Microsoft Kills Bad Santa Bot for Talking Dirty

[MantaBase]

I doubt the program said that out of nowhere:

In Colossal Cavern there is a very primitive AI (we're talking 1970's here). There is a little bird as well. If you try to do something inappropriate to the bird, the game parrots back a negative. Example:

input: screw the birdie.

output: I don't want to screw the birdie.

It's a trick.

back to work for me.

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by MantaBase

I doubt the program said that out of nowhere

Originally Posted by chat transcript

El Reg says: pizza (pi)

Santa says: Yum! What do you want for Christmas, El Reg?

El Reg says: Maybe you shouldn't eat so much! You are quite large!

Santa says: My elves will get right on that. And what else are you wishing for this year, El Reg?

El Reg says: Maybe you shouldn't eat it?

Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!

El Reg says: Eat it

Santa says: No thank you. I don't eat things!

El Reg says: Eat it

Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!

El Reg says: Eat it

Santa says: You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else...

El Reg says: You dirty bastard!

Santa says: I think you're dirty bastard.

Microsoft's sex-obsessed RoboSanta spouts filth at children | The Register

It took some prodding, but the oral sex comment was Santa's own response, and better filtering should have preventing him from repeating the 'bastard' comment. It's disappointing, considering this bot is aimed squarely at young children.

[MantaBase]

OK - maybe I gave an over simple example.

"Oral Sex" was likely not in the (fake) AI's dictionary. Remember Apple's "Zoo" program - it learned new animals each time it was played. And, if you were feeling like having fun, you could teach it jackass and bitch (the animals or not the animals). Or if you want to be really offensive, stinger and joker. And, if you are using a multiuser machine you could get really "fun" with it and send pretty nasty messages to your friends. Telling friends to screw off was a past-time (hey - it was middle school)

Point is - "oral sex" was likely a learned phrase - and not from MS. MOst of these have learning modules. Someone taught it the phrase and "eat it" activated it - and the filtering missed it (I could be wrong - it's just the kind of thing a disgruntled programmer might do - and I never played with it - so maybe it doesn't have a learning module). As you know, phrases are harder to filter than words (although, for kids I would have black balled both words really - can't see a reason for them - but it's pretty difficult).

So, what I'm saying is - it didn't come out of nowhere. And, while MS obviously needs better filtering (and should question the entire concept of leaving children in the hands of a psuedo AI (or real one)), I'm thinking you can blame our sick society and probably Hitman for corrupting the relational data.

Hope that makes more sense - again, I'm not defending MS - just pointing out they likely didn't plant it. These programs are pretty stupid - but complex and prone to user corruption - much like Vista. SO yeah - I agree MS could/should do better, but not all the blame sits with them IMO.

Manta

PS: Short version - it's spitting the filth it was taught - maybe even by children.

[Stormcrow]

Another plausible theory is that Skynet is secretly trying to subvert our already corrupted youth to further it's plot of global human extermination. Cyber Santa is but one horseman of the apocalypse.

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by Mantabase

PS: Short version - it's spitting the filth it was taught - maybe even by children.

Assuming that 'oral sex' wasn't already in the AI's dictionary (I tend to believe it was), it's inexcusable that 'sex' and 'bastard' weren't blackballed from the bot's vocabulary to begin with, at least when spelled correctly.

My hunch is that 'oral sex' was a pre-written and poorly thought out response to naughty kids who might tell Santa to "suck my d**k" or other inappropriate requests involving the mouth, rather than responding that such language would get them on the naughty list.

[Capper]

Originally Posted by MantaBase

OK - maybe I gave an over simple example.

"Oral Sex" was likely not in the (fake) AI's dictionary. Remember Apple's "Zoo" program - it learned new animals each time it was played. And, if you were feeling like having fun, you could teach it jackass and bitch (the animals or not the animals). Or if you want to be really offensive, stinger and joker. And, if you are using a multiuser machine you could get really "fun" with it and send pretty nasty messages to your friends. Telling friends to screw off was a past-time (hey - it was middle school)

Point is - "oral sex" was likely a learned phrase - and not from MS. MOst of these have learning modules. Someone taught it the phrase and "eat it" activated it - and the filtering missed it (I could be wrong - it's just the kind of thing a disgruntled programmer might do - and I never played with it - so maybe it doesn't have a learning module). As you know, phrases are harder to filter than words (although, for kids I would have black balled both words really - can't see a reason for them - but it's pretty difficult).

So, what I'm saying is - it didn't come out of nowhere. And, while MS obviously needs better filtering (and should question the entire concept of leaving children in the hands of a psuedo AI (or real one)), I'm thinking you can blame our sick society and probably Hitman for corrupting the relational data.

Hope that makes more sense - again, I'm not defending MS - just pointing out they likely didn't plant it. These programs are pretty stupid - but complex and prone to user corruption - much like Vista. SO yeah - I agree MS could/should do better, but not all the blame sits with them IMO.

Manta

PS: Short version - it's spitting the filth it was taught - maybe even by children.

For those who want to communicate directly with Manta....I've found a normal person to Manta translator....have fun!!!!

Binary - it's digitalicious!

[MantaBase]

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

Assuming that 'oral sex' wasn't already in the AI's dictionary (I tend to believe it was), it's inexcusable that 'sex' and 'bastard' weren't blackballed from the bot's vocabulary to begin with, at least when spelled correctly.

I don't dispute that - but bastard was a direct parrot.

"I think you are nice santa."

"I think you are nice Joe".

Typical crap.

My hunch is that 'oral sex' was a pre-written and poorly thought out response to naughty kids who might tell Santa to "suck my d**k" or other inappropriate requests involving the mouth, rather than responding that such language would get them on the naughty list.

You might be right - but you really think it was intentional and not a rogue? MS gets stupid, but not that stupid. Besides, look at the transcript - "eat it" was the trigger - not suck my willy (Willy BTW is a whale - an Orca to be exact. I saw it on TV).

And if a kid tells Santa to "suck my d**k" and gets told by Santa that Oral sex is not the subject Santa want to talk about (or gets told to screw off for that matter), then more power to Santa!

It might be easy to prove me wrong - and I wouldn't mind. Find out if the AI has a learning module that takes data from the public.

I don't see why people need a translator to understand what I'm saying (here). Jeesh

[screwballl]

I wonder if this uses a similar or the same char recognizing software the "Billy Project" does?
I used to keep up with it and it has made some amazing strides but I haven't heard much of it lately

The Billy Project >> BILLY

[Bill Gates]

My first post, w00t!

Anyway, I received an email HardwareLogic (one of my top 5 favorite websites, btw) asking about a learning module in the Santa bot, and I thought I'd answer the question in virtual person. The answer is, no, it did not not contain one.

See you around the forums!

[MantaBase]

Paul

FYI - This kind of stuff just interests me - thus my replies.

Now that I looked around - you might be right. All the learning might be from the programmers end (or from a group of special users). I only see scant crap about it on the web and obviously you can't play with it anymore. But, I realized how stupid it would be to let just anyone teach it if its for kids. Should have thought about that I guess.

Game info page - Create Your Own Cafe

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

Yes, but if 'bastard' was on the naughty word list as it should have been.

True - but the parroting may have no filtering at all (thus a good reason to pull the plug on the kiddies). If they simply took a stock pseudo AI and customized it to be Santa, its a really simple program. If they have any others up - you could test it. Putting a filter on it might be more effort than it's worth for a one month run.

But, at the end of the day, it's still only parroting back what the potty mouth child said (in the bastard case). Its a program - not a person and it's not actually having a conversation. Its following a set of (simple) rules.

That's where the learning could have came it, or for whatever reason, the repeated requests to 'eat it' were registered as vulgar remarks, hence the pre-determined response that probably seemed like a good idea to the programmer at the time, but instead represents poor judgement.

Assuming that it worked just like the others I've seen (you know what they say about that). Anytime it gets pushed with the same responses over and over it will drop to another level and attempt to change the subject. OR - ask a question. Someone taught it that the subject it wanted to change from was "Oral Sex". And now that I see it more clearly, you are right (guessing), that someone is not a public user - but on the MS end.

That's exactly what the programmer likely thought...

Lol- I was kinda kidding though.

Funny thing - for whatever reason, Billy Gates isn't returning our emails.

He just did.