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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.
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!"
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?
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Black Mirror - Be Right Back
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Black_Mirror_episodes#Series_2
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. =====
*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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
If this were the case, then people would simply lose the ability to jump-start conversations. These are valuable skills to have, actually.
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!
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.
Google exists to strip-mine human society. It is the essence of their business model.
Why do they get to patent the Turing test?
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.
A lot of people already either have very weak skills at "jump-starting conversations" or none at all -- it's one of the reasons shyness, social anxiety, and stress during the holidays are all so common. That's not even including people that are wired for different conversational patterns/approaches (e.g. autistics like me).
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