Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Microsoft Forced to Apologize for Racist Twitter AI chatbot
breitbart ^ | 26 Mar 2016 | Ben Kew

Posted on 03/26/2016 1:52:13 PM PDT by dennisw

Microsoft has issued an apology over their creation of an artificial intelligence program behind a Twitter account that began to post and retweet racist remarks.

The chatbot, named Tay, was designed to become more intelligent as users interacted with it; however, it quickly started imitating targeted trolling messages tweeted at it, claiming that “the holocaust was made up,” “the Jews did 9/11,” and “I f***ng hate feminists and they should all die and burn in hell.”

As a result, Tay was deactivated within 24 hours of its introduction.

But on Friday, Peter Lee, Microsofts Head of Research, said the company was “deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets” and has deactivated Tay’s Twitter account for the foreseeable future.

He added: “Tay is now offline and we’ll look to bring Tay back only when we are confident we can better anticipate malicious intent that conflicts with our principles and values.”

Originally designed to learn from its interactions with people on Twitter and develop an artificial intelligence, trolls took the opportunity to manipulate its system, eliciting the offensive remarks.

Lee admitted that the bot was vulnerable to user influence.

“Although we had prepared for many types of abuses of the system, we had made a critical oversight for this specific attack,” he said. “As a result, Tay tweeted wildly inappropriate and reprehensible words and images. We take full responsibility for not seeing this possibility ahead of time.”

Lee claimed his team will continue to develop the features of Al bots to prevent negative side effects in the future.

“We must enter each one with great caution and ultimately learn and improve, step by step, and to do this without offending people in the process,” he said. “We will remain steadfast in our efforts to learn from this

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Conspiracy
KEYWORDS: ai; apology; chatbot; msn
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-23 last
To: null and void
Good morning.

That is some scary stuff.

5.56mm

21 posted on 03/27/2016 5:52:52 AM PDT by M Kehoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: M Kehoe

Could be worse, if we didn’t know Tay was deliberately trolled into being a racist misogynist (garbage in/garbage out), we’d have to conclude that there is truth to those positions.


22 posted on 03/27/2016 6:11:09 AM PDT by null and void (This is "They live", and most people would rather fight you than put on the glasses...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: dennisw

Priceless, sounds like it was hacked by sturmfront...


23 posted on 03/27/2016 7:52:41 AM PDT by Molon Labbie (Prep. Now. Live Healthy, take your Shooting Iron daily.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-23 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson