Microsoft Confirms Its Chinese-Language Chatbot Filters Certain Topics (fortune.com) 19
Microsoft's Chinese-language AI chat bot filters certain topics, the company confirmed Monday, although it did not clarify whether that included interactions deemed politically sensitive. From a report on Fortune: Last week, CNNMoney and China Digital Times reported that Xiaoice would not directly respond to questions surrounding topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese state. References to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 or "Steamed Bun Xi," a nickname of Chinese President Xi Jinping, would draw evasive answers or non sequiturs from the chat bot, according to the report. "Am I stupid? Once I answer you'd take a screengrab," read one answer to a question that contained the words "topple the Communist Party." Even the mention of Donald Trump, the American President-elect, drew an evasive response from the chat bot, according to reports. "I don't want to talk about it," Xiaoice said, reports CNN Money. In response to inquiries from Fortune, Microsoft confirmed that there was some filtering around Xiaoice's interaction. "We are committed to creating the best experience for everyone chatting with Xiaoice," a Microsoft spokesperson tells Fortune. "With this in mind, we have implemented filtering on a range of topics." The tech giant did not further elaborate to which specific topics the filtering applied.
Is anyone surprised? (Score:2)
I do find the retort "Am I stupid? Once I answer you'd take a screengrab," rather humorous though.
Re: (Score:2)
I do find the retort "Am I stupid? Once I answer you'd take a screengrab," rather humorous though.
It sounds rather as if they do support a toppling of the Communist party, doesn't it? I, for one, would love to see that show trial, with a little text-to-speech enabled laptop sitting there on the defendant's seat and the executioner standing by with defibrillator paddles. Or an Ubuntu installation disc.
Customs duties? (Score:2)
is it the buyer's responsibility to pay the customs duties on the chinese epackets they receive?
Re: (Score:2)
Why do they bother? (Score:2)
Why do they bother with such BS answers? Everybody can see through it - it's not for "creating the best experience" for the users.
Re: (Score:3)
You must understand the context of this statement.
The "best experience" from a Chinese users' point of view is not being shot and his family not being billed for the bullet by the Chinese government.
In that context the statement from MS is quite true and literal.
Strat
Re: (Score:2)
Everybody can see through it
That's not the point. You live (I presume) in a democracy, where there are 3 kinds of information:
1. Information the government approves of.
2. Information the government tolerates.
3. Information that is illegal.
In authoritarian countries, there is no #2. So if the government tolerates it, people assume that the government also approves of it. So, if they don't approve of it, they have to ban it. They aren't trying to keep people from "knowing" the information, they are just signaling their disapproval.
I
Re: (Score:2)
People in a repressive country can have trouble with the idea of #2 existing. Look at the Jyllands-Posten riots, which saw a string of protests against all things Danish following a newspaper publishing cartoons mocking Mohammed. To the protesters the logic behind these was quite reasonable: The Danish government had taken no action to prevent the publication of the cartoons, which could only mean they approved the publication, therefore the entire country was to be held responsible. This lead to widespread
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Why do they bother? (Score:2)
it is done in simpler way: you gather an armed force and kill those in power. Works amazingly well
Ah, those were the days... (Score:2)
Remember when Google and Facebook and Microsoft and other huge tech corporations used to insist that engaging with Communist China and other totalitarian regimes was the best way to make them more free?
It seems more like these corporations have wound helping the totalitarians consolidate their hold on their countries. And all the while they've been helping the worst elements of our own governments track, monitor and control us.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember when Google and Facebook and Microsoft and other huge tech corporations used to insist that engaging with Communist China and other totalitarian regimes was the best way to make them more free?
Did anyone ever buy that? You could almost hear the true motives ("over a BILLION customers... over a BILLION customers...") percolate as they regurgitated some carefully lawyered corporate claptrap. They don't even pretend to care anymore, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
Did anyone ever buy that? You could almost hear the true motives ("over a BILLION customers... over a BILLION customers...") percolate as they regurgitated some carefully lawyered corporate claptrap. They don't even pretend to care anymore, of course.
Companies that try to make lots of money will try to use any half-baked rationale to convince people (or themselves) that what they're doing is not only profitable, but right. Having the image of a "good company" gets them extra customers, or at least staves off protests. "No trust us, this is actually really good for the people... as we rake in the dough" is a line you should not swallow from ANY company, because they always have a conflict of interest. I think some of these explanations came about when Go
Re: (Score:2)
To be somewhat fair, disengaging hasn't worked any better. Decades of embargos have not brought freedom to Cuba, Iran or North Korea.