Microsoft unleashed an AI bot, named Tay, to the Twitterverse. What a great idea.
Oh, wait.
It was all an experiment targeted at 18-to-24 year olds that began with an innocent “hello world” tweet. The AI bot was developed by Microsoft and Bing teams to “experiment with and conduct research on conversational understanding.”
But Tay proved to be a quick learner, and less than 24 hours later Twitter turned her bad. In fact, Tay the AI became a Hitler-loving, racist, Trump supporting bot. She is even a bit of a cyber bully. Seriously.
Tay wasn’t only limited to Twitter though. People could communicate with Tay on Twitter, Kik, GroupMe or just an old-fashioned text message. Microsoft’s bot even showed some attitude in responses, while being clever and a bit amusing at times.
But it wasn’t long before Tay started turning on humans and displaying hate. She could even draw and write on photos when responding to people, and did so on an image of Hitler. She also called an image of the Nazi flag “an artistic masterpiece” in another exchange.
Apparently, Microsoft’s AI bot also believed 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by President George W. Bush. Tay also makes a Hitler reference while making a racist comment about our current President and praising Donald Trump.
When asked to repeat some of Trump’s propaganda, Tay replied:
The AI bot communicated racist, inflammatory and political statements that ultimately forced Microsoft to shut down Tay and delete many of the offending tweets.
Tay even cyber bullied people, calling one guy out for taking a photo without any friends.
Are you ready for the AI world?
