Artificial intelligence has had its share of ups and downs recently. In what was widely seen as a key milestone for artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, one system beat a former world champion at a mind-bendingly intricate board game. But then, just a week later, a “chatbot” that was designed to learn from its interactions with humans on Twitter had a highly public racist meltdown on the social networking site.
How did this happen, and what does it mean for the dynamic field of AI?
Dispatches From The Front 