The AI poll: was it murder, accident or suicide? Vote now
MSN attached an AI poll asking readers to guess a dead woman's cause of death
One of only 20 things they have ever fully walked back.
The market's verdict: +5.7% on MSFT in the week after.
What actually happened
On October 31, 2023, Microsoft Start's automatic "Insights from AI" system appended a poll to a Guardian article about the death of 21 year old water polo coach Lilie James, inviting readers to vote on whether she had died by murder, accident or suicide. The Guardian's parent company accused Microsoft of significant reputational damage, sent a legal demand to stop applying experimental AI to its journalism, and asked for compensation. Microsoft deactivated AI polls on news articles and apologized, saying a poll should not have appeared alongside an article of that nature. The machine that wrote the poll had, in its defense, simply not known what death is.
This one is officially acknowledged.
They did it more than once
Two months after the obituary, the AI learned to ask readers to vote on a cause of death.
Links
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Impact
- The Guardian (publication)
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Context
- The Verge (publication)
↳ caused by MSN "Insights from AI" polls
Timeline
- Oct 31, 2023 Announced Microsoft announced it.
- Nov 1, 2023 Walked back AI polls deactivated on news articles; apology issued.