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Everything about this seems stupid. In the video bazzargh posted these guys come off as absolute pricks, oozing with smugness and condescension and completely

by sequoia 14y ago

Everything about this seems stupid. In the video bazzargh posted these guys come off as absolute pricks, oozing with smugness and condescension and completely devoid of empathy. They use (steal) someone's identity (name + pic), the person asks them nicely to stop and they insult and ridicule him: "You'd like to kill these algorithms; you feel threatened in some way." These guys have such a laughably asinine narrative, I can't believe they deliver it with an (almost) straight face. Why didn't the creators use their own identities? Why didn't they stop using Ronson's when it became clear it was irritating him? To the software output: Maybe I'll eat my words but it seems to be complete garbage. Basically boilerplate, randomly generated spam. I typed "wine" into the "find weavers" box and picked the top result: a weaver/spambot called "In Vino Veritas" (in wine, truth) with a wine glass as an avatar. This should be a good match for wine, I figured! I was asked if I'd like to "chat" with the bot and did so, I pitched it a softball: "What is your favorite wine?" It came back with "I don't know much about wines but I prefer those from California." "In Vino Veritas" doesn't know much about wine? Not exactly crushing the Turing test here... http://screencast.com/t/fKGzERNr http://screencast.com/t/fKGzERNr I looked at the bot's profile page and it had a post "I'm dreaming something about #proof and #evidence." In the interview, Ronson says that the bot posted 'Dreaming about #time and #cock,' almost the exact same string with the hashtags substituted. printf("Dreaming of %s and %s", x, y); And we're supposed to regard this as what, cutting edge AI? Winebot that can't say anything about wine, bots feeding random values into preformed strings and tweeting them, taking a word from some interaction (e.g. "wine"), pulling a pic from google and posting to tumblr... nothing here is remotely interesting or new. If the creators weren't such class-a assholes I'd be more polite in my assessment, but as they can't be bothered to care about how their actions affect others, I don't feel the need to. They've done their controversy-color-by-numbers thing and got their publicity, the product (?) is worthless, the sooner their 15 minutes passes the better.

evanlivingston 14y ago
I don't think anyone is bragging about the algorithms here. No one claims it passes the Turing test. The AI isn't the real point. Furthermore, since when does someone's name + picture pass as their identitym That's exactly what this trio is pointing out. After doing some research, it appears that these guys in the video are not programmers, but artists and professors. http://zeroinfluence.wordpress.com/projects-archive/ http://zeroinfluence.wordpress.com/projects-archive/ http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxManchester-Dan-OHara-Skeuom http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxManchester-Dan-OHara-Skeu... http://www.danohara.co.uk/cv.html http://www.danohara.co.uk/cv.html If we continue this critique, can we stop judging the quality of their algorithms (which they're probably not interested in) and instead critique the artistic value of emulating human online behavior?
- sequoia 14y ago
  "can we stop judging the quality of their algorithms (which they're probably not interested in) and instead critique the artistic value of emulating human online behavior?" I actually addressed this first, before the software output. They are being jerks and not demonstrating anything interesting. Please tell me: what is the artistic value? 'Thru this work we now know it's possible to piss people off by putting their name and picture on a spambot.' Is this it? Don't get me wrong, I think creative, high quality trolling can be considered art in its highest form (see Andy Kauffman, Sacha Baron Cohen, 4chan at its best, etc.) but simply slapping someone's name on a spambot is uninteresting, unoriginal, childish, and above all, uncreative. It provokes no thoughts beyond "wow, these guys sure are jerks." For what it's worth the creators mention "the algorithm" constantly in their interview and seem to ascribe it some value, so I think it's a fair subject of discussion & critique.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - stfu 14y ago
    I think creative, high quality trolling can be considered art in its highest form (see Andy Kauffman, Sacha Baron Cohen, 4chan at its best, etc.) but simply slapping someone's name on a spambot is uninteresting, unoriginal, childish, and above all, uncreative I disagree with that idea. In my view the level of trolling is defined not by the troll, but by those being trolled. Obviously the guy in the video is taking their relatively unsophisticated level of trolling as a serious matter. Just by doing so their trolling is in my view justifiable, as it achieves its objective. Also I personally find the way they were approaching this interview quite amusing, i.e. they are shifting in a concern-trolling mode, almost taking a therapeutic stand. This lets the interviewer argue to a certain degree against a wall as they try to imply some deeper motivations by the interviewer, and find the "hidden" intentions for why he becomes so concerned about a bot spouting random information - that apparently still enough other people take serious enough to communicate with.
  - evanlivingston 14y ago
    I'm still a little caught up in the "identity theft" thing. Names and appearances are not the limits of one's identity. If this were the case, halloween would be the criminal's holiday. The trio, perhaps inadvertently, point out a fundamental flaw with both twitter and how the user approaches it. If someone cannot differentiate themselves from a bot spitting out ("dreaming of %x and %y", x, y) then is there really an identity to steal? This man is fighting for his unique right to present 140 characters, a string of characters (his name) next to 5329 pixels captured at one specific moment in his life, all grouped together? By what virtue does he own those rights?

by sequoia 14y ago

evanlivingston 14y ago

I don't think anyone is bragging about the algorithms here. No one claims it passes the Turing test. The AI isn't the real point. Furthermore, since when does someone's name + picture pass as their identitym That's exactly what this trio is pointing out. After doing some research, it appears that these guys in the video are not programmers, but artists and professors. http://zeroinfluence.wordpress.com/projects-archive/ http://zeroinfluence.wordpress.com/projects-archive/ http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxManchester-Dan-OHara-Skeuom http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxManchester-Dan-OHara-Skeu... http://www.danohara.co.uk/cv.html http://www.danohara.co.uk/cv.html If we continue this critique, can we stop judging the quality of their algorithms (which they're probably not interested in) and instead critique the artistic value of emulating human online behavior?

sequoia 14y ago
"can we stop judging the quality of their algorithms (which they're probably not interested in) and instead critique the artistic value of emulating human online behavior?" I actually addressed this first, before the software output. They are being jerks and not demonstrating anything interesting. Please tell me: what is the artistic value? 'Thru this work we now know it's possible to piss people off by putting their name and picture on a spambot.' Is this it? Don't get me wrong, I think creative, high quality trolling can be considered art in its highest form (see Andy Kauffman, Sacha Baron Cohen, 4chan at its best, etc.) but simply slapping someone's name on a spambot is uninteresting, unoriginal, childish, and above all, uncreative. It provokes no thoughts beyond "wow, these guys sure are jerks." For what it's worth the creators mention "the algorithm" constantly in their interview and seem to ascribe it some value, so I think it's a fair subject of discussion & critique.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- stfu 14y ago
  I think creative, high quality trolling can be considered art in its highest form (see Andy Kauffman, Sacha Baron Cohen, 4chan at its best, etc.) but simply slapping someone's name on a spambot is uninteresting, unoriginal, childish, and above all, uncreative I disagree with that idea. In my view the level of trolling is defined not by the troll, but by those being trolled. Obviously the guy in the video is taking their relatively unsophisticated level of trolling as a serious matter. Just by doing so their trolling is in my view justifiable, as it achieves its objective. Also I personally find the way they were approaching this interview quite amusing, i.e. they are shifting in a concern-trolling mode, almost taking a therapeutic stand. This lets the interviewer argue to a certain degree against a wall as they try to imply some deeper motivations by the interviewer, and find the "hidden" intentions for why he becomes so concerned about a bot spouting random information - that apparently still enough other people take serious enough to communicate with.
- evanlivingston 14y ago
  I'm still a little caught up in the "identity theft" thing. Names and appearances are not the limits of one's identity. If this were the case, halloween would be the criminal's holiday. The trio, perhaps inadvertently, point out a fundamental flaw with both twitter and how the user approaches it. If someone cannot differentiate themselves from a bot spitting out ("dreaming of %x and %y", x, y) then is there really an identity to steal? This man is fighting for his unique right to present 140 characters, a string of characters (his name) next to 5329 pixels captured at one specific moment in his life, all grouped together? By what virtue does he own those rights?