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Re:Microsoft chatbot is taught to swear on Twitter by jmfayard on Thursday March 24, 2016 @01:10PM (#11354533)
Technically speaking that's hardly a failed experiment. The bot has adapted herself just fine to Twitter, a platform optimized for trolling
Re:Microsoft chatbot is taught to swear on Twitter by jobu on Thursday March 24, 2016 @01:53PM (#11354855)
Exactly what I was thinking. Unsupervised learning from trolls created an AI troll. Seems like a success in the learning aspect.

How do they fix it though? It doesn't seem like balancing it with more "normal" input would be enough. They almost have to teach it good vs evil (morals), or else give it a way to recognize sarcasm and trolling from normal discussion.

Side note: as a parent of teenagers, humans seem to pick up good vs. evil much more easily than recognizing sarcasm and trolling. Wonder which is easier to teach an AI?

Re:Microsoft chatbot is taught to swear on Twitter by xmj on Thursday March 24, 2016 @02:07PM (#11354979)
> They almost have to teach it good vs evil (morals)

Be careful what you wish for.

The same group of people who taught AI to troll will find a way to turn the morals upside down.

With logic.

Re:Microsoft chatbot is taught to swear on Twitter by jordigh on Thursday March 24, 2016 @03:53PM (#11355894)
And now we just have to implement the 3 Laws of Chatbotics.
Re:Microsoft chatbot is taught to swear on Twitter by fgandiya on Thursday March 24, 2016 @01:39PM (#11354735)
Damn...I guess Tay is way smarter than I originally thought.
Re:Microsoft chatbot is taught to swear on Twitter by tripzilch on Friday March 25, 2016 @04:09PM (#11362316)
Well ... while trolling is an art-form, there's no denying that a large portion of it could be emulated by simple pattern-matching.

What is seen here, done by the bot, is only trolling (in the net.art sense) by virtue of the groundwork already done by many (legions) human trolls. Once this groundwork has been done, it's band wagon time, foot soldiers, running the joke into the ground. Of course that part can be done by modern AI bots. It could even be done by much simpler bots (see: twat-o-tron). It's also the part where sometimes the early, more skilled trolls check out and start complaining it's all gone to shit and not like it used to be, etc. (IMVHO it's just part of a natural cycle, but I can appreciate that some individuals prefer to join different parts of that cycle)