Table 1.

Examples of failed chatbots and reasons behind failure.

Chatbot	Reasons for Failure
Lawbot: created by Cambridge University students to help victims of sexual assault navigate the legal system 39	Emotionally insensitive Overly strict checklist to determine what a crime is Can discourage users from seeking help Directs users to local police station but not to support services 40
Newsbots: In 2016, several news agencies sought to create bots that personalised content and opened up new audiences 38	Significant resources required for maintenance Did not sync with existing formats, delivery or distribution of news content Lacked sophistication to personalise content effectively Minimal input from journalists during development 38
Poncho: Weather chatbot using Facebook Messenger with a sassy cartoon cat as the front41,43	Sending users unrelated information Not understanding words it should, e.g. ‘weekend’ 41,43
Tay: Microsoft chatbot trained via crowdsourced input on Twitter 44	Shut down after 24 h for producing racist, sexist, anti-Semitic tweets Public able to influence outputs as minimal human supervision provided 44