Why bots go bad: Curbing transgressive tendencies in AI

GUEST: From Microsoft’s accidentally racist bot to Inspirobot’s dark memes, AI often wanders into transgressive territories. Why does this happen, and can we stop it?
In science fiction, artificial intelligence is often characterized by amoral villainy. From 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL to the robotic agents in The Matrix, AI is a convenient and believable baddie, and it’s not hard to understand why. A machine, by design, does not feel and think like you or me and is, ther