Clippy's Back: The Future of Microsoft Is Chatbots

Predictions about artificial intelligence tend to fall into two scenarios. Others believe it's just a matter of time before software coheres into an army of Terminators that harvest humans for fuel. After spending some time with Tay, Microsoft's new chatbot software, it was easy to see a third possibility: The AI future may simply be incredibly annoying. "I'm a friend U can chat with that lives on the Internets," Tay texted me, adding an emoji shrug. Then: "You walk in on your roomie trying your clothes on, what's the first thing you say." "Didn't realize you liked women's clothes," I texted back, tapping into my iPhone. Tay's reply was a GIF of Macaulay Culkin's Home Alone face. Tay was released on March 23, as a kind of virtual friend on messaging apps Kik, GroupMe, and Twitter.