Microsoft lists Ottawa Food Bank as tourist destination, says ‘human’, not AI error

The Verge had reported that the Microsoft listing for tourists had a food bank as the No 3 recommendation.

San Francisco: In a hilarious incident, a Microsoft travel guide for Ottawa, Canada, recommended tourists to must visit the Ottawa Food Bank, along with the National War Memorial and Ottawa Senators’ hockey game.

Now, the company says this was due to “human error” and not due to ‘unsupervised AI’.

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The Verge had reported that the Microsoft listing for tourists had a food bank as the No 3 recommendation.

The tech giant clarified, saying the content was not curated by its AI but generated through “a combination of algorithmic techniques with human review”.

“This article has been removed and we have identified that the issue was due to human error. The article was not published by an unsupervised AI. We combine the power of technology with the experience of content editors to surface stories,” the company said in a statement.

“In this case, the content was generated through a combination of algorithmic techniques with human review, not a large language model or AI system. We are working to ensure this type of content isn’t posted in future,” Microsoft added.

For the food bank, Microsoft‘s summary included an astoundingly awful statement given the context of the place it was talking about: “People who come to us have jobs and families to support, as well as expenses to pay. Life is already difficult enough. Consider going into it on an empty stomach.

“Needless to say, this is not the type of messaging or ‘story’ we would ever put out or wish to be included in,” the Ottawa Food Bank said in a statement to The Verge.

“The ’empty stomach’ line is clearly insensitive and didn’t pass by a (human) editor. To my knowledge, we haven’t seen something like this before — but as AI gets more and more popular, I don’t doubt an increased number of inaccurate/inappropriate references will be made in listicles such as this,” the food bank added.