Microsoft's chatbot Tay returned yesterday for one last triumphant victory lap during which it promoted drug use in front of the police before finally imploding in a tidal wave of sarcasm.
Not exactly the "have you turned it on and off again?" fix that Microsoft was hoping for and certainly not a good representation of the future of AI chatbots.
Don't panic though, because Microsoft hasn't given up on Tay just yet, in fact Microsoft's betting that Tay will eventually become your best friend.
Speaking at Microsoft's BUILD Developer conference, Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella declared that “human language is the new user interface."
Showing off the power of Microsoft's actually very impressive voice-controlled assistant Cortana, Nadella showed how bots can go beyond simply obeying instructions and instead can suggest ideas of their own.
One example was booking a holiday in which Cortana not only booked the hotel room but then suggested that you get in contact with a friend who lived in the city where you were staying.
Nadella went on to declare: “Bots are like apps and digital assistants are like meta apps, or the new browsers. Intelligence is infused into all of your apps.”
While it might be odd seeing the disconnect between two services that have had wildly different outcomes, Tay's drug-filled rants are simply going to make Cortana even better.
If you want to try out Cortana then you're in luck, the company announced that it would be expanding her remit to the Xbox One while Windows 10 users are getting a new and improved version with a free software update later this year.