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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.'"
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!
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.
American Universities used to make useful things... *sigh*
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.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
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".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
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.
Meanwhile, that post was spelled perfectly, as far as I can tell.
Bjarke Roune
Safari has a spell checker built in and one is available for Firefox as an extension, so "Don't be a jerk!"
Karma: Incomprehensible (Mostly affected by posting at +5, reading at -1, and metamoderating everything unfair.)
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.
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..?
'No rational religion claims "supernatural" exists, that's an atheist slander.' - seen on slashdot.
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?
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