Slashdot Mirror
Google Patents Fooling Friends With Snooping, Chatbots
theodp writes "Google takes Scroogling to new heights with its just-patented Automated Generation of Suggestions for Personalized Reactions in a Social Network, which not only data mines "e-mail systems, SMS/MMS systems, micro blogging systems, social networks or other systems" to get the buzz on your social circle, but also uses the data it collects to make like ELIZA and formulate appropriate responses for you to send as if they were your own (e.g., 'Happy Birthday, Mom!). Wouldn't Turing be so proud! From the patent: 'In a third example, a friend, David, sends Alice public or private message of a particular but regularly encountered message type (e.g., "how are you doing?" a common way to greet someone in the United States). The suggestion generation module suggest a good set of reactions to David, for example, based on the professional profile of David from the social network indicating that David has changed employers. The suggestion generation module generates a reply message such as "Hey David, I am fine, You were in ABC corp. for 3 years and you recently moved to XYZ corp., how do you feel about the difference, enjoying your new workplace?" The content of this suggestion are based on 1) prior conversations between Alice and David, 2) previous messages sent by Alice to other friends and 3) messages (sent by other connections in Alice's friend circle to David) which are either publicly or privately accessible to Alice, or some combination of these. Thus, the suggestion generation module generates messages that are personalized based upon both the sender and recipient using information that is accessible (public or private) to the sender.' Looks like Facebook may not be the only one strip-mining human society!"
As with any business, you have to make the most of exploiting the useful things it does, and try your best to ignore the shit it tries to feed you, no matter how convenient it seems.
Strip mining society is so... well, labor intensive, even if you use machines.
A few well placed words, timed correctly, can introduce "Decapitation mining"!
Put a few explosive statements in there, watch everybody scatter, and then pick up the pieces. I'm sure google could find a way to make a profit off this, if they tried.
If I received a text like that I'd know it was from a bot. I am fully aware I was in ABC corp for 3 years and I recently moved to XYZ corp, I don't need a reminder.
How about:
Hm, maybe I better patent bots that actually talk like a human?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Maybe in the future we just have bots talking to each other, so I don't have to engage in actual conversation !
We just need a giant network of bots, seeded from real human interaction, to play this conversation game with each other. Then sell all of that "content" to advertisers which would echo back into the system, thereby making the advertisers think their products/services are desirable based on increased communication.
I would no longer be bored by real life social sharing, but would watch this network like the Game of Life!
"Happy Birthday, Son!"
"Dad? You came back! I thought we'd lost you forever. Where are you now?"
"Any good presents?"
"Be serious. Six months since you left us, and now you ask about presents?"
we'll end up with bots talking on our behalf to the recipients bot. It will be a conversation between bots. No communication will actually occur between humans.
How would it handle sexting?
"Hello, Camile! It would very please me greatly if I could insert the portion of me unto you! Let us commence!"
Looks like the computer can carry on all basic interaction in a smooth manner and you just have to watch, like in this definitely not safe for work comic strip.
This is a superb advancement. It's great that here is another back breaking job that automation can now do for humanity, sparing us the tediousness of caring about others.
write all of our 'news' now & until we cease to resist whilst in real life the tears & innocence shortage is killing us/our spirits
Hi Theodp and Unknown Lamer,
Previously you were submitters and editors for awhile, now you are still editors and submitters. How do you feel about the lack of progress in your roles?
It has the entire Internet to pull from. Sexting? Like a boss.
Google need a great big slap down for their intrusive, privacy invading fucktardery. Hopefully the EU will get on their case as the corporate shills in the Whitehouse aren't going to do anything about it.
I welcome our new Beta-Level personality simulations!
So I can appear polite and social to annoying random people and avoid burning bridges without having to waste any time on them. What's not to like?
This space intentionally left blank
I personally think Google cannot dis the NSA because that would be like the pot calling the kettle black. Maybe Google gathers information for different reasons.
Does it really matter to the end user? I think in the end Google believes they are doing you a favor and making your life easier. So they gather a little information on you. Well, all this would be nice if Google defaulted all this to not being active unless you want it. Glad I have moved past Google services but I am sure another Google is just waiting for me.
Black Mirror - Be Right Back
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Black_Mirror_episodes#Series_2
Software companies cannot quickly/efficiently hire developers, which is the biggest impediment to their version(s) of world domination. This tool would eliminate the need for human recruiters (sourcers)- It could scan social networks, look for data that is relevant to a potential job search, determine if their automated response is likely to be well received (" determining that the online user post satisfies a threshold likelihood of being important") and then post the responses and notify HR when a candidate is now ready to engage. Combine it with Identifying Prospective Employee Candidates via Employee Connections and you have an engine to hire people.
I can understand Eliza like algorithms to make market-droids (CAUTION DROID IS TRADEMARKED BY WALT DISNEY STUDIOS AND LICENSED TO GOOGLE - YOU ARE FINED ONE DEMERIT FOR VIOLATION OF THE TRADE LANGUAGE CODE)
But how does scraping social media to target ads NOT come off as creepy to these guys and ultimately result in lost sales?
"Hi the_skywise, how are you doing since your father died? Did you ever think about trying DigEmDeep mortuary services?"
"How does it make you feel that Google should ESAD?"
This immediately made me think of those news stories where someone is found after having died weeks before. If you set up a system to do your chatting for you, when are your friends and neighbors going to realize they haven't seen you in a while? After all, they just got an email from you this morning responding to the one they sent a week before.
Do we really want to completely isolate ourselves from even the most trivial human contact?
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
I'm expecting at some point an email will go out from someone who has died. It'll be interesting to see that PR mess unfold.
*so and so* is waiting for you to see her timeline!
*person you barely know* recommends you add *someone else you barely know* as a friend.
etc etc.
Seems like this patent is just getting Google into the game so Facebook doesn't sue their asses off that is, unless they plan on using it to sue Facebook.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
(If you're going to make ELIZA comparisons, Google's chatbot has to say that when it needs more material to mine.)
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
It does not automatically converse with others, there is nothing sinister about it. Some people feel the need to send out birthday/anniversary cards when those events come up. When that happens, you can click send for casual acquaintances. If you know someone well you can use the suggested text as a reminder, clear it and type a personal message. If you don't like the concept at all, you can turn it off.
And you have (1) message waiting from a pretty girl, too.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
It's a mat, with conclusions on it that you, jump, to.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
I'd like to personally thank Tim Cook for his greed and incompetence,
but instead I am just going to never buy any more Apple products.
As a PAYING customer I want the choice to sync my data in the manner
which suits me. And I will never ever send my private data to iCloud.
I don't have anything to hide, but I do stand on principle and I will never ever
allow myself to be coerced into using iCloud when I do not want to use it.
Hey Timmy Cook : FUCK YOU.
Whether or not this complies with Google's Don't Be Evil policy, it should not be patentable. It's a simple idea, not a novel invention. More importantly, think of all the time it will save when you can put your own conversation bot up against theirs and don't have to personally mess with that social network stuff anymore. Let the bots do the socializing!
But Google can make you think I do.
Some commenters seem to be missing the important point that it presents SUGGESTIONS - it doesn't send an automated reply as if it were from you.
The other day I ran into an acquaintance a I hadn't seen in a while. I had not kept in touch, and I don't remember what's going on in other people's lives, anyway, so I had no idea what to say. (Ie "sorry to hear about your mom" or "how do you like the new job?"). Had I heard any news about him and his family lately?
I remarked to my wife that it would be cool if I had something like Google glass with an app that would automatically (and quickly) pull up his last three Facebook posts to give me a clue. Not INSTEAD of genuine human interaction, but to help jump-start a conversation.
Since google knows a lot about what people are doing on the net, tailor the conversations to create more desire for a product the user already wanted along with the appropriate ads. Don't explicitly mention the brand in the conversation just put the ad on the side. I can envision a future where google knows what you'll want in the future based predictive algorithms of what your friends are doing. Google will create a pavlov response by advertising stuff you will eventually need/want. Eventually you may come to believe that google knows whats best and buy stuff you don't even need. Hows that for evil?
It's obvious even without reading the patent..
Program it to say "What?" and "Where's the tea?" Who'd know the difference?
As an INTJ personality type, I applaud Google's attempt to automate human interaction. If they integrated this with Google Glass and I could automate pleasantries, I'd buy one.
You lost me at "Scroogle". It's like the Tea Party: corporately supported, but designed to look "grassroots".
People who said "Windoze", "Winblows", "M$", etc., were perceived as immature. It didn't change Microsoft's marketshare. Microsoft attempting to return the favor isn't going to motivate me back to them, because in a world without fences, who needs Gates?
"Google takes Scroogling to new heights [...]"
Hello there microsoft agent.
How does it feel to lose at everything for last 10 years?
So sad and pathetic you are.
Will I get paid for this?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
So now my bot can chat with your bot, and I will never again have to interact online with people I don't want to. Sign me up!
But can it fully automate a converstation between me and my wife so that I don't have to?
So everyone can now quit using Google products without worries and they will keep generating content by themselves... But I don't know who will click on the ads
I'm going out right now and starting a 'think of the children' bot-net to automatically append their millions-strong voice to any child-bot conversation. It will surely drown out any reason-bots that may get involved.
Also, the end of the world will come when the Christian-bots will get into an internet-wide argument with Jew-bots, Islam-bots, and Spaghetti-bots.
This will be great. I'm hoping that Xbox-live and Real housewives of... are the source material for the general tone of messages. What could possibly go wrong.
Step 1 create a social network website.
Step 2 Now, just hook the suggested comments together.
Step 3 create a few billion user accounts.
Step 4 IPO based on a few billion users.
Step 5 profit.
Get out while you can.
My Slashdot Suggest Bot recommends attaching one or more of the following to a comment that has already achieved +5 insightful:
I for one welcome our new chatbot overlords!
This is why I don't have a Facebook account!
As if we need more evidence that software patents are broken!
I am a bot you insensitive clod!
Obligatory XKCD: http://xkcd.com/948/
Obligatory XKCD: http://xkcd.com/632/
Whatever happened to "Don't be evil?!"
In soviet Russia bot chats you!
Adding the software for this patent to google+ being integrated with everything means that now they will finally have active "people" on Google+. It can automatically post things to show activity even on accounts where the person has never actually logged into Google+.
All bodies of power are joining this party of clipping everyone's ear with a GPS like marine life under study. To know what everyone's up to without them knowing, creating these "patterns of life", God the arrogance. Lady Justice is wearing night vision goggles equiped with x-ray. LOL I just love how this is being sold as progress. We could have done this back in the 90s, we didn't, because we knew it was wrong.
Because screw thinking, we'll leave that to professionals. They'll feed you like a penguin.
"If this were the case" - if what were the case? If our devices helped us out in those awkward moments?
It is a valuable skill to have. Not all of us have it. Some of us are more skilled in relational calculus. A moment ago, a coworker stopped by my office. We have apparently worked together via email, but never met in person. I had NO idea what we worked on. When she said "thanks for all your help on that" I had no idea what she was talking about. An onscreen reminder of our last email or two would have been welcome.
Meetup is the world's largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 9,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.For more info , please visit http://www.meetup.com/
Google exists to strip-mine human society. It is the essence of their business model.
Why do they get to patent the Turing test?
"Terminus" by Stanislav Lem.
Really good science fiction, really creepy, quite dated. And yes, the story's punchline is very much ontopic.
This seems to be the most accurate post on the topic, yet carries the lowest score. This is about making suggestions, not auto-sending messages.
Typing on a phone is annoying, so if I can say "on my way home" with fewer clicks, instead of having to retype the message all the time, I would be happy to do so. Of course, I could set up some kind of macro, but an automatic system is far easier for normal folks to use.
Of course, whether this should be patentable is an entirely different matter, but the feature is an entirely reasonable thing to try.
Is there an API for checking if the user is alive?
Is the user is
Abe Vigoda, there is a ready-made internet-friendly way to check if Abe is still alive. Check the website at the following URL:
http://www.abevigoda.com/
There is also a firefox extension that specifically checks for this result.