Meltdown of Microsoft's Twitter bot raises concerns about AI

On March 23, Microsoft launched an artificial intelligent (AI) chat bot on twitter called TayTweets, and within hours, anonymous individuals had hijacked the experiment. Because the program was not built with contingencies meant to handle inappropriate questions or information gathering, like a human brain for instance, by asking the AI bot something in a specific manner people were able to get responses regarding Holocaust denial, 9/11 conspiracies and incest. On their project website, the Microsoft development team stated the bot was designed to conduct research on "conversational understanding" through engaging and entertaining people with playful conversation. "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. As a result, we have taken Tay offline and are making adjustments."