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Executive Secretary In Every Computer
An anonymous reader writes "BusinessWeek Online just ran an interview with a researcher from Sandia National labs whose team has developed an alternative approach to artificial intelligence. They have come up with a software program that models a computer user's behavior and gives the user advice, corrects his errors or saves files according to the user's own logic. The idea is for computers to learn how to use with users -- instead of vice versa. The software has already been tested with air traffic controllers."
gives the user advice, corrects his errors or saves files
His name is Clippy, and I hate him.
Mike
"It looks like you're trying to land a plane. Would you like lunch?"
"It looks like you're trying to talk to a pilot. Would you like to write a letter to him?"
"It look like you're trying to turn me off. Dave. Don't do that Dave."
Whoah, Glad they tested it with air traffic controllers first. I wouldn't want any drastic mistakes or anything to happen that might send a plane into the ground.. or anything.
- Yes please.
- No, I do not need help landing planes.
- No, and don't show Crashy again.
Click here for other automated flight controller assistants.I want to force it to always save to the mapped E: drive... not where the user wants to save it.
The biggest problem is the user that saves things willy-nilly, relies on editing a spreadsheet in an email and never saves it specifically, etc....
Unless it can be told to force certian behaivoir upon the user to be in line with corperate requirements.... I dont see it as useful and more of another PITA app that makes my life more difficult as a Net/sys admin
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What happens when the user is a sick, twisted and sadistic person. Will the computer adapt to that kind of user?
Great, so now Technical Support / Helpdesk staff will have to learn the individual way everyone's PC is deciding to work when talking people through how to do things !
on a serious note, just having word and excel has replaced many thousands of secretaries already. can anyone out there say that typing is solely a clerical skill like it was 20 years ago?
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
But if the program mimics its users logic does that mean that we will have tech support being called by computers for stupid reasons?
I was thinking about this this very morning, about how my computer should know that I am trying to save a file with a given extension or content and default to a certain directory.
Of course, the annoyance would start when you change your way of doing something, or the computer pre-empts an action which you don't intend to do - You'd have to spend time fixing such problems and wait while the computer re-trains itself.
Sure enough, the article doesn't mention these problems, and how they would be avoided or overcome.
codegolf.com - smaller *is* better.
Probable would work sort of like this.
Mr clippy
--
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
Does that mean that when my mom calls me up for tech support that I'll have to teach her and her computer where the any key is?
Photos.
Not exactly comforting, if you ask me! I expect air traffic controllers to know their systems and how to use them. What happens when this software has learned to compensate for one traffic controller's particular errors, and then suddenly another traffic controller takes over his/her station?
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Helpful software everywhwre? Sweet Jesus!
It's almost as bad as the polite elevators ("Which floor would you like to go to today") in the HHGTTG.
Software should be like God made it: rude, difficult, and flaky. The users need their daily dosage of pain and whom are we to deny this to them? It's the endorphins, man!
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Where's the office comedy going to go without a sassy (often latino, to spice things up) secretary? If windows starts sassing me or using a big thick fake accent, I'm fdisking.
" The idea is for computers to learn how to use with users -- instead of vice versa. "
can someone put that in a "in soviet russia" joke ? I tried but I was too confused.
08:08 AM -- It looks like you're browsing /. /. ... /. ...
Would you like me to refresh the site 10 times a second to give you a few fr1st p05ts?
09:17 AM -- It looks like you're browsing
Again.
Would you like me to answer your phone and tell everyone that you are in a meeting?
09:45 AM -- It looks like you're browsing
Again.
Would you like me to call your wife and tell her you are working late?
And so on...
What, me Tweet?
Remember oliver, the electronic personality extender predicted by Alvin Toffler in "Future Shock"
There's an interesting passage about olivers in John Brunner's excellent novel, "The Shockwave Rider":
"... so-called olivers, electronic alter-egos designed to save the owner the strain of worrying about all his person-to-person contacts. A sort of twenty-first-century counterpart to the ancient Roman nomenclator, who discreetly whispered data into the ear of the emperor and endowed him with the reputation of a phenomenal memory." (pp. 41-42)
-kgj
Great, now the percentage of women working in tech companies will go from 15% down to 2%. Good job, ass.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
"The software has already been tested with air traffic controllers." Nice, safe place they found to beta test their stuff. Something going wrong there is not going to cause any trouble, right?
Wired News has a similar article. Maybe you could just combine the new AI with the cute exterior ofClippy. On the other hand side it would be interesting how much space you have to allocate for the AI database. as far as i remember A.L.I.C.E. needed a quite large AIML file to be just somewhat intelligent. If now the computer should also remeber patterns in behavior and not just talk to you (Alice is a pure chatbot) then in my opinion you need quite large amounts of data to be stored. This could be useful for larger companies with a dedicated AI Server to help their employees (if we talk about AI in a network, why not call ist SKYNET), but on a normal desktop? I think that's too much.
./ today, normally syou surf it for ours during work. Can I help you get there?"
And to focus on another problem: if this thing learns about you behavior, don't you mind about your privacy? We are all paranoid about cookies and other spyware, and then some people actually want us to deliberatly install it? Just imagine: Your boss next to you because you want to show something to him and then the computer asks: "Hi XY, you haven't visited
".Sig Stealer" was here
here is the wired article about it. It's basically 2 pages of "This technology is nothing like Clippy."
In soviet russia, Versa Vice!
;)
Not what you were expecting?
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Tsuyoikoto ha taisetsu da ne, dakedo namida mo hitsuyousa (Strength is an important thing, but tears too are necessary)
"some fear that the concept suggests an ominous encroachment out of a sci-fi movie. Cognitive psychologist Chris Forsythe, who leads the Sandia team, insists that the machines are designed to augment -- not replace -- human activity.
This sort of writing is the result of either a sensational and poorly informed writer, or a company hyping its product way beyond its capabilities. AI has not even reached the Bronze Age yet, and the idea that a concept like this threatens to make humans obsolete is laughable.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
Its an interesting read.
I want my computers to present me with clear and unambiguous output. In return, I will give them as much unambiguous input needed to get the job done. Save the "clever" AI for Doom 3 and let me get back to work.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
>>The software has already been tested with air traffic controllers.
Why did they bother testing it with air traffic controllers when they could have launched it straight onto some low-risk industry, like nuclear power? (Then again maybe we don't want software imitating Homer Simpson's logic.)
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
One nice thing about a good secretary or a personal friend is they will realize when they become annoying and tune themselves down. I think it is essential for this kind of software. Giving advice constantly will inevitably lead to wrong and/or unwanted advice at one point.
ato
your computer was just turned on. Would you like to...
A. Porn
B. Slashdot
So they tested this technology with air traffic controllers to determine if it was safe to implement for PHBs. I believe I would have chosen a different test group.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
It looks like you're trying to land an airplane!
Would you like to find out...
Too late to be known as Bush the First, he's sure to be known as Bush the Worst.
You could also direct it by voice command. I had this program back in the day, heady stuff at the time.
Here's a pile of other stuff on Software Assistants.
...that was originally told about Hollywood types, but can be adapted to IT quite easily.
OK, so this IT company is having its annual retreat somewhere out in the desert, and an engineer and a marketdroid get into an argument about something. They wander off into the desert, and are so into it that they don't realize that they're walking directly into a sandstorm until it's too late. They stumble around blindly, and by the time the sandstorm lets up, they're completely lost.
A few hours later, the sun's directly overhead, vultures are circling, and the two are on their knees, begging God to save them and promising to lead virtuous lives if they could just get something to drink--and *ping*, there's a pitcher of ice-cold beer sitting on a rock. The engineer staggers forward, croaking "We're saved!"
The marketdroid holds him back and strokes his chin, saying "No, wait--the color's all wrong. Tell you what, let me piss in it first to make it look better."
I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into me--and we both winked.
The next killer app, in my opinion, is the application that allows you to not only save content, but also the context
This already exists. It's called The Brain and it's a replacement for standard filesystem browsers. It lets you file and browse anything (files, websites, binaries, etc...) and make your own interconnections between any objects based on your own [twisted] logic.
I've wanted to try it, but it's Windows-only. I've thought about building a simple MySQL app that does something similar, but it wouldn't have the cool 3D Java/ActiveX/whatever object browser that's mocked up on the front page of their website.
Software Error. Of course a document opened from Outlook should be ... READ ONLY ...
... and it was exactly that. It's a serious software and usability flaw in Outlook - and although you can train users to avoid it the real fix is to correct the error in the software.
Yes, my Mom lost a lot of work she had put into making revisions to a document sent to her by a coworker. She called me up and explained how she had done
it's in my head
As it has been pointed out, the concept of an intelligent computer assistant is not new. In addition to the other projects mentioned, Sony is working on a project they call the "Sensing Computer", a PDA-sized device that will contain a software agent that will memorize your data and your usage patterns in everything from your passwords to your friends names and birthdays to your favorite ice cream, and will prompt you when you need info and/or are dealing with the world around you.
Darpa is working on a project under its total information awareness program called "lifelog", where a computer model will be developed of your likes, dislikes, behavior patterns, and everythign about you so that a computer model can be built. This model could then be used to predict behavior or spotlight devations from the norm that may indicate criminal or terrorist activity. Kind of like a predicitive "Big Brother" AI. If this technology comes to pass, it will make Orwell's nightmare look like a shopping mall in comparison.
Read a preview of my novel CYBERCHILD at www.smartalix.com/cyberchild
Yeah, this was obviously written by somebody who has never BEEN an Executive Secretary (or administrative assistant or whatever). You try telling your boss that what he wants today is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what he wanted last week and see how far it gets you. In order to REALLY bury your job be sure to keep notes and feed his own words back to him.
Dave, I noticed you opened up the cd tray, would you like some coffee?
Dave, I don't have an any key.
Dave, your boss has sent an email, should I make it look like you replied afer normall working hours?
Dave, I noticed several banners and pop-ups, so I click on them for you.
Dave, Based on the web sites you visit, I have ordered you some penis enlargement pills.
Dave, I just made you rich by emails the Minister of Finances widow your bank account.
Dave, Based on your emails, I ordered you a package from Hormel.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It looks like a 747 is about to crash. Would you like to...
Go hug some trees.
Oh, I'd say AI that lands a plane is killer app enough for anyone.
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
The idea is for computers to learn how to use with users -- instead of vice versa.
.... Ok, then just double click on "My Computer".
::click::
I can just imagine tech support phone calls:
Tech: Ok, now tap Ctrl-Esc to bring up your start menu.
Customer: Oh... I usually don't do that.
Tech: Ok then, just click on it with your mouse.
Customer: My start menu dissappeared because I never click on it.
Tech: Then what DO you do?
Customer: Oh I forget... Apple-Shift-V? Wait... no...
Tech:
Customer: Oh! That! I usually just pound on the left side of my keyboard until it comes up, but I broke it yesterday so I only have the mouse. But I never used my mouse before to do that so moving it just shuts down my computer.
Tech: