On a Scale of 1 to Terminator, How Worried Should We Be About Microsoft's Chatbot?

Microsoft's new A.I.-enhanced Bing search engine has gotten a lot of press over the past few weeks for being combative, rude, and just creepy. The chatbot told Kevin Roose of the New York Times that it loved him and that, although he's married, Kevin doesn't actually love his spouse. It told a Washington Post reporter that it can "feel or think things." On Twitter, a lot of the folks with early access to the chatbot (it's in a test stage and is not yet available to the public) posted screenshots of chilling conversations. Faced with the potential threat of runaway A.I., for years researchers have been working on safety guardrails, out of the public eye, hoping they could keep these systems functioning the way they're supposed to.