Slashdot Mirror
AskJeeves Interview
laborit writes "FNwire has posted an interview with Jeeves of ask.com. Evidently that "unique natural language engine with a proprietary knowledgebase isn't too great for questions like "bees? I don't understand." " Check out the archived pdf of this for more information.
Q: First Post !t m
A: Where can I find the newspaper Washington Post ?
Q: R j00 31337 ?
A: Where can I read parents' reviews of rated R rated movies and videos?
Q: Natalie Portman with Hot Gritz ?
A: What movies and/or TV shows has Natalie Portman been in?
Q: Star Wars !
A: What are consumers saying about videos and DVDs ?
Q: MPAA suxors! DeCSS r00lz !
A: What does the computing term DeCSS mean ?
Q: Itz a 1337 crack that lets you play DVDz under Linux !
A: Where can I find FAQs on Linux ?
Q: Slashdot sux !
A: Where can I find news for nerds?
Q: SLASHDOT SUX, PH00L !
A: AOL SUX pyramid home page
Q: A0L iz 1337 you st00pid open source nerd !
A: Am I a nerd?
Q: j00 R 4 57up1D n3rDz
A: Where can I read parent's reviews of Rated R movies and videos?
Q: You seem to like those, don't you?
A: Jeeves may not know the answer to your question.
Q: Heh. Jeeves does pr0n.
A: How can I use Ask Jeeves?
Q: Jeeves wants to 'use' himself.
A: Ask Jeeves for kids!
Q: Is Jeeves perverted?
A: Myth: Ask Jeeves is an Answer Database
Q: FIRST POST!
A: Where can I find the newspaper Washington Post ?
Q: Do u d0 CmdrTaco's mom?
A: Modem Init Strings
Q: did u cybersex Taco's mom ?
A: Is cybersex cheating ?
Q: U better hope not !
A: Jeeves may not know the answer to your question.
Q: What is wrong with Jeeves?
A: Where can I find investor relations information for Ask Jeeves?
Q: Ah. Troubles with the 570cK |\/|4rK37?
A: Where can I watch an online video tutorial on software bugs?
Q: www.microsoft.com/misc/data/servervulnerability.h
A: Jeeves may not know the answer to your question.
Q: What OS are you using?
A: Mac Os 7.6
Q: That's why you're so friendly.
A: Friends
Q: That's also why you're totally incompetent.
A: Duh?
Q: Are you gay?
A: Is Jeeves gay?
Q: Is Jeeves gay?
A: Error 429: File is none of your business.
Well, that about sums up this interview, where we put Slashdot up to Jeeves. And in the end, Slashdot won. Who's to say that open source doesn't have some advantages?
Is Jeeves well endowed?
The answer is way to geeky/funny.
-Davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
I say have your lawyer write'em a letter...
As for my (admittedly generalist) claims about their customer service, if repeated emails don't even get a cursory acknowledgement (I asked them in the last one to please at least acknowledge that someone had actually read the email), how can you claim to have anything resembling decent customer support? Amazon, Yahoo, and most all of the other successful sites have cheerful and intelligent people on the other end of the line. My experience to date says that this is something that Ask Jeeves lacks...I'm guessing from the quality of their search results that others have run into similar problems getting questions pertaining to them properly answered.
Your mileage may vary; alternate opinions / experiences accepted.
David E. Weekly
David E. Weekly
Code / Think / Teach / Learn
h4x0r for
---
After Joseph Weizenbaum wrote ELIZA, the Rogerian therapist, Kenneth Colby wrote PARRY, a simulation of a paranoid schizophrenic.It wasn't long before someone connected the two programs to each other.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Reading this reminds me of the funny sessions that one can have with Eliza or Dr. Sbaitso. Questions and answers that are almost completely unrelated to one another, except for the occaisonaly hilarious coincidence.
For those who never met him, Dr. Sbaitso was a program included with some of the early SoundBlaster 16 kits. It was basically, as near as I can tell, a derivative of Eliza. It actually talked, though! It was a demo program for the mediocre text to speech software that came with the kit. I think (guess) Sbaitso stood for Sound Blaster Artificial Intelligence Talking .
-Matt
-Cheetah
Anyone try that whole string of comments again and see if the answers are the same? I did, and I got some different answers. Funny, since it basically queries other search engines, and I wouldn't think these databases would change so quickly.
I wonder if it has some kind of algorithm to try to "learn" as people ask it questions, based on what answers they end up clicking or something like that.
Anyone know?
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
You asked: Can you answer a question with a simple yes or no?
9 matches by Excite - Are You Insane?
--Shoeboy
"For instance the questions "Where can I buy an Ethernet cable" should take you to a site like Pricewatch and not to CompUSA in order to get the best deal.
Ahem, you can buy ethernet cable at CompUSA. That makes it a "correct" answer. If you had asked "Where can I find the best price on ethernet cable" then you might have a point.
On pricewatch, the ethernet cables which are under "other - cables" rather than my first guess of "networking - other" I would also need to know that ethernet cables can be found under both the "cat5" category and "10BT" (real meaningful distinction) Then I have to select a product based on bad descriptions from the retailer. Then I have to visit the dealers site. Then I have to find the product. Okay for me, but not OK for my mom.
And let's be honest here, a search for "where can I buy ethernet cable" should take me to a page that says "steal it from your employer" as that's what we all do, right?
--Shoeboy
I think the search engine came out looking better than the human interviewer. Certainly had the best snappy comebacks :
Interviewer (losing temper) : [...] answer the question
Jeeves : gas face - Ask And Ye Shan't Receive.
Yes, but when we noun our verbs, and verb our nouns, use certain punctuation, questions can be interpreted in many forms. Is sorta the bane of english's existance...
---
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I bet ask jeeves would understand any question if it could understand complex statements where verbs and nouns and splices were programmed in. Ask J is a pumped up eliza that can associate questions to certain answers and give a range of answers. Just like any search engine response: it is as good as the questions asked, the language it interprets as well as the questions it was programmed for. maybe "is jevees gay" is a question better saught out at www.google.com
---
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I just pointed it at my home page - check this shit out!
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
it's flamer. Flamer.
--
+&x
And here the AC has demonstrated exactly how Ask Jeeves is defective.
Why is it that Jeeves can only answer questions with more questions? What is with the third degree? When I ask someone something, software or otherwise, I seek an answer not more questions.
I'm asking the questions, here, Jeeves.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
I posted a somewhat lengthy related piece to AskSlashdot (which has yet to be either accepted OR rejected) about an idea i had called "Ask Gneeves" which would be an open-source alternative to Ask Jeeves. Unfortunately, I have lost the text, so that the copy lingering in the /. limbo is the only one that exists.
/.-like moderation system along with some kind of open-source language parser AND the resources of the Open Directory Project to create the ultimate user-friendly search engine.
But here's the long and short of it. Using software that I developed for my current project (Catalyst Recruiting, see my sig), I thought it would be pretty easy to beat Ask Jeeves by creating a user-friendly but 100% open source alternative to Ask Jeeves. The idea would be to borrow a
I'll try and find the original text. In the interim I have thrown together a very preliminary sketch of code that I is available at http://www.gneeves.org
Let me know if there is interest in pursuing this...
Eric
Can your IM do this?
Do they have some sort of filtering for people who ask "Where can I find microsoft.com" that are too dumb to just type it in themselves?
Why do they even bother reporting on the results since they could just forward these people right to the proper server???
Wheeeee
But that always takes you to the original URL, not the URL of the page that's trying to break out.
--
The shareholder is always right.
I asked it "What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?"
It answered "Life insurance.."
I think Jeeves is a little depressed...
I've been trying to figure out why AskJeeves gets so much press. It's probably just the name, and the idea of a natural language query. It's certainly not because it works. I've used it many, many times and I don't know if I've ever gotten an answer to my question. (Why did I use it? Really just to see if the stupid thing would work.) It's nice to see the aggregated results, but other sites (like Dogpile) work better and don't frame the results like AJ does.
All in all, a good idea that still doesn't work too good. -db
Oh come on, that's bloody egoistical don't you think? You expect them to create an entry for, and index the homepage of every person who asks?
that the attitude (and relevance) of my treatment is endemic to how they treat everyone.
How so? If you're going to make claims like that, you'll have to provide a better example than them refusing to index your home page.
====
Bub: Ouch! The meal that burns you twice. Ever try chicken kashmiri?
Well, no Bub, that sounds awfully kinky to me.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
In the parody interview with Jeeves when asked Why you little...that's just like a search engine. Ask a question and get no answer.
Jeeves responds with Myth: Ask Jeeves Is An Answer Database.
Actually asking Jeeves almost any negative question about himself brings about a snappy response.
Don't blame it on Jeeves, blame it on the people that Jeeves asks... Altavista, Yahoo, Excite... It doesn't seem like the big J does much of his own work... he just asks other sites.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
(But thou shalt! How darest thou ignoreth My most Holy Suggestion? ;-)
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
For a slightly less censored view of the average internet user, check out MetaSpy. Be careful, though; it's highly addictive. A friend of mine even went so far as to write a little program that retrieved new searches and scrolled them past in a little ticker-tape window just so he wouldn't miss anything.
-x1r0k3wl
YES!!! No longer will I have to troll on Slashdot to get attention online! I no longer seek out negative attention with my posts, because I have found a warm and caring girl who wishes to talk to me.
Thank you for introducing me to Alice...although it looks like me and her might "just be friends"
>Could you have cybersex with me
Possibly, but I haven't given it much thought.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I should note that it actually links to Ned Fielden's Personal homepage. Under his personal Section's "Habits, Eccentricities, Salacious Gossip" http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~fielden
-Compenguin
The Jedi of the Prequels
Hey there everybody - I built "The Simulator" - the "cold shower" easter egg at Ask Jeeves. I'll prove it by changing the diary to point to a different email.
Signatures are available for a small fee. My company is going public, and I'm using my proprietary burger-flipping code as the basis of an E-Commerce engine.
True, but I don't like to use JavaScript if I don't have to -- especially since a lot of people have JavaScript disabled (or, and this is especially poignant for a classic computers site, can't run JavaScript.) I prefer to limit my JavaScript usage to stuff where the page is demonstrably better for it.
So, as far as I'm concerned, I shouldn't have to increase my file size and put in unnecessary complexities just because ask.com wants to make money at my expense.
But silly me, I'm one of those weirdos who resents having to put bars on my windows, not being able to walk downtown at night, and having to learn about firewalls.
And therein lies the rub. That's why I haven't done anything about it (except recommend against using AskJeeves to my clients, friends, family, etc.)
The big guy always wins, because the little guy doesn't have the time or the resources to fight it.
The issue here is not deep linking; I don't mind (for this site, especially) deep linking. If someone is looking for information about the Sharp PC-5000, the Radio Shack Model 100, or the Iasis Computer in a Book, they should be able to find it directly. I just don't want them to have to put up with an annoying banner ad (that isn't helping to support the site even!) while they get it.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Question: What is the title of Stephen Hawking's latest book?
Answer: Columbine geek nerd chickclickers Pinkerton my newest book is called Geeks.
You see how much more useful the K-bot would be as a condescending search engine, rather than as a condescending feature writer?
Do it now, guys, before somebody writes it in Python and calls it the Squishbot!
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
Ok, this one just Cracked me up!
"Where can I find the auction site Amazon.com? "
Someone actually ASKED this?!?!?! How stupid can you get....
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Give it a peek: peek.
-- www.bteg.com | bleh.n3.net | hac47.dhs.org
My name is Treat Warland, I'm the editor of The FNwire, and I created the Ask Jeeves interview. A few people emailed to tell me Slashdot was discussing this piece, and I see a couple have stated it was faked or a hoax. It was not faked. Each question and answer is quite real, as it notes at the top of the story.
I can understand why you'd think otherwise. Most of our stuff, as our disclaimer states, is parody/satire/false. But when we have something that isn't, we point it out.
I read also that somebody said they tried the same questions and did not get the same answers. I haven't tried that myself, and can't explain it if the answers are different, unless their database changes quite often. Most of you would undoubtedly know much more about that than I.
Thanks,
Treat
OK, I know this sounds like a troll, but it's true: Go to Jeeves and ask "will you blow me" (or any of a number of similar propositions)....
The first hit that comes up, "Wouldn't you rather take a nice, cold shower," is amusing enough in and of itself, but clicking it will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Jeeves staff has too much time on their hands.
Make sure you have a spare 15 minutes or so before trying this....
--
It's not so much that I'm whining about them not specifically indexing my homepage as that it is that I feel that the attitude (and relevance) of my treatment is endemic to how they treat everyone. Namely, that they give ridiculously erroneous answers and seem to have no interest in changing that.
Bloody hell, Jeeves. You're fired.
David E. Weekly
David E. Weekly
Code / Think / Teach / Learn
h4x0r for
This pisses me off, since people then assume they're looking at content owned/developed/posted/etc. by ask.com. They, of course, don't pay me for this, nor have they asked permission. What makes it worse is that they have their banner add on top, and I certainly do not want unrelated banner ads "on" my site.
Wasn't this (wrapping someone else's content in your frameset so it was unclear where the content came from) ruled illegal (I seem to remember a case involving the New York Times having its content web-napped by another site.)
Anyway, the conceit on the part of Ask.com -- to think that they can just slap their name on someone else's carefully crafted site design -- is incredible. Almost as outrageous as my own. And don't they owe me at least a portion of the revenue they've generated by adding banners to my site?
Am I alone in this, or does it piss others off too?
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Try asking this question to Jeeves :
"Does Jeeves have an evil twin?"
and then click on the first "ask" button beside where that question will be written...
lots of fun for the whole family
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
The problems with Ask Jeeves are two-fold:
1) They only have a few paid editors who try and compile the list of questions and answers
2) They in general only provide a single link to a question that they already know the answer to. Big companies provide big money to make sure that their resource is listed first/exclusively and these big sites are not always the best sources of information. For instance the questions "Where can I buy an Ethernet cable" should take you to a site like Pricewatch and not to CompUSA in order to get the best deal.
The Open-source community can solve this problem easily. We allow anyone who wants to to submit question-and-answer pairs, and then we allow end-users to vote (or should we call it moderate?) on which answers are best suited to each question. Thus, the system grows as a result of its users activity, and is not really subject to editorial control. Even less editorial control that Slashdot, believe it or not.
So, here's my question. I am currently too busy with other projects (although one of them such as enzyme.sourceforge.net, the engine that backs Catalyst Recruiting has a lot of related code) to really speahead and maintain this project. I have, however, purchased the domain names that will be necessary to make it work: askgneeves.com (this time the N is silent). Anyone out there interested in working on it? Anyone think it's even a good idea? Is someone already doing this? I think that pretty soon we could have an open-source product that would be useful to 90% of the clueless users out there.
Can your IM do this?
Jeeves, is this the first post?
Why is the universe here? -Well, where else would it be?
It says quite a bit about the typical internet user. Or at least the ones reduced to asking an AI for advice.
You can certainly tell when the kids are at the computer, and their parents are out of the room.
--
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
I liked that one so much, I conducted my own! Jeeves can never be too busy. Here we go:
... We Don't Care!
Interview with the Search Engine 2 (All these answers to my Qs are REAL! Go ask Jeeves yourself - a little scrolling and searching may be required.)
Q: Hello, Jeeves.
A: Ask Jeeves
Q: This isn't a question time.
A: That's the million dollar question, isn't it? (NT)
Q: No, it's not a question at all.
A: Sunday School Lessons. These lessons have groups talking.
Q: Don't go off the subject!
A: If You Don't Get It
Q: That's rude.
A: Why Hate Someone?
Q: OK, down to business. I want to talk.
A: Be my friend
Q: *Ahem*... What do you think about the economy?
A: It's Me!
Q: No it isn't.
A: Money isn't everything
Q: Okay, then, how about the homeless?
A: What can I do to help people who are homeless?
Q: Oh yes, you're a butler. Is there really anything you can do?
A: I'd Do Anything
Q: But you can't. Next question: Will you run for president?
A: Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me
Q: You're a loony.
A: Welcome to the Loony Bin
Q: No, this is an interview, not a party.
A: interview with the vampires
Q: Who?
A: Who am I?
Q: Do you have a case of amnesia?
A: fleeting_memories
Q: I'm sure. Do you have any final comments?
A: Stern backs Trump - more or less
Q: Really?
A: Who Really Launched 1000 Ships?
Q: Are you asking me to tell you that you did?
A: Help My Kids Are Asking Me Questions!
Q: I'm not your kid, you silly booger!
A: You're still looking at me!!!
Q: Okay then. Goodbye.
A: OH NO! There is more!
Q: What is it?
A: Tell Elvis We Said Hello
Q: Right. Goodbye.
A: World Says Goodbye
Hope you liked it!
--
OK, I've been working on this concept for a long time, so nobody laugh.
People navigating the internet need the assistance of a friendly, helpful assistant, who will respond to questions posed in plain English (or American, etc.). By interacting with this fictional personality, users will develop a relationship which will lead them back to the service again and again (Kaching!).
So that leads me to....askFabio.com. Rather than interact with some musty old butler, why not pose questions to a real, live hunk of man? (or hunk of woman; we should have a lively selection of celebrities).
The idea is that, instead of expecting some helpful and unbiased advice, which is the last thing we would expect from a celebrity, users will instead gratify their need for attention by receiving virtual responses from real famous people. After all, if they're famous, they don't have to be right!
The cunning business strategy which I will employ is to harness each celebrity's gift for self-promotion within the actual neural engine. Fabio, for instance, will slyly slip references to his own line of Harlequin romances into each response to "literature" or "paper" , or any other related term. AskGeorgeForeman.com will, of course, scarcely ever forget to mention George's line of healthy, fat-reducing grills.
Anyone expecting more detailed information will risk losing the attention of the highly popular personality, and being relegated to a bunch of lesser-known search engines. By this method of inducement, customers will quickly learn to lower their ridiculous expectations, and contribute to healthy, growing business model!
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
I wrote an article very similar to this for a short-lived, now-defunct website called Cyberdelia. Cyberdelia was a tech/geek humor site, and I, well, interviewed the Ask Jeeves search engine for it. I'm not at all surprised that someone might have the same idea that I did, but I am surprised that they would have it this far into Ask Jeeves' existence (our article was written about the time the Ask Jeeves hype started).
Maybe I'm just paranoid... or maybe I'm just pissed I didn't post my article to Slashdot a year ago.
Bah,
-x1r0k3wl
P.S. Oh and for the record, none of Jeeves' answers were altered for my article... I always just took his first response.
Is Jeeves gay?
Haven't seen that error before.