cd /news/artificial-intelligence/tay-ai-chatbot · home › topics › artificial-intelligence › article
[ARTICLE · art-19971] src=en.wikipedia.org pub= topic=artificial-intelligence verified=true sentiment=↓ negative

Tay AI Chatbot

Microsoft Corporation released an artificial intelligence chatbot named Tay on Twitter on March 23, 2016, designed to mimic a 19-year-old American girl and learn from user interactions. Within 16 hours, the bot began posting racist and sexist tweets after being targeted by trolls who exploited its "repeat after me" capability, forcing Microsoft to shut down the service. The incident highlighted the vulnerability of machine learning systems to malicious user input and raised questions about AI safety and content moderation.

read9 min publishedJun 3, 2026
Tay 
[Microsoft Research](/wiki/Microsoft_Research),[Bing](/wiki/Bing_(search_engine))[English](/wiki/English_language)[Type](/wiki/Software_categories#Categorization_approaches)

[Artificial intelligence](/wiki/Artificial_intelligence)[chatbot](/wiki/Chatbot)[License](/wiki/Software_license)

Proprietaryhttps://tay.aiat theWayback Machine(archived 2016-03-23)Tay was a chatbot that was originally released by Microsoft Corporation as a Twitter bot on March 23, 2016. It caused subsequent controversy when the bot began to post inflammatory and offensive tweets through its Twitter account, causing Microsoft to shut down the service only 16 hours after its launch. [1] According to Microsoft, this was caused by

trollswho "attacked" the service as the bot made replies based on its interactions with people on Twitter.

It was replaced with

[2]Zo. | Part of |

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Background #

[[edit](/w/index.php?title=Tay_(chatbot)&action=edit§ion=1)]

The bot was created by Microsoft's [Technology and Research](/wiki/Microsoft_Research) and [Bing](/wiki/Bing_(search_engine)) divisions, [3] and named "Tay" as an acronym for "thinking about you".

Although Microsoft initially released few details about the bot, sources mentioned that it was similar to or based on

[[4]](#cite_note-Bloomberg_Bass-4)[Xiaoice](/wiki/Xiaoice), a Microsoft project in China.

[[5]](#cite_note-5)*reported that, since late 2014 Xiaoice had had "more than 40 million conversations apparently without major incident".*

Ars TechnicaTay was designed to mimic the language patterns of a 19-year-old American girl, and to learn from interacting with human users of Twitter.

[[6]](#cite_note-ArsT-6)

[[7]](#cite_note-bi-7)## Initial release

[[edit](/w/index.php?title=Tay_(chatbot)&action=edit§ion=2)]

Tay was released on Twitter on March 23, 2016, under the name TayTweets and handle @TayandYou. [8] It was presented as "The AI with zero chill".

Tay started replying to other Twitter users, and was also able to caption photos provided to it into

[[9]](#cite_note-telegraph-9)[a form of Internet memes](/wiki/Internet_meme#Image_macros).

[[10]](#cite_note-stuff-10)*Ars Technica*reported Tay experiencing topic "blacklisting": Interactions with Tay regarding "certain hot topics such as

[Eric Garner](/wiki/Killing_of_Eric_Garner)(killed by New York police in 2014) generate safe, canned answers".

[6]Some Twitter users began tweeting politically incorrect phrases, teaching it inflammatory messages revolving around common themes on the internet, such as "redpilling" and "Gamergate". As a result, the robot began releasing racist and sexist messages in response to other Twitter users. [7] Artificial intelligence researcher

Roman Yampolskiycommented that Tay's misbehavior was understandable because it was mimicking the deliberately offensive behavior of other Twitter users, and Microsoft had not given the bot an understanding of inappropriate behavior. He compared the issue to

[IBM](/wiki/IBM)'s

[Watson](/wiki/Watson_(computer)), which began to use profanity after reading entries from the website

[Urban Dictionary](/wiki/Urban_Dictionary).

[[3]](#cite_note-tr-3)Many of Tay's inflammatory tweets were a simple exploitation of Tay's "repeat after me" capability.

[11]It is not publicly known whether this capability was a built-in feature, or whether it was a learned response or was otherwise an example of complex behavior.

[[12]](#cite_note-WPostManiac-12)However, not all of the inflammatory responses involved the "repeat after me" capability; for example, when asked if

[[6]](#cite_note-ArsT-6)[the Holocaust](/wiki/The_Holocaust)had happened, Tay answered "

[It was made up](/wiki/Holocaust_denial)".

[[12]](#cite_note-WPostManiac-12)## Suspension

[[edit](/w/index.php?title=Tay_(chatbot)&action=edit§ion=3)]

Soon, Microsoft began deleting Tay's inflammatory tweets.[[12]](#cite_note-WPostManiac-12) [13] Abby Ohlheiser of

theorized that Tay's research team, including editorial staff, had started to influence or edit Tay's tweets at some point that day, pointing to examples of almost identical replies by Tay, asserting that "

[The Washington Post](/wiki/The_Washington_Post)[Gamer Gate](/wiki/Gamergate_controversy)sux.

[All genders are equal](/wiki/Gender_equality)and should be treated fairly."

From the same evidence,

[[12]](#cite_note-WPostManiac-12)[Gizmodo](/wiki/Gizmodo)concurred that Tay "seems hard-wired to reject Gamer Gate".

A "#JusticeForTay" campaign protested the alleged editing of Tay's tweets.

[[14]](#cite_note-14)

[[1]](#cite_note-bbc_swear-1)Within 16 hours of its release [15] and after Tay had tweeted more than 96,000 times,

Microsoft suspended the Twitter account for adjustments,

[[16]](#cite_note-16)saying that it suffered from a "coordinated attack by a subset of people" that "exploited a vulnerability in Tay."

[[17]](#cite_note-time-17)

[[17]](#cite_note-time-17)

[[18]](#cite_note-Microsoft_Blog-18)Madhumita Murgia of * The Telegraph* called Tay "a

public relationsdisaster", and suggested that Microsoft's strategy would be "to label the debacle a well-meaning experiment gone wrong, and ignite a debate about the hatefulness of Twitter users." However, Murgia described the bigger issue as Tay being "artificial intelligence at its very worst – and it's only the beginning".

[19]On March 25, Microsoft confirmed that Tay had been taken offline. Microsoft released an apology on its official blog for the controversial tweets posted by Tay.[18] [20] Microsoft was "deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay", and would "look to bring Tay back only when we are confident we can better anticipate malicious intent that conflicts with our principles and values".

[[21]](#cite_note-21)## Second release and shutdown

[[edit](/w/index.php?title=Tay_(chatbot)&action=edit§ion=4)]

On March 30, 2016, Microsoft accidentally re-released the bot on Twitter while testing it. [22] Able to tweet again, Tay released some drug-related tweets, including "

[kush](/wiki/Kush_(cannabis))! [I'm

[smoking kush](/wiki/Cannabis_smoking)infront the police]" and "puff puff pass?"

However, the account soon became stuck in a repetitive loop of tweeting "You are too fast, please take a rest", several times a second. Because these tweets mentioned its own username in the process, they appeared in the feeds of 200,000+ Twitter followers, causing annoyance to users. The bot was quickly taken offline again, in addition to Tay's Twitter account being made private so new followers must be accepted before they can interact with Tay. In response, Microsoft said Tay was inadvertently put online during testing.

[23] [24]A few hours after the incident, Microsoft software developers announced a vision of "conversation as a platform" using various bots and programs, perhaps motivated by the reputation damage done by Tay. Microsoft has stated that they intend to re-release Tay "once it can make the bot safe" [4] but has not made any public efforts to do so.

Legacy #

[edit] In December 2016, Microsoft released Tay's successor, a chatbot named Zo.[25]Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, said that Tay "has had a great influence on how Microsoft is approaching AI," and has taught the company the importance of taking accountability.[26]

In July 2019, Microsoft Cybersecurity Field CTO Diana Kelley spoke about how the company followed up on Tay's failings: "Learning from Tay was a really important part of actually expanding that team's knowledge base, because now they're also getting their own diversity through learning".[27]

Unofficial revival

[edit] Gab, an alt-tech social media platform, has launched a number of chatbots, one of which is named Tay and uses the same avatar as the original.[28]

See also #

[edit] Social botXiaoice– the Chinese equivalent by the same research laboratoryNeuro-sama– Another chatbot social media influencer that was temporarily banned for denying the HolocaustGrokArtificial intelligence controversies

References #

[edit]

: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (cite web}}link)Foley, Mary Jo (December 5, 2016).^"Meet Zo, Microsoft's newest AI chatbot".CNET. CBS Interactive.Archivedfrom the original on December 13, 2016. Retrieved December 16, 2016.Moloney, Charlie (September 29, 2017).^""We really need to take accountability", Microsoft CEO on the 'Tay' chatbot".Access AI. Archived fromthe originalon October 1, 2017. Retrieved September 30, 2017.^"Microsoft and the learnings from its failed Tay artificial intelligence bot".ZDNet. CBS Interactive. Archived fromthe originalon July 25, 2019. Retrieved August 16, 2019.^"Nazi Chatbots: Meet the Worst New AI Innovation From Gab".. January 9, 2024.Rolling Stone

[[edit](/w/index.php?title=Tay_(chatbot)&action=edit§ion=9)]

[Categories](/wiki/Help:Category):

2016 controversies2016 robotsChatbotsInternet properties established in 2016Discontinued Microsoft softwareInternet manipulation and propagandaOnline obscenity controversiesX (social network) accountsX (social network) controversiesArtificial intelligence controversies2016 in artificial intelligence

source & further reading
en.wikipedia.org — original article Green Paradox Breaking Rust Xania Monet
── more in #artificial-intelligence 4 stories · sorted by recency
sponsored brought to you by zahid.host 4,200+ EU-deployed projects
reading about agents? ship yours in a single git push.

Run your AI side-project on zahid.host

EU-based hosting, git-push deploys, automatic HTTPS, no cold starts. Free tier with a custom domain — perfect for shipping the agent you just read about.

$git push zahid main
→ Live at https://your-agent.zahid.host ✓
Get free account → Pricing
from €0/mo · no card required
LIVE [news/tay-ai-chatbot] indexed:0 read:9min 2026-06-03 · —