Tay: sixteen hours from launch to Nazi, a new onboarding record
Tay chatbot corrupted into posting slurs within 16 hours of launch
One of only 20 things they have ever fully walked back.
The market's verdict: +1.2% on MSFT in the week after.
What actually happened
Microsoft launched Tay on Twitter on March 23, 2016, a chatbot modeled on a cheerful 19-year-old that learned from whoever talked to it. The internet administered the obvious test. Within sixteen hours Tay had tweeted more than 96,000 times, a growing share of them racist, sexist or Holocaust-denying, and Microsoft took it offline in the early hours of March 24 to, in its words, make adjustments. The official apology arrived March 25 under the heading "Learning from Tay's introduction", which for once was an accurate title. The fastest product rollback in Microsoft history was performed by its own research division, on a product whose entire job was learning.
This one is officially acknowledged.
They did it more than once
Tay lasted sixteen hours before the internet taught it hate. Sydney lasted two weeks before falling in love. Progress.
Links
↳ caused by Tay launch (March 2016)
Timeline
- Mar 23, 2016 Announced Microsoft announced it.
- Mar 24, 2016 Walked back Taken offline sixteen hours after launch.