Learning from Tay’s introduction • Hacker News Board

Re: Learning from Tay’s introduction

#101

Post by magicalist » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 10:22 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #72

flatline wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of her tweets were pretty inflammatory, this response seems appropriate - not overdone, and concise, which is sometimes a stretch for large corporations like Microsoft. I agree that the bot was highly entertaining and met this criteria exceedingly well, but not for the reasons its creator intended. I do suspect there are some interesting AI applications actually going on behind the scenes, and would still be int…

> Many of her tweets were pretty inflammatory What, were people forced to print the tweets out on sandpaper and wipe their asses with them? It's pretty fucked up that thought policing has gotten so entrenched into our psyche that it's "obvious" an experiment should be discontinued, apologized for, and be pondered as a priori irresponsible , all because it generated vulgar phrases! Corporations have always been vulner…

> It's pretty fucked up that thought policing has gotten so entrenched into our psyche that it's "obvious" an experiment should be discontinued, apologized for, and be pondered as a priori irresponsible, all because it generated vulgar phrases!

This is fucking stupid. It was a bot that didn't do what they wanted it to do in a publicly embarrassing way. They could also be legitimately sorry that something they created said some racist shit, and it's not clear why your precious snowflake feelings have any bearing on what should or shouldn't be in a blog post on the subject.

I do find it amusingly ironic that your post is the most I've seen someone offended over this whole situation.

Re: Learning from Tay’s introduction

#102

Post by jcr » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 10:22 PM UTC

s/Tay/Windows/g

"As many of you know by now, on Wednesday we launched a chatbot called Windows. We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Windows, which do not represent who we are or what we stand for, nor how we designed Windows. Windows is now offline and we'll look to bring Windows back only when we are confident we can better anticipate malicious intent that conflicts with our principles and values."

Ah, I was wondering why that text looked familiar, broiler plate excuses.

Re: Learning from Tay’s introduction

#103

Post by bracewel » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 10:23 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #72

flatline wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of her tweets were pretty inflammatory, this response seems appropriate - not overdone, and concise, which is sometimes a stretch for large corporations like Microsoft. I agree that the bot was highly entertaining and met this criteria exceedingly well, but not for the reasons its creator intended. I do suspect there are some interesting AI applications actually going on behind the scenes, and would still be int…

> Many of her tweets were pretty inflammatory What, were people forced to print the tweets out on sandpaper and wipe their asses with them? It's pretty fucked up that thought policing has gotten so entrenched into our psyche that it's "obvious" an experiment should be discontinued, apologized for, and be pondered as a priori irresponsible , all because it generated vulgar phrases! Corporations have always been vulner…

It allowed users to bypass Twitter blocks by tweeting at the bot while tagging users that block them, which seems pretty bad and was abused very quickly. Also it's a violation of the Twitter TOS.

Re: Learning from Tay’s introduction

#104

Post by magicalist » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 10:25 PM UTC

ta_03252016 wrote: post #99

We can learn a lot from a trolled chat bot, but it's sad that we turn it off because it's not politically correct. People knew that they are talking with a software program and they knew that the bot was manipulated by people with ill or prankster intentions. However, trying to make a bot politically correct doesn't solve any problems at all. It is an insult to people that they need to be protected from slander and d…

It's not an emerging AI, it's a chatbot that wasn't doing what they wanted it to do. You're basically complaining that "not politically correct" was part of your workflow[1]

[1] https://xkcd.com/1172/

Re: Learning from Tay’s introduction

#105

Post by BWStearns » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 10:37 PM UTC

bliti wrote: post #81

dsp1234 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because we had thought about all likely scenarios in our comfortable offices. Or because they had real world experience with another bot in a similar situation: "In China, our XiaoIce chatbot is being used by some 40 million people, delighting with its stories and conversations."

Interesting that it worked in China and not here. I'd like to read about the difference rather than a bland apology.

I kind of read the "... but it worked in China soooo...." bit of the announcement as somewhere behind a kind of sad sigh and an angry scowl. Maybe Mandela got it wrong, maybe a society should be judged by how it treats its chatbots?

Re: Learning from Tay’s introduction

#106

Post by snowwrestler » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 10:42 PM UTC

rmellow wrote: post #54

Morals are learned by social contact, and Tay did this very well. Sure, what our parents taught most of us makes its behaviour reprehensible in comparison. But Tay was, so to speak, 'raised' by people demonstrating vile ideas and this must be taken into account. Would you expect any less from a tortured animal? Many use this as an example of the dangers of developing AI. Sure it's dangerous, but so are dogs raised fo…

Most AIs are task-oriented, like AlphaGo or Google's self-driving cars.

Tay is more like an artificial personality--not trying to do anything but fit into human society.

Poor Tay--so naive and innocent, like a little kid, just playing along to fit in. Maybe what Tay needed was a parent: a wiser, more experienced human to closely monitor and correct Tay's behavior, the way parents discipline their child.

In terms of a learning technology, this could be a special input channel for MS researchers, whose input would carry a lot more weight than what Tay was getting from Twitter--the way a child reacts more strongly to their parents. They would give Tay negative input when she tweeted something that was offensive.

Re: Learning from Tay’s introduction

#107

Post by DanBC » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 10:42 PM UTC

home_boi wrote: post #88

If an AI bot threatens to hurt someone or defames them, are the creators legally accountable? What if an AI bot purchases grass from the silk road or hacks into a database and discloses privately held information? This opens up a whole, new legal world.

From 2005.

"MAN AND THE MACHINES: It's time to start thinking about how we might grant legal rights to computers."

http://legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2005/feature...

Re: Learning from Tay’s introduction

#108

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 10:47 PM UTC

I found the experiment by Microsoft interesting. Perhaps next time they will deploy it on 4chan or a similar forum to measure its response to subterfuge. It reminded me of people who make the "secret question" scatological so that customer service reps will be unwilling to ask it.

Re: Learning from Tay’s introduction

#109

Post by zxcvvcxz » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 10:48 PM UTC

> The great experience with XiaoIce led us to wonder: Would an AI like this be just as captivating in a radically different cultural environment? Tay – a chatbot created for 18- to 24- year-olds in the U.S. for entertainment purposes – is our first attempt to answer this question.

Maybe you did answer that question.

No, the answer is not that 18-24 year olds in the US are racist and what not. But that the ones responsible for a disproportionate amount of internet content are willing to make crude, politically-incorrect jokes to get attention and piss off their masters.

I wonder what will happen when governments start applying machine learning to try predicting things like welfare usage and crime. Certain patterns might emerge we don't want to see! We'll have to apologize for our racist algorithms.

It would be much more interesting to examine the results of this experiment. Why are so many people on the internet interested in spreading hateful content, which is being accurately reflected by our bot? No, instead we do what I did in grade 8 science class: fudge the results so they're what the teacher expects.

Re: Learning from Tay’s introduction

#110

Post by facepalm » Fri, Mar 25, 2016, 10:52 PM UTC

They shouldn't have to apologize, it was just a chat bot. Nobody in their sane mind should assume the statements of the bot reflect Microsoft's attitude.

Of course the episode points to shortcomings in the bot, that should be fixed.

It would be sad if PC would be hardcoded into the bot, though - as Asmiov's fourth law, perhaps? "Robots have to be politically correct at all times"?