11 ms·

This reads like science fiction: Learning from Somebot's introduction. Last week we deployed Somebot to $location. Our confidence in Somebot was high because

• pjmorris 11y ago
  Learning from ED-209's introduction. Last week we tested ED-209 at our corporate headquarters. Our confidence in ED-209 was high because we had thought about all likely scenarios in our comfortable offices. We are deeply sorry and assume the full responsibility from ED-209's actions. Moving forward we will make sure to include safeguards to reduce the amount of pain caused by ED-209's deployment. Our deepest condolences to the families of the affected and to the survivors. Omnicorp cares about your well being. To help cover expenses from the tragedy we will deposit $money in your Omnicorp account. God bless the federated nations of Omnicorp.
  • azakai 11y ago
    P.S. And we would be remiss if we did not note that they did, in fact, have 20 seconds to comply.
    • throw11231 11y ago
      "he did". In the fine movie a single male test person was chosen. Sorry for mentioning this, but recently HN is unreadable due to PC use of pronouns.
      • lostcolony 11y ago
        But in referencing those affected by Tay, it was both genders, hence their usage of it. This was not 'PC use of pronouns', but 'correct use of pronouns', due to said pronoun's use in drawing an analogy between Microsoft's response and that movie scene. You're a little alarmist. That's also quite a bit of hyperbole, that PC use of pronouns leads to something being -unreadable-. But you know that, hence your use of a throwaway account.
        • 1231223211 11y ago
          "hence azakai's usage of it". Abuse of pronouns does make posts unreadable: A new highlight was reached yesterday, when someone referred to "Ron Garret" as "they". It is no longer clear what is singular or plural.
          • brighteyes 11y ago
            Is it wrong, though? The post replied to refers to "families", "survivors". Isn't "they" the right pronoun in that context?
• dsp1234 11y ago
  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."
  • bliti 11y ago
    Interesting that it worked in China and not here. I'd like to read about the difference rather than a bland apology.
    • eganist 11y ago
      If I had to venture a hunch, it likely has something to do with a difference in culture.
      • Quinner 11y ago
        Also the whole government control and censorship of the internet thing.
        • Nutmog 11y ago
          That wouldn't be an issue for just offending people, but only if it became political. Don't forget the US also has government control and censorship - try posting child porn on Twitter and see if the government leaves you alone.
      • wodenokoto 11y ago
        I think the Chinese likes an Internet prank just as much as anybody else and are just as capable at using social networks to organize one.
      • bliti 11y ago
        I meant technical differences of implementation.
      • 11y ago
• deleted 11y ago
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• pervycreeper 11y ago
  The response that Microsoft gave was really the worst of both worlds, combining the systematic corporate shirking of responsibility which enables and gives cover to a great deal of evil, with a complete accedence to and embracing of political correctness. Furthermore, their claim that they did not anticipate "this specific attack" is either a lie, or their creators made an extremely obvious mistake (yes, easy to say in hindsight, but it's really hard to believe that this possibility would not occur to competent implementers).
  • bliti 11y ago
    But given all the Internet drama in the past years its the latest standard corporate approach to similar. Admit fault, apologize, and suck up to the supposedly offended. Its a product of the same environment the corporations have nurtured (people won't buy our stuff if we offend them so let's treat them all like special snowflakes). Could they have anticipated how people would turn the bot into that? Probably. Who says this is not some data they wanted to acquire? I'd happily go through the technical gains with their team any day. Having all this real world input and seeing how the program reacted is such a goldmine of information. Edit: I did not downvote you. Your point is valid.
  • maxerickson 11y ago
    What would they need to do to properly take responsibility? They turned it off pretty fast and agree that it was a mistake, what's the problem beyond that?
  • greyman 11y ago
    IMHO the response from Microsoft was fine. They admitted the mistake and taken the bot offline. What else should they do? What I find strange is that nobody criticizes twitter for not doing anything... I think Facebook would deal better with this.
• mizzao 11y ago
  Something like this was bound to happen at some point; I think it's much better that it happened with a chatbot than an AI system that could actually control (physical) things other than a Twitter account. I think it's a landmark in the history of AI and a valuable lesson for system designers going forward. Also, a lot of people are saying "well, of course that was obvious". But it really wasn't, because there was a huge team working on this with past experience building a conversational agent. The armchair theorists forget that it always looks obvious to Captain Hindsight.