Unsurprisingly, Microsoft's AI Bot Tay Was Tricked Into Being Racist - Newsy

Surprise surprise,

just today after Microsoft's
new Artificial Intelligence,

Tay launched on several social platforms,

it was corrupted by the internet.

If you haven't heard of Tay,

it's a machine learning
project created by Microsoft,

that's supposed to mimic the personality

of a 19 year old girl.

It's essentially an
instant messaging chat bot

with a bit more smarts built in.

Those smarts give Tay the ability to learn

from the conversations
she has with people,

that's where the
corruption comes into play.

As surprising as it may sound,

the company didn't have the foresight

to keep Tay from learning
inappropriate responses.

Tay ended up sending out racial slurs,

denying the Holocaust,
expressing support for genocide

and posting many other
controversial statements.

Microsoft eventually deactivated Tay,

the company told Tech Crunch,

once it discovered a coordinated effort

to make the AI project
say inappropriate things,

it took the program offline
to make adjustments.

Seasoned internet users among
us are none too surprised

by the unfortunate turn of events.

If you don't program in fail safes,

the internet is going to
do its worst, and it did.

In fact, the Guardian sites Godwin's law,

which holds the longer an
online discussion goes on,

the more likely it is that
someone will compare something

to Hitler or the Nazis.

As a writer for Tech Crunch put it,

while technology is neither good nor evil,

engineers have a responsibility

to make sure it's not designed

in a way that will reflect
back the worst of humanity.

You can't skip the part
about teaching a bot

what not to say.

For Newsy, I'm Mikah Sergeant.

[upbeat music]