Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Digital 'Ghosts' To Guide Students On Campus

Posted by timothy on from the my-school-had-undead-staffers-ahead-of-time dept.

Hambone.dk writes "The students at Copenhagen's new IT University will soon be guided by invisible, but talkative digital agents, known as ghosts or Disembodied Location-specific Conversational Agents. The ghosts are to compete amongst themselves for privileges such as better vocabulary or the ability to clone themselves. Ignored ghosts can die out completely. This project is a lot more serious than it sounds at face value - several papers have been published already."

7 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Nearly-Headless-Nick or Peeves ? by Space+cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What's to stop these ghosts being maliciously "trained" to give the wrong answer... I remember a teacher at college (Mr Tittershill), who was routinely used in a joke on freshers (report to Mr Boobershill at the senior common room, NOW! ...)

    Is it only me who first thinks of "how to game the system" when presented with a new technology ? Perhaps I should have been a hacker :-)) [note to US authorities - this is a joke, and I have no intention of committing any crimes (cyber- or otherwise) when visiting the USA]

    Simon

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
    1. Re:Nearly-Headless-Nick or Peeves ? by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, if it's a true learning system, nothing, of course. But if you've got competition, then either you'll need a large body of people to make sure the badly trained ghost stays fresh and popular, or it will get ignored and "die".

      For this sort of project I think you actually NEED people to try and abuse the system. If it's well designed, it'll help it get smarter. If it's poorly designed, then, at least, they'll be able to tell.

      Mind you, I think the whole think will fail for lack of computing power, though I think it sounds cool.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  2. Great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Get ready for the Marketing Ghosts assaulting you on every street corner...

    I can barely wait...

    1. Re:Great. by lionchild · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Get ready for the Marketing Ghosts assaulting you on every street corner... There's an upside to that: If you ignore them enough, they die off...unlike current marketing firms.

      --
      Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
  3. feelings??? right. by blue_adept · · Score: 5, Insightful

    from the website project pages...

    "the ghosts are not only able to talk and think like human beings they are also emotional and sensitive spirits. the ghosts have feelings and highly complex sets of behaviors"

    this is very misleading. natural language processing and complex behaviour is one thing, but to claim that these programs have "Feelings" is just ridiculous.

    --

    "Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
    1. Re:feelings??? right. by thelasttemptation · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To be honest, the same can be said about you...

      natural language processing and complex behaviour is one thing, but to claim that these meat puppets have "Feelings" is just ridiculous.

  4. ghosts play pranks too by lockholm · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Ghosts use every means possible to get the users attention and affection but their modus operandi varies in accordance with the preferred segment of users they try to reach. Some rely mostly on entertainment e.g. by becoming popular as respected opponents in the local computer game, other use the assistive interaction as their preferred metier. Some perform practical jokes, some are 'jack-ass'ing', others rely on more innocent ways of entertainment (like the singing sisters street performing at second floor) while a few are responsible polite and earn their ITU's[positive feedback] from maximizing the standard of their services.

    I bet the freshmen are easy targets...