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Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense
- InclinedPlane 16y agoThat's the ticket. Promote "science" by relentlessly repeating the same thing over and over again and refusing to engage in a meaningful argument.
- msbarnett 16y agoYou're being snide, I suspect, but that's a time-tested and well-proven method of reaching the segment of the population that is currently being inundated with anti-science messages. Many, many people believe what they hear first and what gets shouted loudest. Not liking that fact, and therefore refusing to engage in those tactics, doesn't make it any less true; it simply cedes a large segment of the population to anti-science proponents who are willing to do what it takes to get their message heard.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoBy relying on such tactics you are abandoning science. You are saying essentially "who cares that these techniques can be used to get people to believe anything, what matters is that we are using them to promote The TRUTH(TM)". And every religion in history has believed exactly the same thing. I don't want science to die, I don't want it to be replaced with some new ideology or religion which can trace its roots to some sciency origin. Perhaps you can claim that in the short run you've improved things, but in the long run you've drowned out the vital dialog that keeps the process of science alive, you've killed the goose that lays the golden eggs. Meanwhile, someone else figures out how to shout even louder and more convincingly than you and we're back to square one, or the dark ages. People aren't accepting what you believe to be scientifically provable facts? Argue more persuasively, provide better evidence. Don't just shout louder. P.S. Yeah, it's a tough and frustrating process. Nobody said it'd be easy. It took millenia for human civilization to pull itself out of the morass of uncritical and superstitious thought. People, many people, suffered and died for that achievement, and the results have been spectacular so far. Giving up on science just because convincing other people of something is a frustrating and difficult process is the height of immaturity.
- dkarl 16y agoThe subject under discussion is not science, but who to trust on scientific issues that affect politics. People act out this argument dramatically by repeating the arguments of the people they think should be trusted. This is not a good thing -- as usual, when people aren't explicitly talking about what they're really arguing over, the debate goes nowhere fast -- but at least you can comfort yourself with the thought that the public discussion about global warming has nothing to do with the process and progress of science.
- pyre 16y agoHow about if the message promoted (i.e. THE TRUTH(TM)) is that that the scientific method works and that we should place our 'faith' in it? ;-)
- msbarnett 16y ago> By relying on such tactics you are abandoning science. I don't think this is true. Science is a means of building knowledge via testable predictions. It's not a promotional tool. It's unrealistic to expect that effective techniques for performing science will be at all effective for promoting science; in fact, we have ample evidence that trying to promote science via reasoned engagement doesn't work very well. Anti-scientific proponents of vaccine-avoidance or evolution-denial continue to gain the mindshare of a significant and powerful segment of the voting population that "better evidence" has been unable to sway.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoBy "unable to sway" you mean "unable to sway everyone without any effort and with almost no delay". How many people believed in evolution in 1500? How many people believed the Sun was powered by nuclear fusion in 1900? It's possible to convince people of the value of scientific inquiry and the truth of the results of scientific research, but sometimes it takes a lot more time and effort than anyone would wish. On the plus side, we have it a lot easier than Galileo did. Our lives aren't in immediate danger merely because we challenge the dogma of powerful institutions.
- gjm11 16y agoWell, that seems to work for the global warming denialists. (Also, Leck's chatbot actually avoids repeating itself when talking to any particular person. I don't see anything wrong with repeating the same arguments when responding to different people.)
- archgoon 16y agoIf someone comes up to me and informs me that "XYZ is wrong!", and I refer him to several books on the subject, how am I being anti-science? I'm reminded of a friend's story back in undergrad. His lab TA told everyone "See that stuffed bear of there? That's Mr. Cuddles. If you have a question, ask Mr. Cuddles first. Then if he can't help you, ask a real TA." What the AI_bot is dealing with is automatic handling of a large number of pre-canned, pre-debunked arguments, which appropriate reply _is_ "This has been debated before, check it out." Understanding other people's arguments is also part of the scientific process. Furthermore, the author of the bot is reviewing the activity, to ensure that arguments are not being inappropriately applied.
- lzw 16y agoYou are being anti-science because you don't know or understand the science, you're just giving them citations that are completely irrelevant to the question at hand. This has been my experience with global warming advocates- they believe what they believe and they have links to papers that they have never read to justify their faith.
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- anthonyb 16y agoRubbish. He's providing links to http://www.skepticalscience.com/ http://www.skepticalscience.com/, which in turn has links to peer reviewed papers. It's a direct invitation to engage in meaningful argument - the science actually says "X" and here's how they arrived at that conclusion. That most of the people he's replying to are unable or unwilling to engage doesn't detract from what he's doing.
- lzw 16y agoLinking to a blog written by scientifically ignorant proponetns of a religion who make inaccurate in dishonest links to random scientific papers is not making an argument. Just like you are unwilling or unable to engage in debate here.
- anthonyb 16y agoEr, the guy running it is a scientist. If you disagree, or want to engage in debate, by all means start doing so and stop blindly downvoting everything that you disagree with.
- lzw 16y agoYou are expressing your bigotry towards me. When I disagree, I actually disagree, and it is this disagreement that you are responding to. You can't downvote a response you disagree to (or at least hacker news doesn't let me) and I don't downvote anyway. If I disagree, I disagree by writing a counter argument. You may not like it, it may not be persuasive, but I write it. As to whether this guy is a "scientist" or not, I don't think it is relevant as your movement commonly mischaracterizes people according to their ideological purity. EDIT: Now I understand why you accused me of blindly downvoting. Projection.
- lhnn 16y agoMan-made global warming is a myth.
- lhnn 16y agoI knew I'd get downvoted for stating the fact... The problem with that Twitter bot is that which ever side it promoted, it's still stating "facts" without citation (as I have done). That's the problem with Twitter: it's useless as a platform for DISCUSSION. The bot author is a spambot, not a chatbot, and is another reason to stay away from that website.
- dangrossman 16y agoI glanced over the bot's Twitter stream and it appeared that every response it sent out included a headline/quote and a link. None of the tweets were simply assertions without a link to research or an article to back them up.
- lhnn 16y agoApologies, I thought the text displayed was all the twitter feed was sending. Twitter still sucks, though.
- lzw 16y agoActually all of them are because it is just linking to random papers without any understanding of context-- it can't have understanding because it is a bot. This is actually a very accurate simulation of attempting to debate with a global warming zealot.
- chc 16y agoThe bot may have problems, but I don't think its problem is that Twitter and Hacker News are two very different venues.
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- paul 16y agoWow, it's a proactive FAQ! I wonder how many other persistant myths could be addressed with a tool like this?
- skybrian 16y agoThe next step: Snopesbot.
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoLet me see if I understand this correctly. Some programmer assumes that he is right and others are wrong, so he writes a bot to chase down people he might disagree with and bombard them with one-liners. And Technology Review thinks this is behavior worth promoting? I suspect the reason is that they agree with the programmer. Try it out for a bit with the roles reversed. Doesn't feel quite the same, huh? ADD: The assumption here is that there is no way you can believe in X. Therefore it is okay for me to write a bot that spams and pesters everybody who believes in X, since they are horribly misinformed. Works great -- as long as you're omniscient.
- CapitalistCartr 16y agoI am as skeptical of the details of man-made global warming as anyone, but people who argue on twitter, for God's sake, are at the level of a chat-bot and it's probably for the best.
- electromagnetic 16y agoYes, it's like arguing on a crowded bus. Everyone hears you, nobody cares and they either want you put in your place or told to STFU. I'm more dubious of the proposed solutions to global warming than anything as it looks highly like a band-aid infused with arsenic to me. Sure it'll kill the infection, but it could well kill you too. Go nuclear, it's the lesser of the evils. Existing infrastructure can be cannibalized for it (access to roadways, rail or river, cooling pools, cooling towers, etc.) even if the power plant itself cannot be. Furthermore, the totality of all nuclear accidents in the world has caused less deaths than coal soot alone. Disregard the fact that coal contains radioactive compounds that are being vaporised and inhaled. Interestingly, I know here in Canada at least, that many of the nuclear plants have become their own sort of nature preserve.
- kiba 16y agoHow about building partially underwater coastline? Though, it could be an issue if there is a crack in the window. Instead of trying to stop global warming, maybe we should try living with it.
- nathanmarz 16y agoMakes me think of the Turing Test for artificial intelligence. Then again, is it still a Turing Test when the human involved is as automatic and predictable as a computer?
- GiraffeNecktie 16y agoPerhaps the "proponents of anti-science nonsense" are also secret chatbots and the robots have hijacked both sides of the discussion.
- anthonyb 16y agoChatbots made from meat!
- gojomo 16y agoIf you want a vision of the future, imagine spam bots filling the net with appealing nonsense -- forever.
- lmz 16y agoIsn't this the case in Neal Stephenson's Anathem where truth on the net is hard to come by because programs keep pumping out plausible nonsense?
- jff 16y agoThe same thing happens in Vernor Vinge's near-future novels; the "Friends of Privacy" put out fake personal information everywhere to obfuscate things.
- zeraholladay 16y agoMakes me suspicious if anyone on the net would pass the Voigt-Kampff test.
- jfb 16y agoLet me tell you about my mother.
- stoney 16y agoI was wondering about that too - would the two opposing bots slug it out until the end of time (or the end of Twitter at least)? It really is bizarre to think of two machines sat arguing with each other.
- ryanelkins 16y agoIt looks like it's having a tough time with a lot of misfires (probably due to sarcasm according to the article), at least from a cursory glance at the bot's twitter feed (http://twitter.com/AI_AGW http://twitter.com/AI_AGW) that currently has a lot of apologies. It's a neat idea though.
- klochner 16y agoIt just appears that way because he processes the apologies in bulk when he has time. Apparently he recently worked through a little backlog of apologies, but if you scroll down you'll a longer streak of non-apologies.
- mnutt 16y agoAs a similar but less controversial use, it might be interesting to use this to debunk retweeted urban legends by sending out snopes.com links. But ultimately I think it crosses the line into spam and just gets annoying.
- olefoo 16y ago> In a way, what Leck has created is a pro-active search engine: it answers twitter users who aren't even aware of their own ignorance. On the one hand the idea of a reverse search engine is somewhat appealing, on the other hand; it's Clippy for the internet. """ I see you're trying to deny global warming. Would you like to: 1. research the available facts and science? 2. Have an authority figure you trust tell you, you're wrong? 3. Meet other like-minded singles? """
- btilly 16y agoNo, no, no. #3 is supposed to be "Profit!", and not an explanation of how you profit!
- phob 16y agoPlease, let him be creative.
- mims 16y agoThis is the funniest thing I've ever read on HN. - Signed, the guy who wrote the original piece for TR
- olefoo 16y agoThanks. Although I was riffing off a long tradition of geeky humor ripping on clippy. On a more serious note; a marketing service that put it's customers brands in front of people who didn't yet know that those products were what they were looking for would be an awesome startup from a business perspective and a somewhat creepy one from a human perspective.
- nervechannel 16y agoIsn't that how a lot of internet advertising works anyway? e.g. You're talking about medical condition X, therefore I shall try to sell you drug Y even if you don't mention Y or drugs at all in your search terms/blog post/etc. And I don't care if you even knew that drugs for X existed.
- kj12345 16y agoIt's disturbing that (among other things) this programmer has so confidently separated humanity into "crowd"s, and feels free to deride and explain his superiority to at least two of these crowds in his quotes. I'm surprised that this degree of stereotyping and subsequent mockery was published by TR with no trace of criticism or meaningful commentary.
- jff 16y agoFirst they came for the climate skeptics, and I did not speak out because I was not a climate skeptic... Godwin'd.
- rapind 16y agoIt's definitely clever and fun, but at the same time it's a troll feeding the trolls, which can't be very productive. Still. Neat idea.
- zeynel1 16y ago"Technology Review" should have mentioned at least what language he used. Do you know?
- eitland 16y agoThe people who are arguing for the climate change are the same group of people that used to tell me that the (rain)forests are the lungs of the earth. I grew older, learned agriculture and forestry and saw that in mature forests the old trees die and rot, releasing the same amount of CO2 that was captured when they grew. Now, the same people are telling me that we are responsible for the climate change. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for protecting the rain forests, but thats because of the diversity of life they represent. I'm also for reducing the use of fossile fuel, -because we'll have to sooner or later anyway.
- lzw 16y agoDon't let the term "fossil fuel" confuse you. In the early days of drilling they found fossils in the oil that came up, and this led to the common hypothesis. But people don't really know the mechanism by which oil is created (possibly this is true for coal as well.) The russians have an alternative hypothesis and have some experimental results where wells that were previously depleted were refilled. So called "Fossil fuels" may be a byproduct of processes in the earths crust and may not be finite (though we could still exceed the rate at which they are produced). The commonly accepted theory is really a hypothesis with not that much science supporting it. The alternative theory may not have any more science supporting it, either. But notice how the name and the fact that the commonly accepted theory has been commonly accepted so long that it becomes "Fact" biases people's perception of the situation. I hear people talking about CO2 as if your "carbon footprint" is a relavent issue all the time-- it has become commonly accepted even though, in that case, the hypothesis has been disproven. (CO2's absorbtion of IR is low, and its proportion is low, and thus water vapor is the driver of greenhouse effect. Further, in the past, CO2 has been vastly higher without a runaway greenhouse effect.)
- cromulent 16y agoIt looks like cperciva is taking the bot through its paces. http://twitter.com/cperciva http://twitter.com/cperciva
- dmoo 16y agoobligatory http://xkcd.com/810/ http://xkcd.com/810/
- cabalamat 16y agoI think this can be an ethical thing to do, provided some circumstances hold. Consider the sides to be S and T, then the circumstances are: 1. S are in the wrong 2. the debate matters, i.e. if S wins, bad things will happen (e.g. creationism will be taught in schools as science) 3. the chatbot will suck up more time from S than T (e.g. because T people are more likely to recognise it as being a chatbot). Note that each of these is likely to be true if another circumstance holds -- that S is composed of people on average less intelligent than T. Finally, what a delicious irony it would be if an evolutionarily programmed chatbot was written that succeeded in wasting the time of creationists!
- grantlmiller 16y agoAs a libertarian one of my major issues with global warming is that we're basically wasting our limited time & resources trying to address it. Whether our climate modeling is accurate or not, we're basically so far down this rabbit hole that we'd be better off focusing our efforts elsewhere. This TED talk explains it pretty well: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-122089912362687601# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-122089912362687601#