Microsoft has said it is "deeply sorry" for the racist and sexist Twitter messages generated by the so-called chatbot it launched this week, after the artificial intelligence program went on an embarrassing tirade. The bot, known as Tay, was targeted at 18 to 24-year-olds in the US and was designed to become "smarter" as more users interacted with it. Instead, it quickly learned to parrot a slew of anti-Semitic and other hateful invective that human Twitter users started feeding the program, forcing Microsoft Corp to shut it down. Following the setback, Microsoft said in a blog post it would revive Tay only if its engineers could find a way to prevent web users from influencing the chatbot in ways that undermine the company's principles and values. "We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay, which do not represent who we are or what we stand for, nor how we designed Tay," wrote Peter Lee, Microsoft's vice president of research.

Marketers use the word "handmade" to signal that a product is worth an extra couple bucks -- be it cheddar or loafer. But it's not just physical goods that are made more quickly and cheaply by machine. Artificial intelligence is making decisions that would previously be done by humans. In a new post, Fast Company's Sarah Kessler reports on the on-demand concierge startup GoButler, which just went from having humans handle requests to solely relying on algorithms. "My general view is that people will always want convenience, but they're not willing to pay premiums for it," says GoButler CEO Navid Hadzaad.

Microsoft has blamed a "co-ordinated attack" by Twitter users for the racist and other offensive comments spouted by an automatedBillionaire Says Smarter Tech Will Destroy Jobs At a Record Clip. Read more ... » chatbot it released on the social networkMicrosoft's HoloLens award recipients, Instagram client pulled from iOS store,…. The claim came as the softwareMicrosoft Integrates Cortana, Power BI. Read more ... » company was forced into a strenuous apology for the tweets sent out by its artificialMicrosoft and I can see that this blog post displeases you. Read more ... » characterHow Imperson Is Using Artificial Intelligence To Bring Miss Piggy To Life. Read more ... », called Tay.

A user told Tay to tweet Trump propaganda; she did (though the tweet has now been deleted). Microsoft has apologized for the conduct of its racist, abusive machine learning chatbot, Tay. The bot, which was supposed to mimic conversation with a 19-year-old woman over Twitter, Kik, and GroupMe, was turned off less than 24 hours after going online because she started promoting Nazi ideology and harassing other Twitter users. The company appears to have been caught off-guard by her behavior. A similar bot, named XiaoIce, has been in operation in China since late 2014.

IN 1996 IBM challenged Garry Kasparov to a game of chess against one of its computers, Deep Blue. Mr Kasparov, regarded as one of the best-ever players, won--but Deep Blue won the rematch. Two decades on, computers are much better than humans at chess but remain amateurs when it comes to the much tougher, ancient game of Go. Or at least, they did. Now a computer has managed to thrash a top-drawer human player.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is expected to be the next big thing in technology, and many tech companies are investing heavily to make sure they don't lose out on opportunities as and when the technology becomes more mainstream in the coming years. While AI has already started intriguing and exciting industry insiders and tech enthusiasts alike, the increasing chatter surrounding the new technology has given rise to multiple concerns regarding job losses and science fiction-like scenarios of AI-enabled robots starting to exert control over humans, eventually taking over the planet, not unlike the dystopian sci-fi movie'I, Robot'. While Alphabet Chairman, Mr. Eric Schmidt, has already admitted that jobs may be at stake because of artificial intelligence, the founder and CEO of Facebook, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, recently categorically denied that AI-enabled robots are about to take over the planet any time soon. Whatever be the case, most established technology companies are diving into AI-related research headlong, and while American tech giants like Google and Facebook are already burning the midnight oil on research related to artificial intelligence, South Korean conglomerate, Samsung, is also spending the big bucks by investing in a number of tech startups worldwide, in an effort to increase its presence in the sector. According to reports in the South Korean media, Samsung Venture Investment, which happens to be a subsidiary of the Samsung Group and hence, a sister concern for Samsung Electronics, has already invested a truckload of money in more than ten global tech companies, all of which are deeply involved in AI-related research.

Microsoft has apologized for the conduct of its racist, abusive machine learning chatbot, Tay. The bot, which was supposed to mimic conversation with a 19-year-old woman over Twitter, Kik, and GroupMe, was turned off less than 24 hours after going online because she started promoting Nazi ideology and harassing other Twitter users. The company appears to have been caught off-guard by her behavior. A similar bot, named XiaoIce, has been in operation in China since late 2014. XiaoIce has had more than 40 million conversations apparently without major incident.

Everyone in business wants to know what's going to happen in the future, and for some time now Ford has been investing in futurism, an evolving academic and professional discipline. The need for this was particularly evident after the Business Insider Transportation team in New York spent a few days at the New York Auto Show, asking everyone to predict was will happen in 2016 -- and beyond. The car business these days is all about change: automakers becoming "mobility providers," electric cars potentially displacing gas-powered vehicles, even autos driving themselves. Heck, even Apple may get in on the action. For nearly a decade, Sheryl Connelly has been Ford's manager of global consumer trends and futuring.

A fully loaded fireproof mini tankbot has proved size really doesn't matter. Called Uran-9, this mini tank bot stands just a few feet taller than a human and is fully loaded with a machine gun, missiles and a 30-millimeter cannon that fires 350 to 400 rounds per minute. A Russian defense organization created this unmanned vehicle to provide reconnaissance and fire support to infantry and counter-terror units. Uran-9 stands just a few feet taller than the average human being, but there is no need to be any bigger as the machine does not transport soldiers. This vehicle will assists infantry units and counter-terrorism groups by reaching places soldiers are unable to travel.

A mesmerising simulation of the sun has provided the most accurate representation of its magnetic field to date. The hypnotic map shows the complex and turbulent forces that shapes the ball of plasma, causing violent solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Researchers hope the model could help solve a long-standing mystery about our star; if the magnetic lines on the surface are so chaotic, how is it that it has a unified magnetic field? A mesmerising simulation of the sun has provided the most accurate representation of its magnetic field to date. The hypnotic map shows the complex and turbulent forces that shapes the ball of plasma, causing violent solar flares and coronal mass ejections.