EU warns Microsoft’s Bing could face probes over deepfakes and false news

Microsoft's Bing faces a potential European Union investigation into how it limits threats connected to its artificial intelligence, including fake information and the viral spread of deepfakes.

The European Commission said Friday it suspected Microsoft's AI image generator and chatbot of potentially breaching the bloc's content-moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), over disinformation.

While a formal investigation hasn't been opened, the EU executives said the search engine may have failed to respect requirements to assess and limit risks connected to its new AI features. Such risks include so-called hallucinations — when an AI tool creates false information — the spread of false, misleading photos, and the automated manipulation of services that can mislead voters.

The Commission ordered the company on Friday to send extra internal documents and data on the potential risks posed by its AI image generator and chatbot by May 27 after it had failed to do so previously, the EU executive said. Microsoft didn't give sufficient information about "specific risks" connected to Bing's generative AI features including its chatbot Copilot and text-to-image maker Image Creator following a request in March, according to the Commission.

Bing is overseen by the European Commission as a very large search engine, with over 45 million users in the EU. Failure to respect the DSA can lead to fines of up to 6 percent of a company's global revenue.

“We have been fully cooperating with the European Commission as part of the voluntary request for information and remain committed to responding to their questions and sharing more about our approach to digital safety and compliance with the DSA,” said a Microsoft spokesperson.

This article has been updated.