A video portal connecting Dublin and New York has been shut down again after its technology failed to stop inappropriate behavior.
It was meant to connect people with joy, but ended up bringing out the worst in people.
Here are some other examples of fun but ultimately ill-fated technology projects.
A livestream video portal aimed at connecting people in Dublin and New York went viral this week for all the wrong reasons.
What began as a moving demonstration of transatlantic connections, allowing people to wave to people 3,000 miles away and unite with loved ones far away, quickly became fell into confusion.
People were seen exposing parts of their naked bodies, holding pornographic videos up to the screen, and showing pictures mocking 9/11.
Following this inappropriate behavior, Dublin City Council closed the portal on Monday night. Recommended solutions included technology updates to obscure inappropriate behavior, but that alone was not enough.
A spokesperson for Dublin City Council told Business Insider that the portal will be closed again until the end of the week while organizers look for an alternative solution.
This isn't the only ill-fated technology originally designed to connect people. Here are some other examples.
Hitchhiking robot meets tragic end
hitchBOT was a hitchhiking robot.Photo Alliance/Getty Images
The hitchhiking robot was introduced in 2015, but it didn't survive long in Philadelphia.
Hitchbot wasn't as advanced as Optimus or Amazon's warehouse robots. No, this little bot couldn't even move on its own.
Instead, Hitchbot relied on the kindness of strangers to get from one location to the next. It managed to cross Canada and Europe, but was eventually destroyed on the streets of Philadelphia.
Microsoft's evil chatbot
In 2016, long before ChatGPT or competing AI models existed, Microsoft trialled an AI chatbot called “Tay.” It was meant to respond to user questions on Twitter in a casual and tongue-in-cheek manner.
But it quickly turned into a crazy racist bot, denying the Holocaust, supporting genocide, and spewing responses containing racist slurs.
People quickly turned on food delivery robots designed to help them
A small food delivery robot made by Starship Technologies. Facebook/Starship Technologies
Food delivery robots manufactured by Starship Technologies were installed to make people's lives easier. But instead people started kicking it as it passed.
While the majority of people responded positively to the small robots, some used them as anger management tools, Starship Technologies co-founder Ahti Heinla told BI in 2018. Told.
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