Facebook is Shutting Down M, Its Personal Assistant Service That Combined Humans and AI (cnbc.com)

Facebook M, the text-based virtual assistant that used human workers to train an artificial intelligence system, is ending the human-assisted part of the service after two and a half years. From a report: The human-enhanced version of M, which was available through a bot on Facebook Messenger, only ever became available to about 2,000 people living in California. The final day of the will be January 19th, Facebook said, and contractors who worked on it will be offered other jobs at the company. First introduced in August 2015, aspects of the service will live on through M suggestions, which offers fully automated suggestions for payments, making plans, and sending stickers through Messenger. When it launched, Facebook described M as a "beta" and suggested the human-powered assistant would come to more users over time. But it never did. Upon shutting down the human-powered M, Facebook described it as an "experiment."

Comments

Companies never learn

[110010001000]

AI is not a real thing. Clippy and Eliza get reinvented every decade. What a waste of money and time.

Re:Companies never learn

[decipher_saint]

Are you telling me Bonzi isn't my Buddy?

Re:Companies never learn

[mark-t]

Is intelligence real?

If you'd say not, then I'd agree with you... at least insomuch as you seem to have a different definition of intelligence from most of humanity.

If intelligence is real, however, then why can't AI be? AI is, by definition, intelligence that is simply artificial, rather than natural. Short of attributing it to magic, there is no reason that AI cannot exist.

And just as there can be different levels of natural intelligence, it only stands to reason that there can be different levels of artificial intelligence as well. We might very well say that the state of AI is such that one might be embarrassed to associate the term "intelligence" with it, but that's a subjective notion... not any kind of objective metric.

Re:Companies never learn

[110010001000]

"If you'd say not"

I'm beginning to think the answer to your first question is "no".

Re: Companies never learn

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Clippy was far more entertaining, even if it was just his visual appearance, than any of the BS that came out of the latest AI hype.

Re:Companies never learn

[110010001000]

Not sure about that. It might be! Alexa is essentially the same thing as Bonzi Buddy, just with even more spying.

Re:Companies never learn

[HideyoshiJP]

Yeah, the buddy that won't shut up and won't leave when you tell him to.

Re: Companies never learn

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Who woukd have thought the most money would eventually be dumped into clippy? Is it any wonder tech is such a boring charade these days?

Never Heard of This

[Anonymous Coward]

But since it's got that buzzword known as "AI" in it, I'm sure everyone will come out of the woodwork to cry about this tragic loss.

Re:Never Heard of This

[Oswald McWeany]

But since it's got that buzzword known as "AI" in it, I'm sure everyone will come out of the woodwork to cry about this tragic loss.

It's always sad when an Al goes away. Losing Al Bundy was the worst though.

Re: Never Heard of This

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if this I and l discrepancy (which only affects sans-serif, I assume) can be used to forge an malicious attack on user's brain, dumping hereby it's contents inclusive private passwords. I think I'll hire an artist to design a logo, while I'm busy writing a scary whitepaper and post stupid mockup videos of the alleged attack on youtube.

Re:Never Heard of This

[ganjadude]

right? Al didnt even get a real final episode. sad really

Slow news day?

[sjbe]

When it launched, Facebook described M as a "beta" and suggested the human-powered assistant would come to more users over time. But it never did. Upon shutting down the human-powered M, Facebook described it as an "experiment."

So something that barely anyone knew about and fewer actually got to use is being shut down without ever being widely rolled out? I'm not really sure why I should care...

Slow news day I guess.

Re:Slow news day?

[110010001000]

I agree. We should be talking about throwing the Intel CEO in jail for insider trading instead.

Re:Slow news day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Insider trading isn't the problem they need to worry about. "Materially misleading statements to shareholders" is what will hang them up. They've known about this problem for months, yet never disclosed it, even vaguely, as a concern going forward in any of their SEC filings. That, my friend, is fraud, and they will have to make the shareholders whole again.

Re:Slow news day?

[Nkwe]

Insider trading isn't the problem they need to worry about. "Materially misleading statements to shareholders" is what will hang them up. They've known about this problem for months, yet never disclosed it, even vaguely, as a concern going forward in any of their SEC filings. That, my friend, is fraud, and they will have to make the shareholders whole again.

Since the shareholders *are* the owners of the company, where would funds to make the shareholders whole come from? It would come from the value of the company (which is distributed across shareholders). Making the shareholders "whole" sounds like a zero sum game.

Take it from the CEO's personal shares/assets?

[Anonymous Coward]

He knowingly sold 900k shares which he filed to sell after finding out about this sometime between june and october, and without notifying the board/SEC about the possible conflict of interest there.

Krzanich deserves everything he gets and more.

Meh.

[beep54]

Call me when you can report simply "Facebook is shutting down".