Jerk-O-Meter to Meter Jerks

prostoalex writes "The Jerk-o-Meter from MIT will analyze voice patterns of phone conversations and display a relative value of jerkiness factor on the scale of 0 to 100. For now, the Jerk-O-Meter is set up to monitor the user's end of the conversation. If his attention is straying, a message pops up on the phone that warns, 'Don't be a jerk!' or 'Be a little nicer now.' A score closer to 100 percent would prompt, 'Wow, you're a smooth talker.'"

Comments

Calling home

[bigwavejas]

"Hello, Grandma?"
[pause]
[pause]
"Eh? Who's this?"
Jerk-o-Meter: "Don't be a jerk!"
[pause]
Click!

or...

"Hello, Mom?"
"Hi Honey, how've you been... Let me tell you about the potato salad I made yesterday for the picnic, it was absolutely deli.."
Jerk-o-Meter: "Wow, you're a smooth talker."
[pause]
"Smartass!"
Click!

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

This technology is annoying because some researcher in some lab somewhere cooks up their perfect "metric" for what nice talk is, then it gets enforced on the rest of us, despite massive variation in speech patterns and types.

These "autocorrections" will be the death of diversity as anyone who uses UK or Australian english will know full-well the annoyance of spell checkers telling them their spelling is "wrong" and telling them to use the american ones.

Re:Calling home

[DennyK]

Indeed. I'm sure pointy-haired middle-management types will be ecstatic about this technology as yet another way to turn a qualitative characteristic into quantitative data, so they can pretend to be doing something useful by plugging numbers into a spreadsheet and enforcing metrics instead of actually having to use their own judgement to determine whether their employees are meeting qualitative goals like politeness and good telephone manners.

Re:Calling home

[bm_luethke]

Or, heaven forbid, you either have a name it autocorrects or send e-mail to someone it does.

In my last job the secretary that handled my HR section of stuff was named "Dorsey", it constantly changed her name to "Horsey" - and considering she was hands down the best secretary I've ever dealt with this was not a good thing. On my personal machines this was no big deal, I had the feature turned off, but if I ever used someone else's it tended to do so. I don't know how many of mine got through with "Horsey" on it but I suppose it happened quite often and not just with me. To top it off her last name was "Bottoms" so it happily changed her name to "Horsey Bottoms".

Also, being dyslexic, I depend on a spell checker to find where I screwed up for formal papers (e-mail, newsgroups, etc I just re-read and let the spelling/grammer stuff I can't catch go). While not ideal it's not something I can help - it's like asking an armless person to catch or a legless person to run a mile. Many times I screw up spelling WAY off from what I am thinking. With autocorrect I "wrote" some really funny and odd statements that would not have occured with it turned off. Seeing that in my last job I actually had some papers published in an ACM and an IEEE journal it was *extremely* embarassing to find one in the print version that made it past all of us. In a small or informal circulation it is amusing - I've had many a good laugh over mine and others mispellings and autocorrects, in a professional publication it is VERY embarrasing.

Re:Calling home

[bm_luethke]

I replied to you once already, but I also thought of another good example after I hit submit.

I'm from East Tennessee. My family has been here for a few hundred years (my family cemetary is traceable to the late 1700's, before that it is just moss covered rocks for headstones). For all but the last 50 years we were dirt poor (my grandfather on my mothers side literally lived in a cave for a few years after he ran away from his farm. Don't get me wrong, my parent's generation is relativly educated and my generation almost all has a Bachelors in something, a few even higher. Almost no parts of Tennessee are that way anymore, at least no more than any other state). As such I generally have a VERY strong southern accent. I have yet to find a voice recognition software package that handles this. I have to attempt to talk in the clipped north-eastern US accent - which is *really* hard to do for me. Ultimately I've given up on all of them - they just aren't that adaptable.

I wonder how well this handles different accents, or even languages. Would the slower drawl southerners use be seen as not interested? It wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened.

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

You have papers published in an IEEE publication, but you don't know how to add names and specialist terms to your spell checker's internal list?

I'm afraid it's time to hand in your geek card.

Re:Calling home

[maxwell demon]

Of course, if the software only evaluates voice patterns, you'll just have to learn to say everything with an extraordinarily nice voice. That is, you can still say "you're an incompetent idiot", you just have to say it in the same tone you would normally use for "you're a really smart person".

Re:Calling home

[elyobelyob]

Can we just sort this out once and for all. There is no such think as UK English. It's English. Just because other cultures have bastardised it, it doesn't mean we have to accept it ... I really hate when software only gives the choice of American English. Can we possibly have the options "Funny sounding, slurry English. Annoyingly brazen and talks about BBQ's English. I cannot understand a word of it, is it really English?" That'd cover two continents and a little wet, peaty place in the Atlantic. Sorry, the rant was just waiting to get out.

Re:Calling home

[golgotha007]

ever been on Springer?

Re:Calling home

[ejito]

Subtle to mild sarcasm sounds almost exactly like being "nice".

Somehow I doubt the JerkoMeter will be able to do an accurate differentiation.

Re:Calling home

[fbjon]

Not to mention that it only works for native speakers. I don't punctuate anyone's speech with anything, even when I talk English. It's just not part of my speech culture. So how is this device going to find out anything?

Re:Calling home

[smittyoneeach]

Or, you end up with Gene Wolfe's classic "Loyal to the Group Of 17" story in The Book of the New Sun, where, in a highly constrained language situation, a new language evolves atop.
Any system implies a work-around.

Re:Calling home

[Bjarke Roune]

Meanwhile, that post was spelled perfectly, as far as I can tell.

Re:Calling home

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Not trying to be flamebait here, but I just don't get dyslexia. I mean, you're an engineer, you need to be able to see and recognise complex specifications and long strings of numbers with extreme accuracy. What is so different from normal language use? See the string of letters, recognise them individually, and compare them to the known string mentally. Where's the problem?

Don't get me wrong, I'm no stranger to communications problems, having a semi serious speech impediment myself (which hasn't stopped me founding and running my own successful business by the way), but thats related to nervousness around other people, basically a nervous twitch. I just have difficulty with relating a perfect ability to understand and work with complex technical specifications in terms of the written word, and normal language. The only reason I can see is the degree of application given to each.

Re:Calling home

[Legion303]

"I just don't get dyslexia. I mean, you're an engineer, you need to be able to see and recognise complex specifications and long strings of numbers with extreme accuracy. What is so different from normal language use?"

That's kind of like asking someone with Down's Syndrome why he doesn't talk like most people. Dyslexia is a genetic and neurobiological problem. I have it myself, which is lots of fun when I'm on IRC, because when I type "teh" it's not because I'm trying to be funny.

I've trained myself to proofread everything I write very carefully (but like the OP, some things still get through occasionally). Words that I know how to spell (like "occasionally," coincidentally enough) end up being misspelled half the time anyway because of the dyslexia.

As for how he can do well in engineering with dyslexia...google is your friend. Apparently engineers have a high rate of dyslexia relative to other professions.

Re:Calling home

[entrylevel]

Safari has a spell checker built in and one is available for Firefox as an extension, so "Don't be a jerk!"

Re:Calling home

[bwintx]

Of course, if the software only evaluates voice patterns, you'll just have to learn to say everything with an extraordinarily nice voice. That is, you can still say "you're an incompetent idiot", you just have to say it in the same tone you would normally use for "you're a really smart person".

Yep. Just like talking to a cat.

Re:Calling home

[Dolda2000]

Be a little nicer now.

Re:Calling home

[ThaFooz]

This technology is annoying because some researcher in some lab somewhere cooks up their perfect "metric" for what nice talk is, then it gets enforced on the rest of us, despite massive variation in speech patterns and types.


Indeed. I'm a New Englander myself, and if these MIT guys are using typical Bostonian speech patterns as the norm when measuring "levels of stress and empathy in a person's voice" (from TFA), I would assume that anyone with a melodic Irish or slight Southern accent would rate nicely, and determine that anyone with a Jersey accent is a complete prick. Which would probably be a lot closer to the truth than these researchers intended, particularly if said Jersey resident is talking baseball.

Re:Calling home

[Firethorn]

The way this usually works for me is that if you ask me what language I speak, I answer "American".

Of course, over in Asia you end up with 'Engrish'

But just like a species can have different breeds and races, languages can have different accents.

We can (mostly) understand each other without being taught a new language or needing a translator, so I'd generally count them as the same language.

Re:Calling home

[LordSnooty]

Meanwhile, that post was spelled perfectly, as far as I can tell.

How embarrassing.

Re:Calling home

[IngramJames]

It's English. Just because other cultures have bastardised it,

Which cultures are these, then?

Bearing in mind that the first settlers in North America arrived in the days before there was such a thing as a dictionary. Also bearing in mind that they came from all over the UK, from areas with different dialects.

Yes, there's no such thing as "UK English", as anyone who has ever gone to Yorkshire, Newcastle, Somerset, Cornwall, Dublin, Wales, Glasgow, Leeds, Nottingham, London or in fact any two UK towns or counties will be well aware.

Which of the local English dialects is the correct one? I'm just curious.

It amuses me when people get really riled up by the American word "gotten". It's an Old English word, in fact. But many english people seem to have forgotten this fact - it's a word which we lost but they kept.

My point being: languages diverge, and this is perfectly natural and nothing to get upset about. Middle Class UK English, American English and Australian English have all changed and evolved since the people moved away from each other.

What annoys me is when people seem to indicate that everyone ought to speak and spell the same, and that the language should, in some way, be static. Given that Shakespeare invented about a third of the words he used in his plays (including "brilliant"), and spelled even his name is various different ways (sometimes in the same document), I think you could conclude that Shakespeare basardised English more than anyone else. Shall we return to pre-Shakesperian English, then, to get back to the purer tongue?

Maybe Chaucer would be better. Hey - let's go all the way back to Latin. Is Latin better English than English is, then..?

Re:Calling home

[fornaxsw]

Hmm, I guess this will have it's uses...

Re:Calling home

[MCraigW]

These "autocorrections" will be the death of diversity as anyone who uses UK or Australian english will know full-well the annoyance of spell checkers telling them their spelling is "wrong" and telling them to use the american ones.

Hmmmm... Microsoft Windows XP lets you set your language preference, and has thirteen different flavors of English, including "English (Austrailia)", and "English (United Kingdom)". No need to use the "English (United States)" preference.

Re:Calling home

[ThaFooz]

There is no such think as UK English. It's English. Just because other cultures have bastardised it, it doesn't mean we have to accept it ... I really hate when software only gives the choice of American English. Can we possibly have the options "Funny sounding, slurry English. Annoyingly brazen and talks about BBQ's English. I cannot understand a word of it, is it really English?

I can't stand this kind of pretentiousness from the British. Language is dynamic, deal with it (what gives with all of your silent u's, by the way?). The implication that all Americans are incoherent rednecks is as incorrect as asserting that every Brit is an illiterate Cockney-speaking retard.

Don't like the fact that US software is written for US English, and ports to other languages ant their leisure? Write your own. Oh wait, the entire industry is in San Fransisco, Boston, and Seattle.

I mean I'm aware you guys don't really like the fact that the people you didn't want on your foggy little island have surpassed you economically, technologically, militarily, and politically (present administration excluded, of course). We don't rip on you (much) for it, but to have the nerve to call us dumb? Really.

Sorry, that too was a rant just waiting to get out.

Re:Calling home

[hylander_sb]

Maybe if you all could have kept the French out, you'd have a language pure and logical enough to be worth preserving! Instead you bequeathed us 'colonists' with the Microsoft version of languages... Bloated, ineeficient and full of contradictions and exceptions yet spoken by anyone with money so we have to use it.

Personally, I'd rather be speaking Gaelic but it's pretty hard to learn once you've learned (or is it learnt?) English.

Re:Calling home

[Khuffie]

Or, and stay with me here, you can switch the language to UK English? In Office its Tools --> Language --> Set Language. Hit default on UK Englisk, and voila! That's been there since as long as I can remember.

Re: Calling home

[gidds]

'grammer'? 'embarassing' vs 'embarrasing'?

It also has run-on sentences, missing apostrophes, spurious prepositions ('way off from'), and many missing commas, parentheses and/or dashes.

Still, it scores higher than most Slashdot posts in both format AND content, so I'm not complaining...

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'all are uh smooth talkah, y'hear?

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

I just don't get speech impediments. I mean, what's the problem? Just talk normal. If I don't understand your problem, it's not real.

Re:Calling home

[Nacnude]

I only feel sorry for New Yorkers now......

Re:Calling home

[kokoloko]

Don't be a jerk.

Re:Calling home

[tod_miller]

Layman terms:

Both sides of the brain compete to read a word:

You try and 'read' the letters, and 'look at' the word. Which means many times the people see the words as shapes, not information.

When writing, we always look back on what we type, even visually (when assembling words).

The only pertinent parallel I can think of is when a hot chick in a shirt shirt skirt walks into the room, but is showing all her cleavage, and you mind fights itself, as your fovea centralis tries to split and focus all its cones on both her assets.

Dyslexia is like that, and then having a pop quiz if you noted her name on her id badge.

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

except that sarcasm introduces an additional pause in the response which can be differentiated from a genuinely interested response.

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't stop there. Fuckle's 'did you mean' feature is the most annoying bu^h^hfeature out there. Try a search on fuckle for '"Final Fantasy V" walkthrough' and fuckle replies 'Did you mean: "Final Fantasy X" walkthrough'

IF I WOULD HAVE MEANT THAT FUCKLE, I WOULD'VE FUCKING PUT IT IN THERE.

While they have that annoying 'feature', I will stick with yahoo, it may have it as well, but at least it's not as fucking frequent as fuckle.

'Of course, watch this post get modded down as troll or flamebait by the fucktard sheeple mods that love fuckle, you know, the ones that constatly say "Google is your friend" and "Google it".'

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again Canada is forgotten. I wonder how a Newfoundlander would feel about the grammar checker in MS Word. Or a Nova Scotian for that matter. If anyone here has actually heard anyone speak either of those two dialects of English you may have been shocked and apauled, but I assure you, they are just as differnt as any other forms of English.

Re:Calling home

[xnot]

This technology is annoying because some researcher in some lab somewhere cooks up their perfect "metric" for what nice talk is, then it gets enforced on the rest of us, despite massive variation in speech patterns and types.

Or, you could understand that certain speech patterns, styles, tone, etc. are simply more appealing to most people. Go to pretty much any seminar that has anything to do with selling/NLP etc. and you'll find out that certain things you do with other people immediately have an impact on their receptiveness to trusting you, liking you, and ultimately buying from you. It's psychology. Not right or wrong, but just there if you want to use it.

People want to knock these studies as being rediculus, and sometimes they are. But I think that most of the reasons why people like to call stuff like this rediculus is they simply don't want to believe it's true. Gotta have "Free Will" and all that.

Me, I prefer to understand what is going on so at least I have some semblance of control when situations occur.

Re:Calling home

[operagost]

Wow, you're a smooth reklat!

Re:Calling home

[CRCulver]

These "autocorrections" will be the death of diversity as anyone who uses UK or Australian english will know full-well the annoyance of spell checkers telling them their spelling is "wrong" and telling them to use the american ones.

While default dictionaries for English are often based on American English, there's nothing stopping you from switching to a British or Australian dictionary. Most word processors ship with those variants, and on *nix a British dictionary is available for the ispell library.

Re:Calling home

[Pollardito]

i much prefer its companion product that detects when the other person sounds like they're bored and tells you to be more interesting

Re:Calling home

[KillerDeathRobot]

Good post, except English is only about 40% Latin-based. English to begin with was a bastardization of Latin and Germanic languages. Anyway, the point is, we'd have to go back to an old Teutonic language (being the ancestor language of most of English) to find "pure" English.

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

Just another example of the engineering mentality on slashdot failing, gloriously, AGAIN, to come to grips with any field of study that involves complexity.

Nothing to see here...move along...

Re:Calling home

[KillerDeathRobot]

Dude, the grammar checker in MS Word doesn't work for anyone; Canadian, American, British, or what have you.

Re:Calling home

[Haydn Fenton]

I have absolutely no knowledge of voice recognition technologies at all, but I'm getting the impression that they're based upon some preset accents, speeds, tones, and\or other stuff. So why can't\hasn't anyone come up with a voice recognition program which starts off completely empty. You have to train it (say a bare minimum, then you can train more to get it more accurate later). It'll get you to say certain letters, words, certain letter combinations (or words with certain letter combinations within them), etc. It'll analyze the wave oscillation, tone, speed or whatever these things check, and be able to build up a database of how you say certain things (i.e. it'll map your pronunciation of things to their letter\word counterparts), so that when you talk it understands you regardless of accent, language, tone, speed or any other difference in your way of speaking.

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

Lard tunderin jaysus, bye. Where are they to? Dere's tree of dem, side by each.

Re:Calling home

[Halthar]

I would need to look up the sources, but I once read that one thing which seems common to people with Dyslexia (which I also have a minor case of, while not having full blown Dyslexia), is a very high incidence of enhance ability where spatial/mechanical relationships are concerned. The sword cuts both ways, I guess. While I am not an engineer I do work for an engineering company, and do take on some engineering tasks though that isn't my primary function here. I find that it comes naturally to me, granted, I was raised in a family knee deep in engineers so that may have more to do with it.

Re:Calling home

[Hatta]

Oh come on, NLP is a scam. My dad sunk so much money into "training" classes which did nothing. I saw nothing that could justify their extraordinary claims. NLP is just like Tony Robbins or psychics or the pope. They give you the illusion of control and relieve you of your money.

Re:Calling home

[grunthos]

a hot chick in a shirt shirt skirt

And to demonstrate the brain's ability to substitute words, letters, and shapes: How many were too distracted by the subject matter to notice that "short" was misspelled?

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't stand this kind of egotistic bullshit from the Americans. Language is dynamic, deal with it (what gives with all of our words pronounced as if theres a capital A in it, by the way?). The implication that all Americans are obese, egotistic, cum dribbling, retarded wank stains is as incorrect as asserting that evert Brit likes tea, talks like the Queen and has the IQ of Einstein.

Don't like the fact that US software is written in the worst possible manner then shoved in your face and monopolised accross the world because we can, thanks to our shit stained attitudes? Write your own. Oh wait, you do, but we can't let you beat us, we'll just have to force our way to the top in any manner possible, regardless of ethics, talent, skill or anything else that actually matters, especially giving a damn about what the people actually want.

I mean I'm aware you guys don't really like the fact that the people you didn't want on your agreed shitty-weathered island have surpassed you economically (oh, except that huge multi-billion debt to pretty much everyone in the rest of the world, and falling dollar value because of said debt), technologically (well, we let you guys do the real inventing, we just take it, break it, shove it in your face and get rich from it), militarily (because we think it's cool to let everyone have guns and then say it's not the guns fault that millions of people are shot dead using them), and politically (because we're all so proud of our cute little retard monkey who likes to mix religion with politics like the rest of the world, aswell as making sure his own opinions are made top priority and screwing what the country thinks, or even common sense). We don't rip on you (except when we're not sleeping, bragging about how we're the best and polishing our guns or bling, or stuffing our face with big macs and chicken nuggets). But to have the nerve to call us dumb? Really, that's just not nice, it's like calling a paraplegic a shit athelete.

Sorry, that too was a rant just waiting to get out... Dipshit.

Re:Calling home

[enjerth]

I could see this being quite useful in telemarketing. Telemarketing companies usually favor people who measure up to the plain, unaccentuated speech that this machine is probably tuned to judge. A company could monitor the voice quality of it's employees, inexpensively adding feedback that can lead to improved call quality.

Or they can take this device to their labs and, through heinous experiments, produce a super smooth-talking salesman, whom the population cannot resist buying from. A telemarketer who could sell you your own soul. How terrifying.

Wow, you're a smooooth talker!

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

a hot chick in a shirt shirt skirt

And to demonstrate the brain's ability to substitute words, letters, and shapes: How many were too distracted by the subject matter to notice that "short" was misspelled?

The word "shirt" is actually repeated twice. It's unclear if it's supposed to be "short skirt", "shirt and short skirt", or neither one.

You were distracted when you wrote that follow-up post, weren't you? :-)

Re:Calling home

[drauh]

Well, you can read the paper here:

http://groupmedia.media.mit.edu/jk.php

Re:Calling home

[aclarke]

Interesting post, but I dare you to go to Dublin and start proclaiming loudly about how it's a "UK town". :-) - Andrew.

Re:Calling home

[Anonymous Coward]

English "to begin with" was what we'd call Dutch now. Very, very similar to what they speak in modern day Friesa (though a very tiny subset of it). While it's no subsitute for actual study, of course, there was recently a 5 part BBC documentary called "The Adventures of English" that is a great introduction for the layman.

Re:Calling home

[It'sYerMam]

Unfortunately in my experience, many Americans manage to live up to their stereotype of gun-toting, bible-bashing redneck. (When I say bible-bashing, I mean a bad kind of Christian, no slur against Christianity in general) I'm quite sure there are plenty of British twats that live up to our stereotype of drunken decadents who sit around complaining about the state of the country and then indirectly support whatever problem it was.

The thing is, just as a spelling mistake in any English text throws off a reader, so does the occurrence of a US/British specific spelling. This is not a dialectal problem, because in my experience dialects simply use different words and there is an increasing use of American originating words and phrases in Britain.

While it is really quite petty to get riled up over this, it's partly to do with a natural xenophobic instinct, and also because a text written in the opposite doesn't kling right. All languages evolve and change, but British English is the only English that can be unambiguously called English. After all, it is spoken in England, by the English.

I do so hope your last ranting statement was supposed to be ironic in some fashion, given that your economy is involves a lot of borrowing, your military is hypocritically blowing anything up it sees fit and politically, you have a system that bore GWB, when apparently it should not have. The first-past-the-post system has flaws, but then, so does your constitution. Oh, but we weren't supposed to be arguing...

Re:Calling home

[bm_luethke]

Ok, old post I'm replying too so I don't expect it to be read.

At one time in the past I was partially interested in handwriting reconition software (OCR) stuff. I assume that speech recognition is similar - at least it would seem it should be that way to me. And, keep in mind, I'm not anywhere near an expert, take this as a "typical" slashdot post - I read a book on something similar 10 years ago.

I think that there has to be some foreknowledge in there. Typically having a truly expansive application is not only difficult, but may be impossible. Take a well known example, the halting problem. I can create a program that takes most programs and thier inputs and figures out if it terminates, however it is *impssible* to make one that takes an arbitrary program and does so. My limited knowledge of this type of recognition leads me to believe this is the case.

Further, we just get to difficulty. Take the halting problem again - it's not *that* hard to figure out if any one single program can halt, it gets more difficult to take a class of programs, it gets even more difficult to do so with several classes - in fact it's not linear but exponensially harder.

Then, they just can't get to so many accents to test. Maybe it does a Kentucky accent perfect but fails on some minor inflection my East Tennessee accent has and was never tested. I don't know. Maybe they have solved this - I tried it out and even once I was able to change my speech patterns enough for it to mostly work I still found it no usefull. Thus I haven't checked it for a number of years.

The way the graphs stabilised in OCR stuff was really neat and the "unknowns" were very interesting problems and made perfect sense why they did (basically some patterns never would resolve to a single hash, they would flip between several states and one just had to be picked). I suspect that it has advanced, at least more patterns should have been tested and implemented.

Re:Calling home

[trewornan]

The implication that all Americans are incoherent rednecks is as incorrect as asserting that every Brit is an illiterate Cockney-speaking retard.

As a British Citizen who's spent time in America I can confirm that (in general) both stereotypes are reasonably accurate.

How about a Jerk-O-Meter for Slashdot Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

P.S. First Post!

Re:How about a Jerk-O-Meter for Slashdot Trolls

[CHESTER COPPERPOT]

Jerk-o-meter is a synonym for moderator.

ooooohhh burn!

They already have this tech..

[speights_pride!]

..I mean I can just ring these special phone numbers and some nice lady on the end tells me "you're nice","You are big" .. there is also something she says about "jerking" ??

Re:They already have this tech..

[Anonymous Coward]

212-976-2626

(may also exist in 718 and other NYC area codez)

Application?

[FhnuZoag]

Think of the usefulness of this thing in monitoring political speeches....

Re:Application?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be kidding, sir. Any politician (or at least, from a certain level beyond) is already "monitorized" by human beings, who most of the times happen to have a degree in psychology/ social sciences/ etc. They can quickly and discretely "sssshhhh" him as soon as they realise he's going overboard.

Also, really, there are a crapton of emotions in a human voice, and sometimes they're more useful in getting the message through than the words themselves. It's human beings talking to human beings, for God's sake.

I mean, yeah, it could be fine technology and all that (though I suspect it's just pattern-recognition in tone characteristics), but it really solves no existent problem. Cool, but hardly useful.

Just my 2c.

--AC :-)

Re:Application?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Any politician (or at least, from a certain level beyond) is already "monitorized" by human beings, who most of the times happen to have a degree in psychology/ social sciences/ etc."

Yeah! Think of those sad, unhappy individuals....

Re:Application?

[TrappedByMyself]

Think of the usefulness of this thing in monitoring political speeches....

From reading TFA, politicians would rate very well on this, while quiet types would be flagged as jerks.

Re:Application?

[CheshireCatCO]

Wouldn't that be like taking a hygrometer to the bottom of the ocean? You don't need it to tell you what's out there, and it seems like you'd just break the equipment with the overload.

Re:Application?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, for those we need something that can determine the amount of content to bullshit, and the likelihood that they'll keep any given promise.

"Jerk-O-Meter"

[tacarat]

1-900-CALL-MIT

'nuff said...

as if working on the phone didn't suck enough

[atarione]

already.... having recently quit a call center job.

it's bad enough as it is... clueless jerks calling in, monitoring of calls (subjective..monitoring by QA teams) Computer Monitoring... stupid conflicting targets (i.e. Help customers make sure everything they need is taken care or.... oh yeah but do it all within 4minutes..)

now some stupid software could be sitting about telling me that i'm not freaking excited enough about it.

god i quit not a momment to soon.... fuck it i say send all the call center jobs to India.

Re:as if working on the phone didn't suck enough

[Vo0k]

What about some smart software that automatically disconnects clueless jerks? :D

Re:as if working on the phone didn't suck enough

[Pyrion]

That'd effectively put every technical support rep out of work.

Re:as if working on the phone didn't suck enough

[SolitaryMan]

Reading your comment, I came out with another idea: If this j-o-m can determine what is "jerkish talk", why can't it somehow transform into some pleasant talk? (Imagine how sex phone services and tech supports can profit from this)

Re:as if working on the phone didn't suck enough

[Vo0k]

Well, not necessarily. There are basically 4 groups of customers:
- With a clue, nice. They ask you a specific question and expect specific answer. Easy to deal with if you know your job. If you are a moron, jerkometer could work against you, deservedly. Few, pleasure to deal with if you have a clue. Usually people who have worked in user support.
- With a clue, jerks. They want more to unload their frustration than to have a problem fixed, and for example set you a task they found unsolvable earlier, trying to earn you "dissatisfied" ticket, etc. Not easy to get rid of. But if you're an ace, you'll beat them with their own weapon proving them they are morons after all. (say, give them a page number in the manual together with the answer to their "unsolvable".) Most of tech people that get frustrated with something that isn't directly your fault, but, say, your company's. Generally, pain in the ass but luckily few.
- Clueless, nice. Usually victims to support jerks - they are desperate to get help, and you are their last hope. They hate tech, but withstand the suffering quietly (sometimes with a smile) as you guide them through, and are grateful if you solve the problem. Difficult, challenging (sometimes in a painful way) but generally okay. Bunch of moms, secretaries, grandmothers, tech people new to given field etc.
- Clueless jerks. They think they know better, but they don't. So, you're in pain because even if you know the solution, they won't accept it and make it all as painful to you as they only can. These would be best filtered through the system. Less time wasted, better success ratio (they wouldn't count towards the success average) and if you're told by a machine that you're a jerk, you may rethink what you do.

Re:as if working on the phone didn't suck enough

[Legion303]

Look at the bright side...you can get your call queues down in a jiffy: "You say you're having a problem using your $WHATEVER? Cry me a fucking river." *ding!*

Re:as if working on the phone didn't suck enough

[rob colonna]

After working 4+ years in support for some high-end software, that classification is dead on target with the exception of one addition: the people who want you to do their work for them/provide an excuse for them to not do their work.

This device would have gotten me fired, for sure, considering that dealing with 3 out of these 5 classes of callers caused me to become a real arrogant bastard on the phone.

Re:as if working on the phone didn't suck enough

[CrazyTalk]

There are still call center jobs?

Re:as if working on the phone didn't suck enough

[LightForce3]

From what I can tell based on about a year of experience as a computer lab assistant at a university, that's a very good breakdown. Unfortunately, many people in my department (Information Technology) seem to fit into the "jerk" categories. Sometimes they're clueful, but all to often they aren't.

Professors and students, on the other hand, are usually nice.

Re:as if working on the phone didn't suck enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it sucks alot. I hate myself. If someone wants to come here and kill me, that would be cool. But please stop by my parents house and tell them why i wont be back to their basement. Yea, I'm joking, kinda, not really, gotta go phone's ringing. :(

Testing

[Mattygfunk1]

This would be great for getting the percieved "attitude" out of tech support calls.

Apparently testing it on -1 rated /. comments blew up a prototype. :)

__
168+ Funny Adult Video Clips Updated

Re:Testing

[Baricom]

Perhaps it could help the single slashdotters among us find a significant other.

Re:Testing

[fmwap]

This would be great for getting the percieved "attitude" out of tech support calls.

Yeah right, this system would totally blow for tech support QA.
Working tech support you're required to be a jerk...the trick is to be a jerk and fix the issue, then you're labled as smart.

Re:Testing

[Vo0k]

Attach the device to both sides of the phone and include in your company policy: "The consultant is free to hang up when the jerkometer shows the customer has reached 75 jerk points. In case the jerkometer detects above 75 points on the consultant side, you're being automatically forwarded to higher level tech support, and any charge for this session is being cancelled."

Re:Testing

[SolitaryMan]

This would be great for getting the percieved "attitude" out of tech support calls.

Actually, this can can have a practical use in tech support. With this device tech support chiefs can control how their workers talk to customers, and fire the jerks. Of course, this device has to be tested first.

Re:Testing

[wasted time]

an insignificant other would be nice too

Re:Testing

[The_Wilschon]

I like it.

Re:Testing

[Adammil2000]

What about the times when the customer has a good reason to speak like a jerk? For example, when they have given their name and account number and explained their problem for the 8th time... :-)

Re:Testing

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they run on special "jerkometer-safe" status, meaning at least 3 prior consultants triggered the "transfer" operation.

I don't want to be metered!

[jerk]

And stop calling my house!

Re:I don't want to be metered!

[maxwell demon]

Ok, we'll inch you instead.

Re:I don't want to be metered!

[Jerk-O-Meter]

Wow, you're a smooth talker.

Re:I don't want to be metered!

[peetola]

Ok, we'll inch you instead.

I was furlonged once. That wasn't pleasant.

Really now...

[acceber]

"Think of a situation where you could actually prevent an argument," he said. "Just having this device can make people more attentive because they know they're being monitored."

I would actually think this would deter people from speaking to people over the phone. I know that if I was being monitored, I would be less inclined to converse this way. The last thing we need is some random voice telling me to "Be nicer!". How is a device like this supposed to tell the emotions behind people's words, we might have a sad tone in our voice, but the robot will think I need to "Pay more attention!".

And like, omg, this is so useless for females. I mean like, we are born with our very own Jerk-O-Meter's anyway!

Re:Really now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily, we men can offset those with our uncaring-bitch-o-meter and whore-o-meter. Unfortunately, they're off the scale for 99% of the female population.

Re:Really now...

[Randseed]

And like, omg, this is so useless for females. I mean like, we are born with our very own Jerk-O-Meter's anyway!

Without a doubt. That's how women manage to keep dating the biggest jerks they can find, and complain to their "nice guy friend" who "they don't think of in that way" because "he's so nice and understanding."

Re:Really now...

[Dogtanian]

The last thing we need is some random voice telling me to "Be nicer!".

It'd be like having your mother in the background during every phone conversation.

Re:Really now...

[Anonymous Coward]

NOTE: The following rant is in no way a statement about all women, just some personal examples of a few That have put me in the friend catagory and tried to jab that knife in a little deeper while trying to hide it behind the smoke of 'friendship', all because they love the attention, regardless of what kind.

Pretty much the above poster nailed it.Its the same cry on your shoulder but lets not have a relationship kinda thing every guy has to deal with if they let it happen.

Just wait until she comes over with that first black eye or bruised arm after you repeatedly told her even before she started 'dating' him (if you can call it that) that he was the biggest women beating jackass in the world.Hey, atleast the sex was excellent.

Sometimes its just best to let her go and lose all contact than to continue with the charade that is a male/female friendship.

Remember, avoid the attention seekers. If she's going around sitting in everyones lap, telling everyone how much she loves whatever guy she's with including you in front of everyone,or just being a general tease its best to end it early.
Usually, I love this behavior. I am a male. I love an ass in my lap as much as the next guy.

However, once it gets past that and you two get alone - and she starts telling you in detail about how she gave a headjob to your arch nemesis for around 30 dollars worth of pills - or how she's sleeping with another guy you can't stand, or how she's moving out of the country to be with another guy you hate and how she loves him so much - then right after those bombshells she starts telling you she loves you - she's just looking for attention. Be it anger or sadness, she wants it. That is all she wants from you. END IT.

I also just realized I have a shitload of enemies.

Ah, love. Damn it.

Re:Really now...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're experience is a lot more extreme than mine, and hopefully than most of us. But even in more civilised circles, the problem of women complaining about jerks while at the same time only choosing jerks to date, is very real indeed.

There has even been a very good Dutch movie made about exactly this phenomenon.

Re:Really now...

[grimJester]

I would use it. I assume it monitors for signs of rapport (Jerk-o-meter sounds a bit unscientific, but what do I know). It would be great to have instant feedback on how deep rapport i build with the person on the other end, a signal to warn me that I'm distracted, see a graph showing at what point the other person starts to warm up etc.

How often have you kicked yourself after a phone call, realizing you've said something stupid? Now you can check if/how stupid it was. Got into an argument with someone? Check what sentence set it off. Better yet, get a warning two minutes before you start yelling at your mother.

Re:Really now...

[Skater]

Thanks for making my morning. :)

--One of those "nice guys"

Re:Really now...

[dhasenan]

Such a meter can only monitor the sound of your voice. It would totally fail on me; I use a monotone. It would have widely varying and unhelpful results for a portion of the population. Unless, of course, you can 'train' it like voice recognition software, but that would involve a good bit of math and some complex learning algorithms; I'm not sure how I'd implement anything like that.

What you're talking about would probably involve a natural language processor at the least, possibly full-fledged AI.

Re:Really now...

[abdulla]

Check out this humorous little link I found on slashdot awhile ago.

Re:Really now...

[caluml]

That's how women manage to keep dating the biggest jerks they can find, and complain to their "nice guy friend" who "they don't think of in that way" because "he's so nice and understanding."

That's too true. Whenever I hear a girl moaning "All men are bastards", I often correct them: "All the men that you've picked are bastards". Sometimes they even realise that it might be down to their choice. I'm sure women have an inbuilt masochistic streak in them.
So - what do men do? Become "bastards".

Re:Really now...

[grimJester]

Such a meter can only monitor the sound of your voice. It would totally fail on me; I use a monotone. It would have widely varying and unhelpful results for a portion of the population.

Possibly. From tfa:

The program, which Madan said is nearing completion, uses mathematical algorithms to measure levels of stress and empathy in a person's voice. It also keeps track of how often someone is speaking.

I hope you don't take this as an insult, but if you speak in a monotone regardless of your emotional state you are fairly unusual. The software would help with interpreting the emotions of those who communicate them in the same way, or similarly to, the majority.

I obviously don't know how good the software is, but I know I judge someone's mood based on clues like those described in the article. If you speak in a monotone I'd probably consider you disinterested, as that is what you are communicating.

Re:Really now...

[IngramJames]

So - what do men do? Become "bastards"

Actually I think it's more to do with confidence. Women find confident guys attractive. Bastards are confident. They are also very good liars, and have discovered that saying things like "I understand", or "Actually, I do like to go down" are more likely to get them laid rather than "shut up, the football is on" or "no, but you can do me".. which is what it turns into when enough condoms have been used.

The lesson I drew was to simply be confident and have a laugh. Nothing wrong with being a Nice Guy, and you won't get laid as much (especially when one has to turn down a damn good offer cos the woman is a bit emotional and vulnerable) but not getting laid ain't the end of the world.

Good friends (female or otherwise) are always a good thing.

I'm done; my Bloke Club membership will almost certainly be revoked now, and I will unable to discuss football down the pub any more, because I'm obviously really a big girl's blouse.

Re:Really now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... yeah... sorry about your love life and all, but I fail to see how this is in in any way relevant, much less how whining about how "girls don't want spineless doormats" is +3 Insightful.

Re:Really now...

[ttrafford]

I just assumed from the article that we weren't talking about a 'voice' at all- just messages appearing on a screen near the phone.

Re:Really now...

[xnot]

If you want to start to understand how women think and how you can (reliably) attract them, without being a total jerk, do a search on the net for "Fast Seduction 101", and read the Player Guide. Especially the articles "Nice guys vs Jerks", "On Confidence", etc.

Do it. It will open your eyes.

Re:Really now...

[cool_number_9]

Oh wow... which movie is that? Love to see that one and see how the person in that movie deals with such situations.

Re:Really now...

[Halthar]

Meh. There is nothing wrong with being a blouse, it keeps you close to their Jumblies.

That having been said, I agree. Confidence is attractive on both sides of the fence. Actually, I don't even know that not taking advantage of someone when they are emotional or vulnerable is going to mean you "get laid" less. For instance, in my case, the fact that my female friends know they can trust me enough to be vulnerable and emotional around me ends up meaning more dates for me. I don't NEED to ask anyone out these days, because my friends set me up with everyone they happen to know, or will offer to help push things along if I take an interest in someone they don't know (not as a mind game, they are very upfront about their intentions). They do this because they know that no matter what happens I will be good to whomever I happen to be dating at the time, even if things aren't going well in the relationship. I don't let anyone walk all over me, but there are some people I am just not terribly compatible with. If there turns out to be an incompatability, oh well, onto the next person to see if there is a match. I still tend to find my own dates, because I am very very picky and look for very specific traits, but there are always offers on the table if I don't meet anyone on my own whom I take an interest in.

Personally, and not for the above mentioned reason, I see having female friends as an advantage. Especially if they are close enough to confide in you. Generally, women and men are socialized differently during their lives, and as a result act differently than I would in various situations. Having female friends, especially a large number of them, gives you the option of understanding their perspective. Even if looked at purely from the standpoint of trying to optimize "getting laid", this is an advantage.

Having female friends you are close to (yeah, intimacy without the sexual connotations people often latch onto it) also provides for another advantage. Female friends you are close to might just compliment you. This CAN help with the issue of confidence which many nice guys have. Depending on how far gone they are down that nasty self loathing spiral of "I am not good enough" and/or "no one will ever go out with me". Listen to them, maybe take their advice to heart as well as their compliments. If you weren't worthy of being around them, they wouldn't have you around. They obviously see something of value in you. Now, there ARE women out there who will take advantage of guys they decide are "weak", but there aren't all that many of them, in my experience.

Now, as an actual "Nice Guy" I find it far more fulfilling than simply the above mentioned points, however, I am not so naive as to not recognize that these are advantages. Even if those aren't my actual reasons for being in the relationships, they are still there as benefits.

Caution, some general ranting to follow, and this isn't directed at the parent poster.

I simply don't understand why guys tend to shoot down the idea of being friends with someone you might also happen to want to boink. It's possible to have the romantic/intimate portion of the relationship there without the boinking. If you are only in the "romantic" portion of the relationship for the sex, then you are really not much better than the "bastards" or "assholes" that you drone on about, the difference being that you suck at being one and are more than likely living in denial. This is especially true if you allow the other person to believe that you want more than that.

Sex and love are seperate things. Sex can be a part of a loving relationship, but it isn't the relationship itself. There is nothing wrong with sex for the sake of sex, so long as there is a mutual understanding that that's all it is, at least in my opinion.

The reason so many people feel burned by this "cast as a friend" thing, in my experience, is that they really wanted sex and nothing more, nothing less. As I said I s

Re:Really now...

[aliensporebomb]

Sigh. I recognize this all too well. I knew one
of these and was interested until I smartened up.

I dub them "angels with broken wings". Damaged goods. Attractive and nice but they totally
play into the hands of a male with what I call
a "caretaker personality", we get something from
taking care of them. Break out and break free.

I moved on. Interestingly, the one I knew became
very interested in me when I wasn't so interested
in her anymore and was playing in a band on
stage with actual audiences cheering and it was much better to move on and have a relationship with someone who wasn't damaged.

It was hard to let go but we grow up sometime.

I've been married to someone who is normal for
over ten years now, it's possible to have a real
relationship with someone who isn't damaged.

It's possible and it happens - you can move on.

Re:Really now...

[IngramJames]

I'd agree with pretty much everything you wrote, and would summarise thus:
    - friendship
    - love, romance etc
    - horizontal jogging
Nothing wrong with any of these, or any combination of these, as long as nobody is pretending that there is another element or elements involved in order to get the one they really want by deceptive means.

Though I'd quantify that by saying that a one-sided romantic feeling can be a Bad Thing, for obvious reasons, mostly involving tissues. Read that sentence in whatever context you choose. You perverts.

Same goes for women who give sex in order to get love. Never going to work, m'dear.

Re:Really now...

[Citizen of Earth]

Maybe you're an Intellectual Whore.

Re:Really now...

[Citizen of Earth]

Also check out this little link.

Re:Really now...

[__aailob1448]

my Bloke Club membership will almost certainly be revoked now, and I will unable to discuss football down the pub any more, because I'm obviously really a big girl's blouse.

Damn Straight. Now get!

Re:Really now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if the "nice guy friend" stopped being an unattractive insecure whiner he wouldn't have that problem.

Re:Really now...

[DaveJay]

I like the idea that someone could hang up on someone else, and when the other person complains, the first one could say "you were being a jerk!" "no I wasn't!" "yes you were -- the PHONE even said so." Which is a jerky thing to say, and which would prompt the other person to hang up.

Also fun: the idea that someone would need a phone to decide whether or not to hang up. Wonder if one could call, do a lot of "smooth" heavy breathing, and the other person would just stare at the phone monitor waiting for it to suggest they hang up.

Silliness, true; but remember, there are people who, in early testing of computer car navigation aids, would turn right when the computer voice said "turn right!" even if there was no street to turn on to...

What we REALLY need...

[catdevnull]

Forget that device, what we really need is Caller IQ!

Re:What we REALLY need...

[Jerk-O-Meter]

Don't be a jerk!

Ooops

[thebroken]

Oh those kinds of jerks..oops... *puts away vasseline*

the perfect gift...

[dotmax]

...for the person who likes to hear himself talk.

uhhhh hellloooo this izz rico suaaaaveeee.....
etc. .max

Oh man

[mcc]

When you're getting advice in social graces from MIT... you know something's wrong

BA-DUM CHING

Re:Oh man

[niittyniemi]

I would have thought too that those boffins at MIT would know that jerk is the vector that specifies the rate of change of acceleration; the third derivative of displacement with respect to time. ie. ms^-3

The jerks ;)

Re:Oh man

[fbjon]

Well, they can't know much when they say things like:

"It's an academically proven thing," Madan said of the math behind those measurements. "There are a bunch of academic papers published about this."

Not just a few, there's a bunch! That's gotta mean something, right?

Re:Oh man

[Anonymous Coward]

A Bunch? What's that in metric?

1 bunch = 1000 bits (1 kilobit)

my jerk-o-meter

[Anonymous Coward]

my jerk-o-meter gets up to 69 PPMs everytime i hear pleasent voices on the other end of the phone.

IRC

[CriminalNerd]

Now...If only somebody can attempt to make a similar device for IRC. At least that way, it would be easier to autoban the "jerks" that come onto the servers occasionally. XD

Seriously, if this monitoring device was supposed to help strengthen relationships, my parents would have gotten me a girlfriend by now. >_> Who in their right mind would want to be monitored AT ALL? I mean...Being monitored for "quality checks" is annoying enough, but software? If the software is going to be commercialized, I wouldn't buy even if my life depended on it.
Besides...I don't think I would like to ruin a potential date because of a program that keeps on saying "You're a smooth talker" or "Don't be a jerk!"
The real question is...can it pick up most/all of the sarcasm that it will hear?

A: "HEY!!! I JUST GOT A BLUE-EYES WHITE DRAGON CARD!!!"
B's Machine: "You're a smooth talker!"
A's Machine: "Don't be a jerk!"
A & B: "..."

Oh! We should try to get these things to listen to television/radio advertisements.

"(Blah blah blah)"
"You're a smooth talker!"
"And order now and we'll throw in a _____ absolutely free!"
"Don't be a jerk!"

And like somebody else had mentioned, political speeches.

"(Blah blah blah)...and so I think that "intelligent design" should be taught in Biology classes along with evolution."
"Don't be a jerk! Jackass! Idiot! Preacher!...Error! Score of -87!" *crash* ;P

Your future is the conservative future

[Anonymous Coward]

With the fall of American education the future of America under conservative power lies in call-center and service based jobs. While we may be outsourcing those jobs to India we'll be bringin' 'em back soon enough...

Useful for people who can't make their own decisio

[CosmeticLobotamy]

However, the Jerk-O-Meter also could be set up to test the voice on the other end of the line. Then it could send the tester such reports as: "This person is acting like a jerk. Do you want to hang up?"

"Sorry, I liked you a lot, but now that my phone tells me you're a jerk, I'm not gonna talk to you anymore."

BZZZ

[Anonymous Coward]

How sad is it when humans have to rely on a fucking machine to improve their social graces? Corollary to that, do I need a machine to tell me when someone is being a dick to me? This is a great way for the gap in honest communication which already exists to get even wider.

Then on the other hand, it sure would be amusing to stick these on people for everyday life, and have it control a pain-inducing electrode of some sort. Some days, have it shock them when they're being a jerk, and some days, have it shock them when they're being nice. Then conduct another MIT study on social patterns.

Re:Not to side track anyone but...

[d474]

"Postpone the north korea strike next month, we have a big patch cycle."

LOL! Yeah, it's scary they're running IIS, just look at the site - it's down hard. Why in the world would they have the error page display all this information to the public? It's the military for cryin' out loud. Is that strange or just SOP for our bloated, unconcerned for infosec, military? Whaddya think?

I Remember When...

[Anonymous Coward]

American Universities used to make useful things... *sigh*

A Better Invention....

[VonSkippy]

A better invention would be the "yawn-o-meter" so they could measure how little I actually care about dumbass useless inventions like the one mentioned in the article. For people who don't have that meter - here's a hint, when I hang up on them, I pretty much don't care what they were talking about.

Errrr....

[Jesus IS the Devil]

I would like to test it on all those phone sex operators I talk to... errr I mean female friends.

I'll use this ....

[Sicarii]

the next time I talk to M$ customer support.

I Need One Of These

[The Lost Supertone]

I need one of these permanently implanted into my sister...

Re:I Need One Of These

[mottie]

so many things i could say...

Whitehouse phone

[Anonymous Coward]

THey could install one in the Whitehouse but what would be the point, it would always be going off.

Obligatory

[Linker3000]

Still no cure for cancer

Re:Obligatory

[zopf]

Well... actually... http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/nanocell.html

They're getting closer.

Re:Obligatory

[Jim_Callahan]

Berkeley has a few groups working on targetted drug delivery using artificaially constructed retroviruses, too. I think the Francis group and the Trauner group both have projects in that direction, plus a lot of the Bio boys.

Guess I'll have to....

[Parelius]

switch to SMS when communicating with my girls then.
Cause I sure as hell don't care what they're talking about!

Obligatory Simpsons Reference

[zaguar]

Nerd: I have invented the Sarcasm-O-Meter!

Cartoon-Shop-Guy: A Sarcasm-O-Meter? Now that's useful.

Sarcasm-O-Meter explodes

Apologies to Matt Groening

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Reference

[Anonymous Coward]

Cartoon-shop-guy? Try comic-book-guy, you clod.

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Reference

[Spad]

Lyndsey Nagle: Do I detect a note of sarcasm?

Frink: (With sarcasm detector) Are you kidding? This baby is off the charts mm-hai.

ComicBook Guy: A sarcasm detector, that's a real useful invention.
(Sarcasm detector explodes)

You are confused. Re:Application?

[leuk_he]

I think you confuse the jerk detector with a lie detector. A lie detector detects tress. That was dicussed here before, long before.

Another gimmick that is fun that i dont wnat ot hold back is this one: a love detector

Re:You are confused. Re:Application?

[Dr.Opveter]

Surely you don't need a lie detector to detect someone's tress.

I know...sorry

Re:You are confused. Re:Application?

[leuk_he]

I am orry too. i ought to pell check my poting before preing ubmit.

Re:You are confused. Re:Application?

[Anonymous Coward]

i ought to pell check my poting before preing ubmit.

Cool! Now just sprinkle some parentheses around that text and you can claim you're speaking in LISP!

Who the hell wants to monitor me whacking?

[Associate]

And just what is it they are monitoring?
Frequency? Stroke? Stiff to flacid ratios? Ejaculate volume?
Those are some sick fuckers at MIT. Probably tested it out on themselves.

Re:Who the hell wants to monitor me whacking?

[Antique Geekmeister]

No, that study was at Harvard and involved Coke bottles. Check out http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/sperm.asp for more details on the actual study.

The call to the legal team got pretty weird when they got direct approval from the US Supreme Court, when Clarence Thomas got wind of it and kept trying to submit his own Coke can for the study.

The UK edition should use Twat not Jerk.

[TheoGB]

Don't worry, if it's been designed for an amorphous American market it's probably had all ability to note irony removed, hence you can sit there insulting someone blandly and get the 'smooth-talker' response. Hurrah! Let's try it with Basil Fawlty and see how far it gets as a tester.

Also, if this is ever ported to the UK I request that 'Jerk' be substituted with 'Twat'.

hey.. scientologists use something similar..

[Extrymas]

<URL:http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/E-Meter/in dex.html>

They call it e-meter.. Amusing stuff ']

Re:hey.. scientologists use something similar..

[Extrymas]

arrggh! http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/E-Meter/index.h tml

Product design

[sankyuu]

Imagine how the switch on the device would be labeled:

Jerk - on
Jerk - oh, nevermind...

:-)

Link to the actual project site

[fungai]

http://groupmedia.media.mit.edu/jk.php

Re:Link to the actual project site

[millette]

Thanks fungai! prostoalex, see how that helps ? Yeah, the yahoo article didn't have the link, you coulda spent a second to dig it out though.

A folding rule should be sufficent

[Peter Lustig]

Or maybe it does not have anything to do with jerking off? Perhaps I should go and read the fine article...

Funding proposal

[Linker3000]

Hey guys d'ya think we can get together and stump up enough cash for these MIT guys to make a dupe-o-meter for the /. editorial team!!?

How about a dupe-o-meter

[Linker3000]

I think we should build a dupe-o-meter for Slashdot - what do you guys think?

Re:How about a dupe-o-meter

[Aim Here]

It looks like you're badly in need of one yourself.

Re:How about a dupe-o-meter

[Linker3000]

You'd almost think I'd planned it that way eh!?

stupider and stupider...

[lauPi]

Voice stress analysis - is this really something new we want to hear about?
This application of the technology seems really silly to me, because the software tries to mimic human interpretation of voice tone patterns; but we as humans can do this much much better.

Who are those people that think they need a machine to tell them about their speaking style?

Re:stupider and stupider...

[grimJester]

This application of the technology seems really silly to me, because the software tries to mimic human interpretation of voice tone patterns; but we as humans can do this much much better.

Some of us are less adept at this than others. Also, although we may be able to interpret tonality very well, we may not be consciously aware of it. A slight feeling of unease is less noticable that a red flashing light.

Am I the only one that thinks this is great stuff?

And the opposite point of view

[Moraelin]

Well, good. The thought that this software will be used for that just made my day. Because it's bad enough to deal with utterly clueless tech-support people without them being jerks on the phone too.

Yes, I know, everyone who's ever worked in tech support thinks the're THE God of computing, and know it all. That being able to boot their mom's computer makes them the uber IT sage.

Who knows, maybe some actually do know their shit. But let me break the nasty news: most don't. While I do have all the respect for anyone who can take that stress, that's it: it's a high-stress low-pay job that _only_ has something to do with being desperate enough to accept it, not with being a computer guru. If you actually have _any_ knowledge or skill with computers, that's purely coincidental to that job, and frankly, then you're in the wrong job. You have my compassion.

For every "this and that clueless idiot called me when I was working tech support" story, there are 1000 stories where the clueless one was manning the hell desk. (And a lot of stories from the former category, really belong in the latter.)

Stories like the recent one on Penny Arcade, where some clueless ISP support insisted that the problem is with some gateway that's unsuported by that ISP. The only problem there: a gateway that they didn't even have. That's it, folks: a non-existing piece of hardware was what's causing the problems, according to her list.

Or like my personal favourite, where the bunch of clueless monkeys at my ISP's call-centre took a fucking _month_ to reset my password. (After a glitch in their "change your password online" page mangled it.) See, the invoice number they had in their computer didn't match the one I had received. So even though they send the new password by snail-mail to my home address (so who the heck else could get it anyway), and the line is tied to that physical address (being DSL), and they're the same company providing the phone line I'm calling over, so they can know it's me... nah, they can't fucking change my password because the answer to the magic question "what's your invoice number" was wrong.

But that's not what's the saddest. The saddest is that they don't even tell me there's a problem, so I can talk to someone and fix it. No, they just let me call again and again for a whole fucking month, while the problem obviously doesn't fix itself.

And no, I'm not making it up. It's way too sad to make up.

And so on.

So now you're telling me that some are also jerks on the phone? That in addition to dealing with some buggy software/hardware/internet access from a crap company, and receiving some canned answers that don't even apply to their problem... someone would _also_ be insulted over phone by tech-support? Well, gee, then I'm all for that software.

Re:And the opposite point of view

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a pretty good chance, either due to your attitude or incompetence, that you were, in fact, the one at fault.

I suggest you check your premises.

Re:And the opposite point of view

[Jedi Alec]

So, ehmm, this is all the fault of the employees themselves? Not the rotten company they work for and which you have chosen to keep in business by granting them your patronage, or their moronic manager who did a quick afternoon study, but the poor sod on the phone? Clearly you've never experienced what it's like.

Oh, and just for the record, there's more to the job than "it's a high-stress low-pay job that _only_ has something to do with being desperate enough to accept it". It's a way in for someone who has trained himself in certain skills, be they related to computing or not, and it allows one to display those skills in a corporate environment. You know what the problem with phone-support people is? All the good ones will have moved on to better jobs within the same company within 18 months.

Re:And the opposite point of view

[Moraelin]

*shrug* I must confess I was actually _expecting_ an answear like this. So I'm not disappointed.

Yes, it can't be that some monkey couldn't even tell me that something's wrong, after I politely explained the problem and read that number to them. Again. For the 20'th time. Or that some other clueless monkey in the PA story couldn't even comprehend that there is no fucking gateway between the computer and the modem.

Nah, it _must_ be the customer who's to blame, and generally an idiot. Right?

Well, you just made my point as to what's wrong with tech support.

Re:And the opposite point of view

[PhoenixPath]

Dead on! Worked in Tech Support for 5 years. In that 5 years I quickly went from Entry Level to the design team working on the troubleshooting backend used by the techs and testing hardware combinations for inclusion in new systems. Anyone remotely decent in Tech Support will quickly move *out* of Tech Support unless it is something that person really enjoys doing (which is quite rare, unfortunately).

Re:And the opposite point of view

[PhoenixPath]

:lol:

A reply to your rant online proves your point regarding tech support? Seriously?

You talked to managers, right? Moved up the line? Did you report them to the BBB?

You see, there are a lot of bad companies out there with truely horrid support. Even good companies with horrid support. The opposite is also true. Judging all phone-support based on your experience with *one* ISP is as ridiculous as claiming a negative response to your post on a geek-forum proves your point.

Re:And the opposite point of view

[Moraelin]

"You know what the problem with phone-support people is? All the good ones will have moved on to better jobs within the same company within 18 months."

Bingo. That was more or less the whole point: anyone who actually had any computer skills, or acquired any on the job, has moved higher up the food chain.

Hence I find the whole rampant "I work tech support, so I'm TEH COMPUTER GURU" arrogance to be undeserved. Tech support is to IT jobs what being a waiter in Hollywood is to acting jobs. It's something you do while waiting to get into the _real_ thing.

Not that there's anything wrong with starting there. A lot of good actors (e.g., Jean Claude Van Dam comes to mind) started by washing dishes in Hollywood. But so did a lot who never amounted to more than washing dishes.

Basically I'm willing to accept someone's claim to skills and glory _after_ they moved up from that job. Before, saying "I'm a tech guru (and the customers are idiots) because I work(ed) tech support" is like saying "I'm a great actor because I got hired as a waiter in a Hollywood pizzeria." Doesn't really prove much yet.

"So, ehmm, this is all the fault of the employees themselves?"

_If_ anyone's complaint is basically "auugh, but now I won't be able to insult the customers by phone", then yes. Those who were reasonably polite, I don't think they'll have anything to fear from this kind of software.

"Not the rotten company they work for and which you have chosen to keep in business by granting them your patronage, or their moronic manager who did a quick afternoon study, but the poor sod on the phone?"

Oh, I despise that company too, no doubt about it. And indeed, it was the company's crappy systems and policies that caused both problems in the first place.

I just don't think that letting tech support people _also_ insult the customers would have made it a better company, though.

Re:And the opposite point of view

[Lovesquid]

A lot of good actors (e.g., Jean Claude Van Dam comes to mind)

LMAO! "Good" is relative, I suppose.

message pops up

[Errtu76]

Nice! So i'm talking into my cellphone, which is pressed to my ear. And then a message pops up on my phone. What does it say? No idea, since i can't see the display while using the phone. Ah, handsfree i hear you say. When do you use handsfree? When you are unable to hold your phone usually (in the car, while walking, etc), so you don't look at your phone then either. Or am i missing something here?

Re:message pops up

[ID000001]

I believe you have no idea how a call center enviroment are like. I can imagine how those call center managers who are looking for excuse to get more budget will find a device like this amusing.

Demolition Man

[skiman1979]

Reminds me of that Wesley Snipes movie, Demolition Man, where Snipes (I forget the character name) says some swear word and a computer gives him a ticket and scolds him for using profane language. After getting a few tickets, he walks up to the terminal and starts telling it off as a string of tickets pour out of it.

It will be a sad day if this technology ever came into play for real and we started getting ticketed for being a "jerk".

Re:Demolition Man

[ZerzaDha]

The character is John Spartan.
But is was Stallone, not Snipes.

Re:Demolition Man

[blake3737]

That was Stallone so he wouldn't have to use those littel shells in the bathroom

Re:Demolition Man

[skiman1979]

ah yes, it's been a while since I've seen that movie.

Obligatory Futurama Reference

[wootest]

Lrrr (eating): Mmm, this jerked chicken is good! I think I'll have Fry's lower horn jerked.

Bender (shouting): It's used to it! WOOOOOO!

Advantages

[Elitist_Phoenix]

What advantages does this Jerk-O-Meter have over say, a shotgun which I could also afford?

If you can't tell without the meter

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really want to know if someone is listening? I mean if you can't tell... Just assume that they are listening. Everyone wins..

Ugh

[Legion303]

"Wow, you're a smooth talker."

That's the last damn thing I want my phone telling me when I'm being polite to my mom.

Up Next...

[Goo.cc]

the Trollometer. It goes off when you claim BSD is dying or that Microsoft is a great company that has earned in current position in the world. Say something about Linux and you get to hear Stallman's voice tell you about how it should be called "GNU/Linux".

Ahhh, technology.

Hook two together

[noidentity]

So if we hook two of these together, they either form a negative feedback loop and keep praising each other (boring), or they form a positive feedback loop and kick each other's ass (cool).

A solution looking for a problem

[kronocide]

This sounds like a spin-off from some more ambitious AI project.

I did something similar once. When trying (and failing) to write an agent that could score texts based on whether they were "about the same thing," I ended up with a small application that could tell you whether a discussion in an IRC channel was "focused" or "unfocused" and thus whether what was being discussed was "interesting" or less so. It simply kept track of the size of the set of unique words used compared to the number of people talking, in a short memory model.

Luckily, I never got the idea to start a company and turn this into a product.

Personally I have the impression that "jerkiness" is something very subjective. If I don't think someone is being a jerk, what good is it to have a little device that thinks so?

Re:A solution looking for a problem

[clean_stoner]

Personally I have the impression that "jerkiness" is something very subjective. If I don't think someone is being a jerk, what good is it to have a little device that thinks so?

The only possible use I could see for this in that respect would be if you thought someone was being a jerk but also thought you might just be imagining it. Then, when the machine said "This person is being a jerk" it would serve as independent verification of what you already thought.

Nice

[kurbchekt]

Now if they'd only invent choke-a-phone for dealing with dumb users...

It had to be said..

[SILIZIUMM]

"Dent, you're a jerk... an absolute kneebiter."

Sorry, was my attention wandering?

[Colin Smith]

That's because you were boring me!

Yes, ladies, that means you too! You're not half the scintillating conversationalists you think you are. Just because you're talking doesn't mean you have anything worthwhile to say.

Aww Come off it!

[TarryTops]

Just muster up some courage and tel it on their faces. That's kinda pansy work on designing software when you'd derive immense amount of pleasure to say it. " You sound like a friggin' jerk!" :-)

Leroy Montana

[Washizu]

They should just play his (Philadelphia) famous song, Don't Be a Jerk

"To Meter Jerks"?

[davetrainer]

How about some software to measure the informativeness of Slashdot headlines?

Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

So what does it say about me if I am reading about this while on the phone "talking" to someone?

Finally, a machine to quantify my work

[elrous0]

This is the greatest thing for us assholes since someone first thought of using the bar breathalyzer for competition. It's not quite up there with the invention of the beer bong, though.

-Eric

Re:Something is missing!

[Jerk-O-Meter]

You fail it!

Be a little nicer now.

Sub zero?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it invent sub zero score?

As Einstein said: There is only one thing he knows about which cannot be metered: inanity (sorry, don't know the right translation to English)

So having 100% for smooth talkers is fine, but you cannot limit the score to start at 0. You must allow to go below that, else this invention is crap.

As if our society isn't Orwellian enough...

[Calyth]

As if there aren't enough people monitoring our communication, now even our friends and relatives can do the same thing, albeit in a limited level.
Software like these makes me feel like sticking with encrypted email; whoever invented this is a jerk.

Great Responses

[lonb]

Caller: Hi, this is Navin.
Jerk-O-Meter: You have a special purpose.

== take 2 ==

Caller: Hi, this is Comic Book Guy.
Jerk-O-Meter; This is the jerk-o-meter, you're a jerk.
Caller: A "Jerk-O-Meter," like that's a REALLY necessary invention.

Wow! MIT really warrants their inflated reputation

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez! What a pointless, annoying and generally stupid piece of technolo---

what? it's from MIT?

O blessed sages! We bow before your mighty intellect and humbly accept your bountiful gifts of technology! May your enemies be crushed, driven before you, and the lamentations of their women broadcast at 512 kbps!

You are being a jerk. Stop that

I appreciate you guys

[CustomDesigned]

At first, I thought "call-center" meant the jerks who call me while I'm in the shower to offer to refiniance my (non-existent) mortgage. But instead, you are one of those wonderful people whom *I* can call 24/7 (or 8/5) when I have a stupid question about a product or service.

I called last night about a dimmer I had just purchased. Before opening the package, it looked like the leads might be aluminum. A quick call to the Lutron 24/7 tech line and with the product number in hand, a nice man assured me they were tin coated copper. And when I opened the package they were.

Seriously, I love product support guys that know about the product - even if their knowlege isn'[t exhaustive. Keep up the good work.

Re:I appreciate you guys

[Anonymous Coward]

8/5?

Re:I appreciate you guys

[feamsr00]

8 hours a day (9-5), 5 days a week (Mon-Friday)

Don't tell Uncle Bill...

[Skudd]

Microsoft may get upset with this, as it is similar than their patent on "Identifying when baseball is exciting".

Re:Not to side track anyone but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even scarier: they are running Cold Fusion.

the jerk store called...

[Pollardito]

they said they're out of these

Blaming the victim

[DulcetTone]

Isn't the root cause that dullards are allowed to call people? Why not have a phone that first demands a precis of the reason for the call, and which only permits it to be made when it is convinced there is some merit?

tone

Phone sex

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be like having your mother in the background during every phone conversation.

Boy wouldn't that make phone sex awkward...

Hey, if this works out, maybe we can get a real/fake orgasm detector for the clueless and the overconfident!

Uniblab

[sbillard]

Spacely's a jerk *_hic_* Spacely's a jerk *_hic_* bottom of the 9th...

What Are The Odds

[Master of Transhuman]

this will be installed at the White House?

Well, maybe on Karl's phone...After all, it doesn't detect leaks. But, then, Karl doesn't need it, does he?

Jerk-o-meter or Bored-o-meter?

[assassinator42]

Would it work with all jerks on online games? You know, the ones that throw in a cuss word every other word they speak? The ones who apparently get their kicks calling people n00bs?

Please people, it's from the #@$!& MEDIA LAB

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to ask the kind folks who post stories at Slashdot to distinguish between work from MIT (real, actual, high-quality institution) and from the MIT Media Lab (not so real, middlebrow jive). The whole operation is a giant press release mill. Everything from the Media Lab should come with a disclaimer: "no science was harmed in the making of this product." For a take on the Media Lab from MIT itself, read this brilliant spoof. And for a slightly less-jaundiced point-of-view, check out the wikipedia entry.

Western Jerks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an Aspergian who has some academic background in Eastern Cultures and some interest in social interaction; I've also previously been employed as phone IT support, both consumer and corporate. I'm soft-spoken, and can often calm people down and relax them because of this. I've also got a flat tone. I also pause to ensure someone else is finished speaking, and was schooled that inserting "Uhms" and "ahhs" into spoken word is rude, unprofessional, etcetera.

I've longed for the "Native American" & Eastern ettiquette that it is extremely rude to interrupt someone else when they're talking. It is my experience that many Westerners (Americans and youth culture, really) have little or no compunction about interrupting someone unless the "aggression level" (from tone, emotional impact, word choice) is being matched in the conversation. They also will interrupt if they perceive themselves to be socially dominant.

I've rarely had this problem when speaking with English-speaking people from Eastern countries and cultures- Japan, China, Malaysia, etcetera - regardless of their mastery & fluency. I've almost never encountered it in people from England. I've rarely observed it in these instances, except in certain youth.

My point being this: What helps qualify someone as a "jerk" or "socially inept" - from the way they vocally speak - is probably different to someone from another culture - or someone with a different way of perceiving the world.

uh-uh, That's nice, dear.

[lylfyl]

So, I'm a jerk because you're boring?

Or maybe I'm trying to enter your complaint/pull up your records/ on my computer while talking to you.

Oh you got me, I'm reading Slashdot in another window

amen brother

[Anonymous Coward]

goddamn, it's nice to see other people out there have their shit together... and i hate to say this, but it's especially nice when men have their shit together. too fucking rare - or at least rare to see it admitted publicly. which is possibly even worse.

i'd also like to note that the stupid fucking stereotypes that pass for comedy and "yeah, ain't that the truth" conversation are turning us all into morons. we're all different, we all have similarities, let's get over it and deal with what we actually have in front of us.

good post. kick ass.

I fear the annoyance is mutual.

[Anonymous Coward]

What annoys me is when people seem to indicate that everyone ought to speak and spell the same, and that the language should, in some way, be static.

It seems we're at odds, then. It very much annoys me when people suggest that language should not be static. We need a standard language. When you break the standard, you break the very social contract that allows us to communicate at all!

Everyone knows that if people are allowed diverge linguisticly too far, then their descendants can't talk to each other any more. Look at what happend with English and German. I've got over 16 years of formal education, more than just about any time in history, including and I still can't communicate with to my German relatives on an adult level. That's pathetic!

It's happening to English today, and our society is all the worse for it. I've ignored people who asked me for help questions, not because I wasn't willing to help, but because I couldn't understand their broken English.

Such strained conversations are mutally frustrating. I absolutely hate the miserable uncertainty of listening to every single sentence, running it through twice in my mind to figure out what's wrong with it, and then making a hurried guess at what the person was trying to say. They're often not worth the effort; and when one part decides they're not, the other person might as well not speak any of the language at all.

My subway driver says "Oatmeal" instead of "Old Mill". A co-worker asked if I liked "career foot". He was trying to say "Korean food". A developer kept using the word "Lallabo". After a dozen tries, I clued in that he was trying to say "Nullable". A masseuse asked if I wanted a "heart massage". It's confusing. It's disheartening. It's annoying. I've missed my streetcar stop many times because I couldn't understand the driver when he called out the street names. My view out the window was blocked, so I was force to rely on words I couldn't understand: and often failed to.

I, and my parents before me, have paid literally thousands of dollars to the public education system to ensure that everyone could speak the same language in a common way. So has nearly everyone else in the country.

You seem to be advocating throwing out all our hard work and millions of dollars of taxpayers money on whimsy; and I can't help but resent it.

The network effects of an educated populace are a huge factor in what have enabled us to progress socially and technologically. The more de-facto languages we have to support, the higher the cost of education, and the weaker our society is as a result.

We should be creating common international language standards, not destroying what little linguistic consistance we already possess. Communication only works if everyone does their part. Do yours.
--
AC

Re:I fear the annoyance is mutual.

[trewornan]

Everyone knows that if people are allowed diverge linguisticly too far, then their descendants can't talk to each other any more. . . It's happening to English today

Is it? Or is English converging because of the great ease with which people from geographically seperated speech communities can converse using modern communication technology?

I've ignored people who asked me for help questions, not because I wasn't willing to help, but because I couldn't understand their broken English

It's a shame that you can't accept the wide variation in spoken English for what it is: evidence of a vital and diverse speech community.

Such strained conversations are mutally frustrating.

Where the language diversifies beyond mutual intelligibility natural forces tend to bring it back towards the center.

We should be creating common international language standards, not destroying what little linguistic consistance we already possess.

Do you think that in 1900 a Cajun American could have easily communicated with an Australian Drover or an English Geordie - I'll bet they could now.

Can we have this for mailing lists?

[gnugnugnu]

This would be perfect for mailing lists.

If an automated system could warn people if their sentences were coming across as overly harsh or arrogant know it all jerks.

Of course all too often it is the list owners who are being the jerks but the system could just as easily encourage users to read the faq perhaps even recommend relevant sections.