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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."

7 of 140 comments (clear)

  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: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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. 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.