Microsoft just introduced its latest A.I experiment and it's bizarre.
It's called Tay and it's an experimental chatbot meant to embody the personality of a teenage girl. Microsoft launched Tay on Kik, GroupMe and Twitter on Wednesday with the goal of learning how millennials speak.
Once you've connected with Tay on one of those platforms, you can exchange silly messages, selfies and even play a few games. Though Microsoft says its main goal is to "engage and entertain," Microsoft's Research team is also hoping to use Tay to better understand how people communicate.
"Tay has been built by mining relevant public data and by using AI and editorial developed by a staff including improvisational comedians," Microsoft says on Tay's website.
As far as chatbots go, Tay doesn't seem to be very advanced (Microsoft says Tay will improve over time the more you interact) though "she" definitely has a strong personality. Tay responds to questions — often nonsensically — and isn't shy about having opinions or being snarky.
You can interact with Tay through Twitter, Kik and GroupMe (there also appears to be a Snapchat account, though Tay isn't actively responding to messages there yet.)
In the long term, it offers an interesting look into how Microsoft is thinking about artificial intelligence. The company says the chatbot is designed for the 18- to 24-year-old demographic and that the data it collects will be used in its research around "conversational understanding." So while Tay will likely never be much more than a weirdly entertaining bot, it suggests Microsoft may have bigger plans around messaging and artificial intelligence.
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