As you may know, Microsoft recently launched a Chat-bot called 'Tay' as an experiment in "conversational understanding." "The more you chat with Tay", said Microsoft, "the smarter it gets, learning to engage people through "casual and playful conversation." "
But as the Verge noted.
Unfortunately, the conversations didn't stay playful for long. Pretty soon after Tay launched, people starting tweeting the bot with all sorts of misogynistic, racist, and Donald Trumpist remarks. And Tay — being essentially a robot parrot with an internet connection — started repeating these sentiments back to users, proving correct that old programming adage: flaming garbage pile in, flaming garbage pile out.
Sounds familiar? Well, we learned the other day that Bob Ward's Twitter account may be manned by something very similar.
Looks like it's going to last a lot longer than Tay.