Tay - Savant AI Chatbot says "Hello World" - What could go wrong?

Now who would have predicted this - Sarah Perez at TC:

Microsoft’s newly launched A.I.-powered bot called Tay, which was responding to tweets and chats on GroupMe and Kik, has already been shut down due to concerns with its inability to recognize when it was making offensive or racist statements. Of course, the bot wasn’t coded to be racist, but it “learns” from those it interacts with. And naturally, given that this is the Internet, one of the first things online users taught Tay was how to be racist, and how to spout back ill-informed or inflammatory political opinions.

The clue is Sarah's line "Given that this is the Internet" - it was an 800lb Gorilla "Given"

Cue a million human internet trolls thinking today "hey, with one of those I am unstoppable 24 x 7"

The problem AI has is that it potentially promises everything and the Hypesters run with that as fact, but in truth today's early AI systems are more like intelligences with Savants syndrome - there's one thing they are taught to do very well, but are completely clueless at anything else. Deep Mind can beat Lee Se Dol at Go, but it can't do any of the other things Lee can do (and it burns 50,000 times more energy in not doing it....). Tay can "learn" (aka parrot) what people tell it but cannot distinguish between deep truths and inflammatory statements.

Oh - one last thing - Tay is modelled on a teenage girl. Sheeesh.

To be fair this is not Tay's fault per se, that you have to lay at the hands of its "parents" - how did they not see this one coming (and, when it started, who was watching its first faltering steps on its first day out playing in the traffic?). Anyone who has been around the internet for more than a few months (or even days - Boaty McBoatface anyone) would have seen that this was a not improbable risk.

PS There is a deeper story here, about the reliance on machine intelligences before they are ready, and the damage they can do without anyone knowing. The thing about complex systems is it's often very hard to find out when they are not working properly, malfunction is often not obvious - so it is necessary to watch them very closely, not let them off to roam on the Interwebz like Tay.