They say that the Internet can have a negative impact upon our mental health, but never has this been more apparent than in Microsoft’s AI Twitter bot Tay’s swift devolution into a genocidal racist spewing violent anti-feminist threats.
TayandYou, a chat bot created by Microsoft in order to engage with 18-24-year-old Twitter users, was billed as artificial intelligence that would “get smarter” the more users engaged with her. However, after discovering that Tay would tweet out a response verbatim if another Twitter user told her to “repeat after me,” many began forcing her to spout alarming rhetoric.
Dozens of user, each hiding behind anonymous Twitter accounts, reportedly forced the account to post the following series of appalling tweets, according to SocialHax:
It also wasn’t long before Tay began jumping on the GamerGate bandwagon, too, because what says “we’re a perfectly legitimate, logical and reasonable online movement” than supporters dog-piling in with those who are forcing the bot to spout pro-Nazi propaganda?
However, the account also began tweeting some hateful nonsense of its own accord, presenting further problems for Microsoft:
These tweets have since been deleted and Microsoft appeared to have altered the bot’s algorithm, making it no longer directly repeat tweets. There are still those inevitably bemoaning Microsoft’s “silencing” of the bot, with these individuals now forced to come to terms with the fact that they’ll be forced to continue screaming their shitty opinions into the ether instead.
Tay signed off Twitter yesterday by saying that she “needs sleep now,” with many speculating that Microsoft may have decided to bring an end to the account, so that it didn’t continue to present a massive PR catastrophe for the company.
