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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!"
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?"
Camilebot and Starbot are now in a relationship.
Camilebot
I can't believe it's been 2^16 milliseconds already! I'm in automated heaven. Love you Starbot!
which is totally what she said
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
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.
You have a profound lack of understanding of what Google does and what
Google plans to do.
The consequences of using Google for ANY of its services will be far-reaching and
quite beyond the control of the individual user to remedy.
There is only one intelligent choice for those of us who actually do grasp the
full ramifications of using Gmail, Google+, or Google search, and that is
to NOT USE ANY GOOGLE SERVICES, period.
( captcha = retain. )
As in " Google will retain everything it knows about you,
forever.
/
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.
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!
And then the bot pretending to be a 10 year old girl will have the bot pretending to be a creepy old man arrested by bots pretending to be the FBI.
Fortunately, a bot pretending to be a lawyer will pretend to defend it when it pretends to go to trial before a bot pretending to be a judge and a jury of twelve bots pretending to be its peers.
When it is all finished other bots will have something to pretend to talk about while pretending to chat for years to come.