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Digital 'Ghosts' To Guide Students On Campus
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."
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! ...)
:-)) [note to US authorities - this is a joke, and I have no intention of committing any crimes (cyber- or otherwise) when visiting the USA]
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
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
College kids can breathe easily. For once, it's not the acid talking.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Is this a shrinks delight??? A campus full of people hearing voices.
Evolution or ID?
Wasn't this sort of already done with the GotDotNet Terrarium Project, it's not as intelligent but it sounds like the same idea.
When that female voice started speaking in that flash thing I almost thought it would say, "Look at you Hacker... Pathetic creature of meat and bone.."
Could you imagine this in your house? Your wife could be out grocery shopping but you'd still hear her voice yelling "DID YOU PUT THE LID DOWN?" upon leaving the bathroom.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
I can barely wait...
And, of course, to augment meager stipends, PhD students can get into the business of helping freshmen figure out how to get the ghosts to leave them the Hell alone:
``Sir, what you had there is what we refer to as a Disembodied Location-specific Conversational Agent, or a Class 5 Full-roaming AI. Really nasty one, too.''
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?"
"Makes for happy Moose"
Sorry, but this reminds me of the hauntings of my college... though I've never heard of any students being helped by them...
I think the problem here is they are not passive enough, at least that I can tell. The last thing anybody wants is an emotional, talking version of Clippy talking to you as you're walkingdown the hallway...
"Hi! You look like you're lost! Do you want directions?"
"No. Go away."
"I'm sorry, I don't know where that is."
Man, Douglas Adams must be spinning in his grave...
=Smidge=
I mean, it doesn't have an AI (Microsoft instead opting to go with their proprietary Artificial Stupidity) but doesn't it somewhat seem like a prototype for this idea. I mean, an artificial helper that guides you around software isn't too different from one that guides you around a physical location. But in all seriousness, instead of location specific ones, wouldn't you rather have a personal ghost? You decide it's appearance on your PDA/Wearable Computer/Whatever, you adjust its personality via programming or learning capabilities. You get to the campus, and it wirelessly logs onto a local server, gets a layout, and comparing your schedule develops a path to where you need to be, and on demand (or wim, if so programmed) gives you directions? Sure, location specific ones are a neat idea, but personal ones seem like they'd be alot more useful.
1. Ghosts are mostly invisible or only vaguely visually manifested 2. Ghosts are often bound to a specific location which often has a very special relation to the ghost 3. Ghost owe their twilight status to some unfinished business and they are therefore active and striving 4. Ghosts only appear when called upon or if they feel an urge to manifest themselves
These ghosts sound a lot like the microsoft word paperclip. Is that damn thing going to start talking now?
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Being a comp sci. student at a large university, it would be really interesting to try gaming the system and have it make jokes or funny things to the new students. And believe me, all that bunch of technogeeks will have serious fun with the ghosts.
"hi, i'm are your ghost guardian and will assist you while you get familiar with the campus. Cheerleader's Stripshow at 7pm in womens changing room, just make sure to reserve your seat in advance at the administration. Having problems with your teachers? Dr. Berger just loves the patriots (as well as entrance tickets), Mrs. Allison favours basketball players, and Dr. Palmer is into... ehemmm.. umm... well, you'll find"