However, pretty soon after Tay launched, people starting tweeting the bot with all sorts of misogynistic, racist, and Donald Trumpist remarks. And as Tay was being essentially a robot parrot with an internet connection, started repeating these sentiments back to users.
The chatbot, targeted at 18- to 24-year-olds in the US, has now been temporarily shut down. A Microsoft spokesperson provided a statement to Business Insider and said, “The AI chatbot Tay is a machine learning project, designed for human engagement. It is as much a social and cultural experiment, as it is technical. Unfortunately, within the first 24 hours of coming online, we became aware of a coordinated effort by some users to abuse Tay’s commenting skills to have Tay respond in inappropriate ways. As a result, we have taken Tay offline and are making adjustments.”