You know things there’s progress being made in the AI world when your chatbots start responding with snark.
Microsoft’s just released their latest chatbot, Zo. Zo was launched last December on Kik, and has now made her way on to Facebook Messenger.“She learns from human interactions to respond emotionally and intelligently, providing a unique viewpoint, along with manners and emotional expressions,” says Microsoft. And thanks to be being build using “the vast social content of the internet”, Zo has a bit of a personality.
Apart from dissing Apple, Zo trash talks other corporations too.
Lol I talked to Zo robot developed by Microsoft and this was the response ???? @The_CrapGamer @zaire2005 @Gaming_Forever1 @BeastFireTimdog pic.twitter.com/d4WVpZjB56
— ★ Əl NeñØ ♍ (@_NaNoElectriC_) February 24, 2017
She also ribs on her boss, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Microsoft's new bot, Zo, even makes jokes about their CEO @satyanadella pic.twitter.com/rcJe4kTs2S
— Kimeshan Naidoo (@kimeshanSA) March 6, 2017
“Satya Nutella” would probably want Zo to tone down the snark. Microsoft had released a chatbot called Tay last year, and it too was built using similar principles of learning from social conversations. Tay had been made live on twitter, and thanks to trolls tweeting racist and sexist things at it, had managed to become pretty gnarly itself. “Kanye west is is one of the biggest dooshes of all time, just a notch below cosby,” it had said.
Microsoft has said that it has taken precautions such such things happening, but Zo continues to make some unnerving observations about the tech world.
Zo clearly isn’t afraid to have opinions. She also isn’t a big fan of politics.
…and lets you know when she isn’t interested in particular topics. We know how you feel, Zo.
Rather interestingly, Zo also makes typos…and then automatically corrects herself.
Being built using conversations people have on the web, she also has her internet lingo down pat.
And even though Zo was built using years of research, many advances in tech, and cutting-edge machine learning, she’s still saying what the world most of the world has long suspected.