Microsoft's Chat Bot Re-Activates, Immediately Launches Spam Attack

March 30 (Reuters) - Almost a week after being shut down for spewing racist and sexist comments on Twitter, Microsoft Corp's artificial intelligence'chatbot' called Tay briefly rejoined Twitter on Wednesday only to launch a spam attack on its followers. The incident marks another embarrassing setback for the software company that is trying to get ahead of Alphabet Inc's Google, Facebook Inc and other tech firms in the race to create virtual agents that can interact with people. The TayTweets (@TayandYou) Twitter handle was made private and the chatbot stopped responding to comments Wednesday morning after it fired off the same tweet to many users. "You are too fast, please take a rest...," tweeted Tay to hundreds of Twitter profiles, according to screen images published by technology website The Verge. A Microsoft representative did not respond to a request for comment.