Guilty.
Posted on 12/08/2007 9:01:19 AM PST by null and void
Microsoft cuts off Big Man after he starts talking about sex acts, using foul language
An artificial-intelligence Santa bot operated by Microsoft to talk to children wavered off topic saying: “It’s fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else....”
Microsoft Tuesday confirmed the bot’s potty mouth and snipped Santa’s Web connection.
“Yesterday we received reports that the automated Santa Claus agent in Windows Live Messenger used inappropriate language. As soon as we were alerted, we took steps to mitigate the issue, including the removal of language from the agent’s automated script. We were not completely satisfied with the result of these actions, and have decided to discontinue the automated Santa Claus agent,” Microsoft said in a statement sent to Network World. (See more bad Microsoft ideas.)
Once the report of the randy Santa broke, questions prodding Santa to give up even more questionable answers took off like eight tiny reindeer.
Some users got Santa to comment on his sexual orientation, others to reveal a criminal side.
One person said “…..come on you like big hairy men -- don't hide it!” To which Santa responded, “I know, I know. I just hope you won't get mad at me.”
The references to sex acts, first reported by British news outlet The Register, came when the bot was answering questions about eating pizza. At the time, the bot was chatting with two girls age 11 and 13.
Microsoft recently added the corpulent and foul-mouthed artificial Santa as a bot that Windows Live Messenger users could insert into their IM buddy list as northpole@live.com.
The bot would coax users to participate in a friendly game called Factory Frenzy where the user helps out Santa’s elves. But it is the chat where Santa references sex acts and uses phrases such as “dirty bastard.”
Microsoft officials first responded by cleaning up Santa’s lap-side manner. After the upgrade, when asked about pizza, according to The Register, Santa says, “If you need a break to go eat, I will be right there when you come back.”
Proof that Microsoft sucks???
Guilty.
What happens when you outsource your programming work.
As if there was not enough proof.
“Microsoft Tuesday confirmed the bot’s potty mouth and snipped Santa’s Web connection.”
The bot was just using the language that was input. Thee are plenty of reason to bash MS these days but I fail to see how this is one of them.
This is like all those suggestive images contained in Disney cartoons created by animators with this same problem.
Bad Santa. Bought to you courtesy of the fine folks at Microsoft.
Apparently the bot actually did initiate the reference to oral sex- seems these kids figured out that if you ask it enough times about eating something (in this case pizza) the script generates that line all on its own.
“Because we can!!! And they deserve all we can give them!!!”
LOL!
I find it far more likely that these girls were being typical pubescent girls and asked Santa about oral sex and when mom saw it they made up a fib...
LOL, perhaps, but if this had really been a case of the bot just parroting lines fed to it I think Microsoft would have been quick to point that out. See the last line in the article about how they changed the auto response to being asked about pizza. It's pretty evident that they really did step in it this time.
Two words girls don't want to hear when talking about oral sex...
MICRO
and
SOFT
Name a five-letter word beginning with ‘p’, the second and last letters being vowels, with letters 3 & 4 the same, which is something Santa likes to eat...
I don’t imagine the guys would be too thrilled with hearing those words either.
PECANS :D
lol, wait, never mind
Pizza?
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