Microsoft was almost sued by Taylor Swift for its controversial “Tay” chatbot

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Published onSeptember 11, 2019

published onSeptember 11, 2019

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After months of testing and tweaking,Microsoft brought over the Chinese chatbot XiaoIce to the United Statesin the Spring of 2016 and the company learned some very valuable lessons in a short amount of time, one of them being, pop star Taylor Swift was not a fan.

Chief among Microsoft’s learning lessons with its conversational chatbot known as XioaIce in China and Tay in the United States was that teenagers from the two different nations interacted with the AI-powered services quite differently. In China, some teenagers developed a genuinely reciprocal relationship with the chatbot where upwards of a quarter of an hour was spent sharing personal information with it.

However, in the US, Tay faired much worse, especially when exposed to individuals on Twitter. In a shockingly short amount of time, Tay went from an unjudgmental listening service by design to a hate-spewing racist reciting verbiage it was fed repeatedly from users gaming the algorithm.

Not only did Microsoft have a problem with the way Tay was evolving, but apparently before the company ultimately pulled the plug on the experiment it was about to have issues with the trademark savvy legal team of pop star Taylor Swift.

According toa report from The Guardian, Microsoft President Brad Smith said Taylor Swift’s legal team contacted him via email to inform him that the company’s Tay chatbot name was in violation of federal and state laws having to deal with the pop stars applied trademark.

“I was on vacation when I made the mistake of looking at my phone during dinner. An email had just arrived from a Beverly Hills lawyer who introduced himself by telling me: ‘We representTaylor Swift, on whose behalf this is directed to you. He went on to state that ‘the name Tay, as I’m sure you must know, is closely associated with our client.’ No, I actually didn’t know, but the email nonetheless grabbed my attention. The lawyer went on to argue that the use of the name Tay created a false and misleading association between the popular singer and our chatbot and that it violated federal and state laws,” Smith adds.

For the moment, it’s unclear at what point in Tay’s US release the email was sent or whether or not the entire experiment was yanked due to the potential of a lengthy legal battle that would pit Microsoft against some of its younger user base.

Nevertheless, Tay was shut down and the Taylor Swift incident remains just a cautionary anecdote for Smith and his upcoming fourth book titledTools and Weapons. Tay was only available in the US fora brief 18 hoursbefore it was shelved.

Kareem Anderson

Networking & Security Specialist

Kareem is a journalist from the bay area, now living in Florida. His passion for technology and content creation drives are unmatched, driving him to create well-researched articles and incredible YouTube videos.

He is always on the lookout for everything new about Microsoft, focusing on making easy-to-understand content and breaking down complex topics related to networking, Azure, cloud computing, and security.

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Kareem Anderson

Networking & Security Specialist

He is a journalist from the bay area, now living in Florida. He breaks down complex topics related to networking, Azure, cloud computing, and security

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Microsoft was almost sued by Taylor Swift for its controversial “Tay” chatbot