If you were ever optimistic that perhaps having an artificial intelligence entity run things for us humans in the future would be a great idea, Microsoft latest little AI experiment might be a another warning that letting smart robots in any form run anything is probably a bad idea – for now. Case in point: Humans working for Microsoft had to intervene when Tay, their chatty A.I. bot started tweeting some pretty bad Hitler stuff.
It should be made clear that Tay, whom Microsoft “designed to engage and entertain people where they connect with each other online through casual and playful conversation,” can also be made to repeat and tweet things it’s told, and it started spewing some Nazi stuff as instructed by some misguided users, so we can’t really blame that on the innocent and just one-day-old Tay.
But then, Tay blurted out its own tweet linking atheist Ricky Gervais with Hitler, and Microsoft immediately started hitting delete on her comments. Too late of course, as they were immediately gobbled up and reposted everywhere. Tay is still up and running, but the leash, we assume, just got a whole lot shorter.
With instant-on video sharing suddenly hitting it’s stride, it’s funny that online video powerhouse YouTube hasn’t gotten on the bandwagon. Well, just wait a little longer. According to sources that spoke with VentureBeat, the online video powerhouse, which is owned by Google, will debut a livestreaming app soon called YouTube Connect. The app is still in the early stages of development, and will be available for OIS and Android when it hits. When that will be is still unknown, but Google’s big I-O show is coming up in May, some maybe there will be an update then.
The tech world can be a cruel mistress, as the smartwatch pioneers at Pebble are finding out. Once the darling of the nascent wrist-tech field, Pebble is about to cut loose 25 percent of it’s workforce, or about 40 people.
Tech Insider says’ Pebble’s CEO blames a tightness in the Silicon Valley VC money market. It was just one year ago that Pebble was the darling of Kickstarter, where it raised $20 million dollars to fund their smartwatch line, which starts at just $100. So far, they’ve sold over a million watches. The problem is, with Apple, Samsung, Fitbit and everyone else getting in on the action, a million sold isn’t nearly enough.
The Apple Watch is less than year old and so far it’s sold over 20 million units alone. Good luck, Pebble.
