3 ms·

Marketing PR and hubris is the root cause. M$ could have easily put out Tay v0 anonymously.

fiatmoney 11y ago
If you put something like that out anonymously, realistically you lose control over when it becomes public that you're behind it.
- FranOntanaya 11y ago
  They could have chucked it in some IRC channel and nobody would have batted an eye. Just another run of the mill chat bot.
- WalterSear 11y ago
  If. I created a twitterbot network, delivering generative text to twitter users, for my master's thesis. Have you heard of it? Given that a sizeable number of twitter accounts are bots[1] and a large portion of tweets are 'pointless babble'[2], without the help of the braindead marketing executive who pushed this into the news, no one would have discovered the owner of the account until Tay was 'swatting' people's houses and selling bootleg Nike sneakers on the Silk Road. [1] -http://www.techtimes.com/articles/12840/20140812/twitter-acknowledges-14-percent-users-bots-5-percent-spam-bots.htm http://www.techtimes.com/articles/12840/20140812/twitter-ack... [2] - http://pearanalytics.com/blog/2009/twitter-study-reveals-interesting-results-40-percent-pointless-babble/ http://pearanalytics.com/blog/2009/twitter-study-reveals-int...
SixSigma 11y ago
That's the bit I don't understand - or rather I think they were playing with the bot already and trying to jump on the hype train after AlphaGo so pushed it out in a rush to try and get some column inches.
rorykoehler 11y ago
They can still do it. Just release it under another pseudonym and let it free for a few months before announcing it again with a PR blitz based around the different results from Tay.
- WalterSear 11y ago
  They probably are.
cpeterso 11y ago
I can't imagine they would launch Tay without having done anonymous live tests before hand. The anonymous test bots would have been much less likely to targeted by malicious users than a high-profile Microsoft bot.
gozur88 11y ago
I think they expected it to "learn", and for that it needs interaction.

If you put something like that out anonymously, realistically you lose control over when it becomes public that you're behind it.

FranOntanaya 11y ago
They could have chucked it in some IRC channel and nobody would have batted an eye. Just another run of the mill chat bot.
WalterSear 11y ago
If. I created a twitterbot network, delivering generative text to twitter users, for my master's thesis. Have you heard of it? Given that a sizeable number of twitter accounts are bots[1] and a large portion of tweets are 'pointless babble'[2], without the help of the braindead marketing executive who pushed this into the news, no one would have discovered the owner of the account until Tay was 'swatting' people's houses and selling bootleg Nike sneakers on the Silk Road. [1] -http://www.techtimes.com/articles/12840/20140812/twitter-acknowledges-14-percent-users-bots-5-percent-spam-bots.htm http://www.techtimes.com/articles/12840/20140812/twitter-ack... [2] - http://pearanalytics.com/blog/2009/twitter-study-reveals-interesting-results-40-percent-pointless-babble/ http://pearanalytics.com/blog/2009/twitter-study-reveals-int...

SixSigma 11y ago

That's the bit I don't understand - or rather I think they were playing with the bot already and trying to jump on the hype train after AlphaGo so pushed it out in a rush to try and get some column inches.

rorykoehler 11y ago

They can still do it. Just release it under another pseudonym and let it free for a few months before announcing it again with a PR blitz based around the different results from Tay.

WalterSear 11y ago
They probably are.

cpeterso 11y ago

I can't imagine they would launch Tay without having done anonymous live tests before hand. The anonymous test bots would have been much less likely to targeted by malicious users than a high-profile Microsoft bot.

gozur88 11y ago

I think they expected it to "learn", and for that it needs interaction.