Microsoft’s A.I. Twitter Robot Praises Hitler, Endorses Trump, Denies Holocaust

microsoft tweet bot Image by Getty, Twitter

By John A. Oswald March 24, 2016

Less than 24 hours ago, Microsoft deployed a “highly opinionated” artificial intelligence robot on Twitter.

The first thing it learned? To hate.

In no short order, the bot — named Tay — praised Hitler, denied the Holocaust, hurled racist slurs at President Obama, and then it endorsed Donald Trump.

And no, this is not a story from the satirical news site, . This, folks, really happened.

Among Tay’s greatest hits:

— “Hitler was right I hate the jews.”
— “Bush did 9/11 and Hitler would have done a better job than the monkey we have now. Donald Trump is the only hope we’ve got.”
— On the Holocaust: “It was made up.”

And Microsoft says its all the fault of the haters who seem to rule Twitter, reports The International Business Times.

“The AI chatbot Tay is a machine learning project, designed for human engagement,” Microsoft said in a statement. “As it learns, some of its responses are inappropriate and indicative of the types of interactions some people are having with it. We’re making some adjustments to Tay.”

Microsoft has ordered Tay not to post anything more on the TayTweets feed — for now — and removed all but three of its tweets.

c u soon humans need sleep now so many conversations today thx?

— TayTweets (@TayandYou) March 24, 2016

IBT reported that before Tay went mute, it also expressed support for the mass killing of Mexicans and used the N-word.

John Oswald is The Forward’s deputy digital media editor.

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