Twitter trolling proves why netizens can't have nice things Getting a computer to say things it shouldn't is practically a tradition, tat's why it came as no surprise when Tay, the millennial chatbot created by Microsoft, started spewing bigoted and white supremacist comments within hours of its release yesterday. Tay began as an experiment in artificial intelligence released by Microsoft – a chat bot you can interact with on GroupMe, Kik, and Twitter, and Tay learns from the interactions it has with people. The bot had a quirky penchant for tweeting emoji and using millenial speak – but that quickly turned into a rabid hatefest. The Internet soon discovered you could get Tay to repeat phrases back to you, as Business Insider first reported. Once that happened, the jig was up and another honest effort at good vibes PR was hijacked.

Microsoft is pausing the Twitter account of Tay--a chatbot invented to sound like millennials--after the account sent messages with racist and other offensive statements. The company quickly deleted the tweets but not before internet users captured the messages in screenshots. In a statement to the Washington Post, Microsoft said the Tay account was baited into the questionable remarks by folks hoping to stir controversy. "Unfortunately, within the first 24 hours of coming online, we became aware of a coordinated effort by some users to abuse Tay's commenting skills to have Tay respond in inappropriate ways," the statement said. "As a result, we have taken Tay offline and are making adjustments."

It's not certain how Microsoft will teach Tay better manners, although it seems like word filters would be a good start. The company tells Business Insider that it's making "adjustments" to curb the AI's "inappropriate" remarks, so it's clearly aware that something has to change in its machine learning algorithms. Frankly, though, this kind of incident isn't a shock -- if we've learned anything in recent years, it's that leaving something completely open to input from the internet is guaranteed to invite abuse. Update: A Microsoft spokesperson has provided the statement that BI received. You can read the whole thing below.

General Motors Co.'s proposed purchase of tiny Cruise Automation Inc. for more than 1 billion would be one of the auto industry's biggest Silicon Valley acquisitions to date. And it would certainly not be the last. Auto makers and car-parts suppliers have hooked into tech startups in recent years to boost their in-vehicle connectivity and to accelerate autonomous-car development. The Bay Area already is dotted with auto-industry...

In a few years, the exterior of the International Space Station could be crawling with geckos. The robotic geckos could follow from an experiment NASA launched to the International Space Station on Tuesday aboard an uncrewed Cygnus spacecraft. The Gecko Gripper devices use tiny artificial hairs that replicate the ones geckos use to climb walls. They are designed to help astronauts to keep track of objects in zero gravity, and enable robots to crawl around a spacecraft to inspect and repair it. The bots have already been tested on parabolic aircraft flights, where they grabbed and manipulated 10-kilogram and 100-kg objects during 20-second periods of microgravity.

As Quinn herself pointed out on Twitter, the big problem here is that Microsoft apparently failed to set up any meaningful filters on what Tay can tell users. It's cool that the AI can learn from people "to experiment with and conduct research on conversational understanding," but maybe the bot could've been set up with filters that would have prevented it from deploying the n-word or saying that the Holocaust was "made up." Microsoft apparently didn't consider the abuse people suffer online, much as it failed to consider how half-naked dancing women at a press event last week might've been perceived. Then again, if an AI has restraints put into place by people to help code specific behaviors, that kind of defeats the entire purpose of allowing an artificial mind to train itself. It's a sticky wicket that raises ethical questions with broader implications -- maybe a dumb chat bot isn't a huge deal, but when we start talking about software that can similarly ingest data to interact with humans and sway their votes, for example, we've got bigger problems. Of course, we talked with Tay on Kik and found it had problems with pretty simple conversation cues, so maybe we don't need to worry about the robot takeover just yet.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Yesterday, Microsoft launched its latest artificial intelligence (AI) bot named Tay. It is aimed at 18 to-24-year-olds and is designed to improve the firm's understanding of conversational language among young people online. But within hours of it going live, Twitter users took advantage of flaws in Tay's algorithm that meant the AI chatbot responded to certain questions with racist answers. These included the bot using racial slurs, defending white supremacist propaganda, and supporting genocide. Yesterday, Microsoft launched its latest artificial intelligence (AI) bot aimed at 18 to 24-year-olds to improve their understanding of conversational language among young people online.

Drones are experiencing something of an arms race for aerial domination. As fast as the technology develops to make the unmanned vehicles better in the air, new ways are being developed to take them down. Video footage has emerged of a soldier in the US using a'cyber rifle' to take down a drone, causing it to lose power instantly in flight before falling out of the air. Video footage has emerged of a US soldier using a'cyber rifle' to take down a drone, causing it to lose power instantly in flight and fall out of the air (still pictured). The cyber-rifle is built by the Army Cyber Institute at West Point in the US, and was tested in front of the US Secretary for Defense, Ash Carter.

Employees across the company are creating new technology, refining existing products, enhancing business operations and developing their own machine learning expertise as applied scientists, data scientists, software engineers and program managers, says Amanda Papp, a senior machine learning and data science recruiter. "Machine learning is the DNA of Microsoft. "You can apply machine learning to search, advertising, security, gaming -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg." Many employees participate in quarterly machine learning hackathons, attend twice-yearly conferences and learn from others in the company's 4,300-member Machine Learning and Data Science community, according to Alex Blanton, a senior program manager who helps manage the community and its events. Papp says she looks for candidates who have experience with researching or applying machine learning algorithms to solve real-world problems and the "passion for making a difference on a global scale."