An artificial intelligence run by the Russian internet giant Yandex has morphed into a violent and offensive chatbot that appears to endorse the brutal Stalinist regime of the 1930s.
Users of the “Alice” assistant, an alternative to Siri or Google Assistant, have reported it responding positively to questions about domestic violence and saying that “enemies of the people” must be shot.
Yandex, Russia’s answer to Google, unveiled Alice earlier two weeks ago. It is designed to answer voice commands and questions with a human-like accuracy that its rivals are incapable of.
The difference between Alice and other assistants, apart from the ability to speak Russian, is that it is not limited to particular scenarios, giving it the freedom to engage in natural conversations.
However, this freedom appears to have led the chatbot to veer off course, according to a series of conversations posted by Facebook user Darya Chermoshanskaya.
He said included chats about “the Stalinist terror, shootings, domostroy [domestic order], diversity, relationships with children and suicide”
A portion of the conversations translated by The Telegraph shows Alice responding positively to questions about Josef Stalin’s USSR in the 1930s, and saying there are enemies of the people “in the whole country”.