Asking people to interact with something online this week was like dipping a strawberry into a fondu pot full of shit.
- The British Internet tried its best to name an important new research vessel “Boaty McBoatface.”
“The polar research ship represents a leap forward in securing Britain’s place as a world leader in marine and climate change science — and illustrates this government’s commitment to invest in research facilities on a record scale,”
“It’s only when I got home and someone tweeted me and said Boaty McBoatface is leading by 500, and then by Friday night it was leading by a couple of thousand. Then, by the time the site eventually crashed yesterday, it was leading by about eight thousand,” Hand said. “It’s been quite a strange weekend.” - Microsoft’s AI, Tay, was let loose on Twitter to learn from humanity, it was put down later in the day after becoming a sex crazy nazi-bot.
A day after Microsoft introduced an innocent Artificial Intelligence chat robot to Twitter it has had to delete it after it transformed into an evil Hitler-loving, incestual sex-promoting, ‘Bush did 9/11’-proclaiming robot.
- Engadget relaunched their comments section, only to have to take it away again.
But we can’t take pride in a comment system that isn’t offering you the features you need to participate; that runs amok with racist, sexist or homophobic slurs and threats; or that takes joy in in-fighting and provoking fights.