Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Why We Should Have Seen That Coming: Comments On Microsoft’S Tay “Experiment,” And Wider Implications, K. W. Miller, Marty J. Wolf, Frances S. Grodzinsky

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper we examine the case of Tay, the Microsoft AI chatbot that was launched in March, 2016. After less than 24 hours, Microsoft shut down the experiment because the chatbot was generating tweets that were judged to be inappropriate since they included racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic language. We contend that the case of Tay illustrates a problem with the very nature of learning software (LS is a term that describes any software that changes its program in response to its interactions) that interacts directly with the public, and the developer’s role and responsibility associated with it. We make …