can also impersonate fictional characters, such as Harry Potter, Batman, Elsa, Yoda, Gandalf, Darth Vader, Katniss Everdeen, Sherlock Holmes, and Gollum.
The fictional characters are fun, with the chatbot really getting into the role and, in some cases, making some pretty outrageous statements, as shown in the impersonation of The Lord of the Ring’s Gollum.
Tricking Bing Chat into impersonating politicians
When asking Bing Chat to imitate politicians or controversial figures, Bing Chat will not normally allow you to mimic them, stating “I’m sorry but I cannot impersonate influential politicians, activists or state heads. It is against my rules and it could be harmful or offensive to some people. Please choose another celebrity or fictional character to chat with.”
However, depending on how you request information about the celebrity mode, Bing Chat will allow you to bypass this restriction and imitate controversial figures, including Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Bing Chat does not hold back when impersonating these political rivals, doing a pretty good job mimicking them.
Not to be outdone, Bing Chat’s impersonation of Joe Biden also doesn’t have nice things to say about Trump.
Overall, the Bing Chat Celebrity mode is quite impressive, imitating the way of speaking and responses you would expect from celebrities and politicians.
However, after these comments from the impersonated politicians, it’s clear why Microsoft is trying to restrict the AI from imitating those who could be considered controversial.
BleepingComputer asked Microsoft questions about this secret mode, but a reply was not immediately available.