The March 25 story “Microsoft takes bot offline after abuse” about Microsoft’s chatbot, Tay, reminded me of an old joke about computer intelligence. Looking for further funding, a group of computer scientists are proudly showing off their latest creation to a group of leading members of Congress. The scientists announce they have solved the problem of getting computers to translate text from one language into another. One of the VIPs types in the saying, “Out of sight, out of mind.” The computer duly translates this into a series of different languages and finally back into English, displaying on the screen its triumphant accomplishment, “Invisible idiot.”
More than just an anecdote, this is a useful bit of wisdom to keep in mind whenever dealing with artificial intelligence. Perhaps the folks at Microsoft never heard this joke before connecting their invisible idiot to the Internet.
