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Comment by dsp1234 | Hacker News Reader

because we had thought about all likely scenarios in our comfortable offices.

Or because they had real world experience with another bot in a similar situation:

"In China, our XiaoIce chatbot is being used by some 40 million people, delighting with its stories and conversations."

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Interesting that it worked in China and not here. I'd like to read about the difference rather than a bland apology.

If I had to venture a hunch, it likely has something to do with a difference in culture.

Also the whole government control and censorship of the internet thing.

That wouldn't be an issue for just offending people, but only if it became political. Don't forget the US also has government control and censorship - try posting child porn on Twitter and see if the government leaves you alone.

I think the Chinese likes an Internet prank just as much as anybody else and are just as capable at using social networks to organize one.

I meant technical differences of implementation.

Almost only Chinese people speak Chinese. However, many people speak English (I come from Spain, for example), so in this case you can hardly pin it on a single culture.

I think in this case it has to do more with 4chan's culture than a regional culture.

I kind of read the "... but it worked in China soooo...." bit of the announcement as somewhere behind a kind of sad sigh and an angry scowl. Maybe Mandela got it wrong, maybe a society should be judged by how it treats its chatbots?

That's what happens when networks get social.

> Unfortunately, in the first 24 hours of coming online, a coordinated attack by a subset of people exploited a vulnerability in Tay.

I think it just didn't get a coordinated attack like this. I'd guess this type of attack needs to happen close to launch to be a high percentage of it's interactions to influence it so strongly.

dick jokes resulting in concentra^^^Reeducation camp might have something to do with it.

It sounded like XiaoIce was a chatbot hosting individualized conversations, so it wouldn't be a platform for rebroadcasting bad stuff.

Where exactly is "here" though? Twitter is global remember? Anyone in the world, including Zambia where I am could have interacted with Tay. That's a very different proposition to "China".

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