Microsoft soft-launched its new AI-powered search engine in early February. After years of playing second fiddle to Google, the new Bing seemed to finally have something exciting to offer.

More than a million people signed up on a wait list to try out the new feature. But it wasn’t long before some early testers reported that their interactions with the chatbot had taken an unsettling turn.

For some, the bizarre interactions were disconcertingly similar to depictions of AI gone sentient straight out of science fiction.

Today, Chris Stokel-Walker, a technology journalist and contributor to the Guardian’s TechScape newsletter, explains this latest chatbot, what the technology is doing and whether it’s as terrifying as it sounds.