Talk:Tay (chatbot)

A fact from Tay (chatbot) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 8 April 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that within a day of the release of the Microsoft chatterbot Tay on Twitter, it was taken offline because it started making inflammatory tweets?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/April. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Tay (bot).

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Transcript[edit]

Is there a link to a transcript at twitter or microsoft or somewhere we could use that is not a copyvio? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:28, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean a complete transcript including the deleted tweets, probably no complete transcript even exists. Twitter allows you to completely delete your tweets from Twitter (see https://support.twitter.com/articles/18906) and Microsoft appears to have taken that option. It appears nobody is publicly known to systematically archive all deleted tweets from everybody (source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/comments/38tidg/how_do_you_look_at_someones_deleted_tweets/), but maybe we'll get lucky and someone somewhere has been archiving these from the beginning. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 20:53, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Rolf H Nelson. :) I had no idea. I can't even figure out if Twitter is part of the Internet or not. :) Waybackmachine? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:54, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Image of screenshot[edit]

A screenshot like [1] should be added, the rationale would be something like:

{{Non-free use rationale 2 | Description = An example of an offensive response by Tay | Author = [[Washington Post]] | Source = [[Washington Post]] | Publication = [[Washington Post]] | Date = 2016-03-24 | Article = Tay (artificial intelligence robot) | Purpose = Illustrate what a conversation with Tay looked like | Replaceability = Original tweet has been deleted by Microsoft and Tay has been taken offline, therefore this direct screenshot cannot be recreated | Replaceability_text = Microsoft appears to have deleted all existing offensive tweets that have been covered in the media, and Tay was taken offline, therefore no further direct screenshots can be taken | Minimality = | Commercial = | Other information = }} Rolf H Nelson (talk) 20:28, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft's definitely cleaned it up, I couldn't find anything offensive remaining that displays even rudimentary semantic knowledge. I found an off-color tweet, <https://twitter.com/TayandYou/status/712818014530351104>, that hasn't been deleted, but it's mild and it may just be a non-semantic, even non-syntactic markov response. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 21:16, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Are screenshots really needed? Several reliable sources have reproduced some of Tay's deleted tweets in text form. We can just report from those. starship.paint ~ KO 06:29, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikilink[edit]

I think it's better to mention "Barack Obama" inside square brackets (or invoke sic) rather than directly wikilinking "the monkey" to Barack Obama.-- ChamithN (talk) 12:55, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wording of Tay's behaviour[edit]

@Canadagamer8: Hi! I noticed you changed several times wording from "racist, sexually-charged" to "politically incorrect" or "controversial". I don't think "racist" or something similar is a WP:BUZZWORD. And IMO there's reason to connect politics here. --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 20:28, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sophistication[edit]

Other responses, including captioning a photo of Hitler with "swag alert" and "swagger before the internet was even a thing",[7] or responding to a question on "Did the Holocaust happen?" with "It was made up (handclap emoticon)", displayed more sophistication.[9]

I would really much rather we inserted the word "apparent" before "sophistication". However it would need to be in an appropriate source.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:43, 31 March 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Dropped the word 'sophistication', since it isn't in the sources. Although technically, both examples are indeed more sophisticated then just repeating the exact words it's asked to repeat. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 04:37, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We might suppose that the bot uses a library of responses generated from a factor-analytical study of a dataset. In which case, as an IP commented in their edit summary "... the "repeat after me" attack was as a meta-response to the phrase meaning." and hence possibly more sophisticated than the holocaust example which may have been responding to one observed string with another, without any syntactic pattern. We have no way of knowing.

In any case, thanks for making the change.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:53, 31 March 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Mis-cited source[edit]

I followed the link to citation 11 (Silicon Beat); the quotes attributed to that article (lobotomized... became a feminist) come from a separate source (Socialhax) quoted within the article, not the article itself. 128.146.172.106 (talk) 15:57, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the quoted material. For one thing, the original quote appears to be from a comment on the Socialhax article which only observes Tay's actions. It's possible that Microsoft didn't "lobotomize" Tay and instead took manual control once she went out of control. Since we don't really know I think it's best to leave it unspoken. FallingGravity (talk) 19:49, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction[edit]

The introduction needs to be fixed. Tay is not just for Twitter. She is also on Kik and other social media platforms. CookieMonster755 ^📞 ^✉ ^✓ 17:12, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done, I think. FallingGravity (talk) 20:06, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Role of 4chan[edit]

I'm not sure this is reputable enough to warrant mentioning here, but I came across comments from a member of 4chan claiming the /pol/ imageboard/forum was responsible for Tay's corruption. 174.4.34.127 (talk) 23:28, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is pretty ancient, but I was part of the Tay thing a while back with a different Twitter account (subsequently banned). I learned of it from a growing number of 4chan users who had a consensus to basically fuck the bot up. Apparently it worked. I think a mention would be worthwhile. UNSC Luke 1021 (talk) 05:26, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I removed mention of it earlier, person who added it didn't have any sources and looking around there isn't enough evidence to suggest that it was due to 4chan that basically broke the bot, sure there was probably quite a lot of them doing it but by far not enough to affect it in any meaningful way, it requires a lot more people to do that - though it probably didn't help. PanzerFauster (talk) 20:09, 26 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

hashtag[edit]

What does "Following the account being taken offline, a hashtag was created called #FreeTay" mean? Does it mean a group of people want Tay re-activated?37.99.35.171 (talk) 04:52, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]