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DARPA Builds Smarter Version of Microsoft's Clippy

Posted by samzenpus on from the dead-but-dreaming-of-electric-sheep dept.

holy_calamity writes "Microsoft's animated paperclip may be long dead, but a $150m DARPA project has resurrected the idea of a virtual assistant. AI researchers from more than 60 institutions worked on the project entitled CALO. CALO is designed to help ease the bureaucratic burden of the military. A consumer spinoff, Siri, is coming to the iPhone later this year. It responds to conversational voice commands to take over multi-step tasks like choosing and booking restaurants or cabs."

22 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Is it time yet... by jamstar7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... to say "Oh, shit, there goes the neighborhood!"?

    I for one found Clippy to be annoying as hell, and was DAMNED glad they killed him.

    --
    Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    1. Re:Is it time yet... by mrgiles · · Score: 5, Funny

      I can imagine it now.
      You: "Oh, shit, there go the neighbours!"
      iPhone Clippy (aloud): "I see you are trying to avoid your neighbours. Would you like me to. . . "
      You: "Shut up shutup SHUTUP!"

    2. Re:Is it time yet... by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Clippy wasn't a bad IDEA, just executed VERY VERY poorly. Especially the bit where you tell it to "GO TO HELL" and try and find every setting that says "I don't ever want to see this shit again!", yet the jerk still keeps popping up :((

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    3. Re:Is it time yet... by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 5, Funny

      I for one found Clippy to be annoying as hell, and was DAMNED glad they killed him.

      Clippy, virtual assistant. A program barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    4. Re:Is it time yet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      OK but what did they do with the other $144M?

    5. Re:Is it time yet... by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh, shit...

      Clippy: I've located several public bathrooms and a large cluster of shrubs nearby. Would you like directions?

      --


      "Lame" - Galaxar
    6. Re:Is it time yet... by Hurricane78 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I disagree. I think Clippy, as a personal assistant, was by definition a bad idea.

      The computer is an extended tool. Which itself is an extension of your body.

      So the idea is, to make it a powerful but fully transparent thing. Like a Mech suit with Matrix interface.
      Our hands even have their own special "highway" path around the slow areas of the brain, because of our habit of extending our bodies trough them.

      Which means that separate entities in that space give you essentially a split personality. Much like Dr. Strangelove's hand.
      Additionally, you have to communicate with that entity in probably the most inefficient and senseless way possible: Text. Or even speech!

      Even a keyboard and a mouse, primitive as they are, are still much closer to a brain-computer interface, as putting another layer of a chatting bottleneck below that and the program.

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    7. Re:Is it time yet... by TheLink · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree. Instead of explicitly asking you what you'd like to do, the interface should make it easier for you to do stuff.

      Similarly I feel AI researchers should focus more on human augmentation, and delay the "create a new entity" stuff.

      There are lots of problems if you actually end up creating a new entity - ethical, social etc. It's like forcing ourselves to answer hard questions before we are ready.

      --
  2. A consumer version? by gcnaddict · · Score: 4, Funny

    A consumer version of a military app for a widely-used phone?

    Anyone have a spare tin-foil hat?

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    Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
  3. Hi! It looks like you want to kill insurgents? by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe I can help. How much collateral damage can you handle?

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    1. Re:Hi! It looks like you want to kill insurgents? by MaXintosh · · Score: 5, Funny
      I seem to grok that this is more for the brass, to manage day to day things. Obviously, it'd be more like this:

      Hi! It looks like you're writing a justification for an un-winnable war against a nebulous enemy. Would you like help?
      * Get help distancing yourself from the blunders of the previous commander.
      * Just stumble through this conflict alone.

      [] Don't remind me of Vietnam again.

  4. Smart = Unpredictable by Mprx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Smart interfaces are a bad idea, because you can never be sure how they will respond. Dumb interfaces are predictable tools so they require less brain power to use than the two-way dialog of smart interfaces. With dumb interfaces I can fire off a long string of commands without having to stop and think between each one. This improves productivity more than any supposedly intelligent interface will.

    1. Re:Smart = Unpredictable by aniefer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That same idea is expressed in an article about why Wolfram-Alpha fails as a user interface.

  5. So has anyone asked the question... by PhantomHarlock · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why don't they just work on easing up the bureaucratic burden in the first place?

    A: Likely because it's impossible. An aging and entrenched organization, with no incentive to compete, receives the same amount of tax payer money per year no matter what they do.

    My friend works for a branch of the millitary as an accountant, and oh the stories. Just watch Office Space and multiply it by ten. It's comedy gold. I laugh and tell her to quit but she's addicted to the huge paycheck.

    1. Re:So has anyone asked the question... by Bluesman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is a quintessential military approach to a problem:

      "We're spending way too much time and money on [stupid thing]."

      "Well, we have a new process that will allow us to do [stupid thing] much faster!"

      "Great!"

      Examples abound. A perfect one is the primary mode of communication on ships is radio, even though the networks (i.e. chat) are far faster and more reliable. We'll spend hours troubleshooting radios over chat in order to pass voice messages over radio. Then we'll chat again to confirm that the recipient actually received the radio message properly.

      --
      If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
    2. Re:So has anyone asked the question... by mpyne · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is a quintessential military approach to a problem:

      *snip*

      Examples abound. A perfect one is the primary mode of communication on ships is radio, even though the networks (i.e. chat) are far faster and more reliable. We'll spend hours troubleshooting radios over chat in order to pass voice messages over radio. Then we'll chat again to confirm that the recipient actually received the radio message properly.

      This would be funny if it weren't for the fact that it's true (and I've dealt with it as well :-/ )

  6. Re:"Helpers" by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 4, Funny

    "It seems you want to start a war! Can I help?"

  7. Well... by FlyingSquidStudios · · Score: 5, Funny

    I, for one, refuse to download that App until it has a voice like Douglas Rain and calls me Dave.

    --
    http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
  8. So this is how the world ends. by genner · · Score: 3, Funny

    I always knew MS Office would have somthing to do with it.

  9. This is from 2001, but still brilliant. by FlipperPA · · Score: 3, Funny

    http://randomaxe.comicgenesis.com/d/20010725.html

    That is all.

  10. Re:"Helpers" by Lunzo · · Score: 4, Funny
    Scene: A missile silo in the USA.

    Grunt: Sir, the radars are picking up incoming Russian nukes. We've only got 2 minutes to act!
    Commander: This is the moment we've been training for. Commence launch sequence.
    [The commander and another officer turn keys and the commander presses the red button. On the screen the following appears:]

    Hi. It looks like you're trying to launch an ICBM. Would you like to:
    • Launch a test missile.
    • Participate in M.A.D. [click here to learn more]
    • Remove Clippy and continue working (Note this will detonate your nukes without launching them). It's the only way known to permanently remove Clippy.
  11. Siri is kinda cool by systemeng · · Score: 3, Informative

    These guys briefed at a company meeting the other day and offered a private beta to those of us with i-phones. Their tool allows you to submit natural language queries for things that involve transactions. You can tell your Siri enabled phone to order you a pineapple pizza and it will find pizza restaurants with web ordering API's and then show you the prices for what you asked for and offer to let you buy them. In the case of pizza during the demo, it showed pizza Hut and Dominoes. They're working towards an interface that would allow you to say "Book me on the next flight to chicago!" You can tell siri, "Get me a copy of $bookname" and it will search amazon and other services with buy online API's and offer to purchase the book for you.

    The bottom line to me is that it looked powerful and scary at the same time. It most definitely isn't clippy.