4 ms·

Perhaps its the smartarse Australian larrikin in me, but these kinds of automated responses depress me, because I can see them working like corporate new-speak:

Perhaps its the smartarse Australian larrikin in me, but these kinds of automated responses depress me, because I can see them working like corporate new-speak: they're going to push us to limit our communication down to a bunch of canned responses, emotions and interactions. Sometimes I think AI isn't advancing at all, its just that we're all working more and more to fall in line like good automatons... I love sarcasm, dead-pan, violently black-humour...and I'm watching it all slowly disappear and we all become pidgeonholed, public, on-show, quantised and sanitised. I'd much rather bring back: >What are you up to? >> In middle of school shooting. Cops on way. Call you back in 5? >Want to hang out? >> I'm in the bathroom, so in a way, I already am... > sends through that picture of child holding flower >> Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah... Oh, but the two are unrelated you say... Well no. I'm not certain that they are...

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> >What are you up to? >> In middle of school shooting. Cops on way. Call you back in 5? These days, that sounds like something that would make SWAT invite themselves into your house, through a window. The responses are sure cute and creative. I seriously doubt whoever writes like this today will change their ways because of "smart replies". Most people don't write stuff like that, definitely not during most of the conversations. I don't really have a formed view yet. I think getting outraged over someone using augmented software to respond faster is wrong, and only a problem with the person who gets outraged. On the other hand I do appreciate the effect of limiting the potential conversation space if people get too dependent those reply suggestions. It is also true though that a lot of conversations one has over e-mail or IMs follow so common patterns that there were many times I wished I could just automate it away, to have a bot reply to them without the other side knowing. Maybe I'm just antisocial? But I tend to differentiate between requests for information from requests for personal attention, and wouldn't mind having my bot handle all of the former. (Then again, I wouldn't accept anything except a bot I wrote myself, so maybe I'm not that antisocial - since I'd be just spawning a part of myself as an external process. That's also one reason why I'm so pissed about all the modern bot / AI tech from Google, et al., which has zero configurability, zero ways to plug your own stuff in yourself.)
- yougavemehope 10y ago
  If you dislike talking to someone so much that you wish you could automate it away, why are you talking to them to begin with? This seems similar or related to the need people seem to have to remain permanently connected even to people who they only met for a few seconds at a bar once, to increase that ever-important "friend count". Some relationships are meant to end. It's not healthy to try to maintain 1000 vaguely familiar people as "friends". The ridiculous thing is, most of those "friends" are dreading having to pretend to care about the things you, the guy they met for a few seconds once but feel bad deleting, post on the internet as well. Just stop it. Neither side wins in forced out-of-sympathy/fear/loyalty/obligation/etc relationships.
  - karmajunkie 10y ago
    Because my mother (and lots of other people I care about) don't understand how draining it can be for someone like me to carry on a conversation sometimes. Maybe having a high friend count is something you feel the need to deal with, but for others of us software like this might actually solve a problem. Please reserve your judgement on our social protocols for... Nobody. (Disclaimer: I don't use allo so I don't know what it's capable of. I kind of doubt it's there yet. )
EliRivers 10y ago
Sometimes I think AI isn't advancing at all It's not. It's bigger and faster, and being applied to situations it wasn't previously applied to.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> >What are you up to? >> In middle of school shooting. Cops on way. Call you back in 5? These days, that sounds like something that would make SWAT invite themselves into your house, through a window. The responses are sure cute and creative. I seriously doubt whoever writes like this today will change their ways because of "smart replies". Most people don't write stuff like that, definitely not during most of the conversations. I don't really have a formed view yet. I think getting outraged over someone using augmented software to respond faster is wrong, and only a problem with the person who gets outraged. On the other hand I do appreciate the effect of limiting the potential conversation space if people get too dependent those reply suggestions. It is also true though that a lot of conversations one has over e-mail or IMs follow so common patterns that there were many times I wished I could just automate it away, to have a bot reply to them without the other side knowing. Maybe I'm just antisocial? But I tend to differentiate between requests for information from requests for personal attention, and wouldn't mind having my bot handle all of the former. (Then again, I wouldn't accept anything except a bot I wrote myself, so maybe I'm not that antisocial - since I'd be just spawning a part of myself as an external process. That's also one reason why I'm so pissed about all the modern bot / AI tech from Google, et al., which has zero configurability, zero ways to plug your own stuff in yourself.)

yougavemehope 10y ago
If you dislike talking to someone so much that you wish you could automate it away, why are you talking to them to begin with? This seems similar or related to the need people seem to have to remain permanently connected even to people who they only met for a few seconds at a bar once, to increase that ever-important "friend count". Some relationships are meant to end. It's not healthy to try to maintain 1000 vaguely familiar people as "friends". The ridiculous thing is, most of those "friends" are dreading having to pretend to care about the things you, the guy they met for a few seconds once but feel bad deleting, post on the internet as well. Just stop it. Neither side wins in forced out-of-sympathy/fear/loyalty/obligation/etc relationships.
- karmajunkie 10y ago
  Because my mother (and lots of other people I care about) don't understand how draining it can be for someone like me to carry on a conversation sometimes. Maybe having a high friend count is something you feel the need to deal with, but for others of us software like this might actually solve a problem. Please reserve your judgement on our social protocols for... Nobody. (Disclaimer: I don't use allo so I don't know what it's capable of. I kind of doubt it's there yet. )

EliRivers 10y ago

Sometimes I think AI isn't advancing at all It's not. It's bigger and faster, and being applied to situations it wasn't previously applied to.