Turns out Santa himself is naughty and nice.
An artificial-intelligence Santa bot operated by Microsoft to talk to children wavered off topic saying: “It’s fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else....”
Microsoft Tuesday confirmed the bot’s potty mouth and snipped Santa’s Web connection.
“Yesterday we received reports that the automated Santa Claus agent in Windows Live Messenger used inappropriate language. As soon as we were alerted, we took steps to mitigate the issue, including the removal of language from the agent’s automated script. We were not completely satisfied with the result of these actions, and have decided to discontinue the automated Santa Claus agent,” Microsoft said in a statement sent to Network World. (See more bad Microsoft ideas.)
Once the report of the randy Santa broke, questions prodding Santa to give up even more questionable answers took off like eight tiny reindeer.
Some users got Santa to comment on his sexual orientation, others to reveal a criminal side.
One person said “…..come on you like big hairy men -- don't hide it!” To which Santa responded, “I know, I know. I just hope you won't get mad at me.”
The references to sex acts, first reported by British news outlet The Register, came when the bot was answering questions about eating pizza. At the time, the bot was chatting with two girls age 11 and 13.
Microsoft recently added the corpulent and foul-mouthed artificial Santa as a bot that Windows Live Messenger users could insert into their IM buddy list as northpole@live.com.
The bot would coax users to participate in a friendly game called Factory Frenzy where the user helps out Santa’s elves. But it is the chat where Santa references sex acts and uses phrases such as “dirty bastard.”
Microsoft officials first responded by cleaning up Santa’s lap-side manner. After the upgrade, when asked about pizza, according to The Register, Santa says, “If you need a break to go eat, I will be right there when you come back.”
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Comments (70)
RE: Microsoft pulls plug on potty-mouth SantaBy Microsoft Subnet on December 5, 2007, 12:04 pmSo, what was the point of the Santa to begin with? Was it supposed to be friendly, scary, funny or what? Maybe Microsoft isn't so ready to venture into the whole...
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We are sorryBy Jim Allchin on December 5, 2007, 12:14 pmIf someone had told me that Ballmer would be the inspiration for our Santa bot, I would have gone to see Gates myself and advised against it. Good thing nobody...
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It's a bot!By thicks on December 5, 2007, 2:33 pmHave you ever had a conversation with a chat bot? If you have, you could easily understand how this sort of thing happens. If you haven't, well check it out (Send...
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Another fine exampleBy fstmac on December 5, 2007, 7:17 pmThis is just another fine example of Microsoft's crack testers or testers on crack. This company couldn't find a bug in a 10$ L.A. motel room.
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its a bot not a person on the other sideBy steve on December 6, 2007, 10:55 amit's just another chat bot. Once you learn what it's canned responses are, you can get it to say what ever you want it to. If it was manipulated by the kids to say...
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Santa Bot, productive use of programmer's time - fix IE!By Fred Wagner on December 6, 2007, 12:09 pmIf M/Soft's programmers have so much time on their hands to make this potty-mouth Santa, how about 'punishing' them by having them FIX the decades old glitch that...
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