The Biggest Technology Failures of 2016
Tay, the rogue chatbot
“helooooooo world!!!” One Wednesday in March, Microsoft unveiled Tay, a female chatbot with its own Twitter account. Microsoft described Tay as a “machine learning project, designed for human engagement” which would converse with 18- to 24-year-olds, learn from them, and get smarter with time. Within 24 hours, however, Tay was bragging about smoking drugs, asking for sex, and opining that “Hitler was right …” and “feminists should … burn in hell.” Peter Lee, head of Microsoft Research, decommissioned the chatbot the next day. “We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay,” said Lee. “Tay is now offline.”
Keep Reading
Most Popular
Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.
And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.
OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora
The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.
Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.
Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.
This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language
A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.