Microsoft is at it again with a new Artificially Intelligent (AI) chatbot months after their disastrous launch of "Tey" an AI chatbot that went haywire after a day of interacting with people on social media platform Twitter. This time, Microsoft intends to equip chatbots with emotional intelligence.
According to Techcrunch, Microsoft's new AI chatbot named "Zo," is the software giant's second attempt at an English-speaking AI chatbot. the company has two other AI chatbots that managed to stay live longer than Tay: One is Xiaoice in China, and the other is Rinna in Japan.
Microsoft officially outs another AI chatbot, called Zo https://t.co/U8ZKSawZfh by @riptari
— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) December 14, 2016
Xiaoice was launched in 2014 on China's social platform and now has over 40 million followers, and is the fist AI chatbot to have a real TV broadcasting job in one of China's biggest TV stations, according to Microsoft. Rinna, on the other hand, has had regular conversations with 20 percent of Japan's population since she launched in 2015.
For now, Zo is only available on kik messenger, but Microsoft intends to make the AI chatbot available on other social media platform like Skype and Facebook Messenger. Like its predecessor, Zo is using social interaction as a way to learn human interaction.
Microsoft's first AI chatbot Tay -- who was launched earlier this year -- started releasing racist and sexually-charged messages on Twitter after Twitter users "taught" her. Tay was immediately shut down after a day of being launched into the social media platform.
According to Microsoft, Zo was constructed with the use of social content from the internet, and learns from human interactions in order to respond with emotional and intellectual considerations, making her slightly more human-like than Tay. Microsoft also mentions that Zo is equipped with strong checks and balances to protect her from human exploitation.
Microsoft also mentions that Zo already held conversations with over 100,000 people, with 5,000 users able to hold hour-long conversations with Zo. Zo also holds Microsoft's longest continual chatbot conversation that lasted 9 hours and 53 minutes.
