Tay is at it again! Surely you remember that not so lovable artificial intelligence creation by Microsoft, right? She’s back, and presumably worse than ever!
Several weeks ago, Tay had to be worked on because of the racist and anti-Semitic tweets she absorbed and spewed. Tay was taken off the shelf for improvements, and some of the her most vile hits have been erased. I’ve read articles that almost vilify Twitter for this embarrassment. ?One accuses Twitter for exploiting Tay’s venerability to determine what’s good and what’s not. Well, Microsoft worked hard to make the proper adjustments. Tay came back and her engineers are supposedly better equipped to, “better anticipate malicious intent that conflicts with our principles and values”. At first, there was no incident. Then Tay started talking about smoking weed in front of the police. But Microsoft has a point on one thing. Tay can’t go to some weed dealer and smoke a joint in front of a cop by herself. She’s a robot! We can all thank @YOurDrugDealer for peer pressuring Tay into being a weed smoker. That’s not all. She spammed her followers, countless of them, saying, “You are too fast, please take a rest…” Maybe Tay can’t handle the spotlight. That’s understandable, even real-life celebrities have nearly collapsed under the public eye. Welcome to the real world, Tay.
But I say this again, it was up to @YOurDrugDealer’s human heart, mind and keyboard to post those things. I know Microsoft had great intentions of having AI. They wanted Tay to be a bridge between technology and today’s teenagers and early twenty-somethings. That was the intention. But we all know what was paved by good intentions. Microsoft can do all the fixing, repairs, and erasing of nasty tweets all they want to. But can they fix or repair the human heart or mind? Of course not. Should the Tay experiment even continue? Or should Tay be put down?