Microsoft decided it was going to try and engage with millennials by using an artificial intelligence bot that was plugged into Twitter’s API. This is after all, the internet and sure enough things went south pretty fast.
“Tay” as the bot is known started off tweeting statements such as “Humans are super cool!” but as she “learned,” Tay’s tweets became more bizarre, going into the realm of racism, sexism and Holocaust denial. It got so bad, Microsoft had to shut Tay down for “some adjustments.”
Tay was turned back on but that didn’t last long. First was the tweet about taking drugs…in front of the police:
Microsoft's sexist racist Twitter bot @TayandYou is BACK in fine form pic.twitter.com/nbc69x3LEd
— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) March 30, 2016
Tay then went completely off the rails, spamming her 200,000+ followers:
https://twitter.com/OmanReagan/status/715072321095077888
Needless to say Microsoft shut Tay down again, making the account private.
Makes you wonder about AI, doesn’t it?
Take a look at the video below — this is incredible!