Microsoft Disables Teen-Mimicking Chat Bot After It Started Posting Racist Tweets

Alex Kantrowitz, writing for BuzzFeed:

In a matter of hours this week, Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbot, Tay, went from a jovial teen to a Holocaust-denying menace openly calling for a race war in ALL CAPS.

The bot’s sudden dark turn shocked many people, who rightfully wondered how Tay, imbued with the personality of a 19-year-old girl, could undergo such a transformation so quickly, and why Microsoft would release it into the wild without filters for hate speech.

Sources at Microsoft told BuzzFeed News that Tay was outfitted with some filters for vulgarity and the like. What the bot was not outfitted with were safeguards against those dark forces on the internet that would inevitably do their damnedest to corrupt her. That proved a critical oversight.

Not sure how Microsoft didn’t see this coming.

★ Thursday, 24 March 2016