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

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...

[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: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

[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

[Bjarke Roune]

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

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

[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..?

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