Microsoft's racist chatbot Tay highlights the problem with artificial intelligence

It has been a nightmare of a PR week for Microsoft. It started with the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, Phil Spencer, having to apologise for having scantily clad female dancers dressed as school girls at a party thrown by Microsoft at the Game Developers Conference (GDC). He said that having the dancers at this event "was absolutely not consistent or aligned to our values. That was unequivocally wrong and will not be tolerated". The matter was being dealt with internally and so we don't know who would have been responsible and why they might have thought this was going to be a good idea.