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Comments: 140 +- Technology: DARPA Builds Smarter Version of Microsoft's Clippy on Wednesday July 29, @08:24PM
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by
samzenpus
on Wednesday July 29, @08:24PM
from the dead-but-dreaming-of-electric-sheep dept.
from the dead-but-dreaming-of-electric-sheep dept.
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holy_calamity writes "Microsoft's animated paperclip may be long dead, but a $150m DARPA project has resurrected the idea of a virtual assistant. AI researchers from more than 60 institutions worked on the project entitled CALO. CALO is designed to help ease the bureaucratic burden of the military. A consumer spinoff, Siri, is coming to the iPhone later this year. It responds to conversational voice commands to take over multi-step tasks like choosing and booking restaurants or cabs."
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Is it time yet... (Score:5, Funny)
I for one found Clippy to be annoying as hell, and was DAMNED glad they killed him.
Re:Is it time yet... (Score:5, Funny)
You: "Oh, shit, there go the neighbours!"
iPhone Clippy (aloud): "I see you are trying to avoid your neighbours. Would you like me to. . . "
You: "Shut up shutup SHUTUP!"
Parent
Re:Is it time yet... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
This is from 2001, but still brilliant. (Score:3, Funny)
http://randomaxe.comicgenesis.com/d/20010725.html
That is all.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Clippy: "I see you want to go to Hell? May I suggest http://bingmaps.com.au/?action=location&location=hell [bingmaps.com.au] ?"
Re:Is it time yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. I think Clippy, as a personal assistant, was by definition a bad idea.
The computer is an extended tool. Which itself is an extension of your body.
So the idea is, to make it a powerful but fully transparent thing. Like a Mech suit with Matrix interface.
Our hands even have their own special "highway" path around the slow areas of the brain, because of our habit of extending our bodies trough them.
Which means that separate entities in that space give you essentially a split personality. Much like Dr. Strangelove's hand.
Additionally, you have to communicate with that entity in probably the most inefficient and senseless way possible: Text. Or even speech!
Even a keyboard and a mouse, primitive as they are, are still much closer to a brain-computer interface, as putting another layer of a chatting bottleneck below that and the program.
Parent
Re:Is it time yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Similarly I feel AI researchers should focus more on human augmentation, and delay the "create a new entity" stuff.
There are lots of problems if you actually end up creating a new entity - ethical, social etc. It's like forcing ourselves to answer hard questions before we are ready.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is true, and it's the reason why low interface latency is so important. No real world hand tool acts with a delay, especially not with an inconsistent delay. Every time there's a perceptible delay in the interface it breaks the fast brain link.
This is one reason why 60Hz refresh displays are unacceptable even for general desktop use. A faster display gives you a tighter feedback loop, making it easier to perceive the computer as part of your own body. This is very noticeable with mouse control, and
Re:Is it time yet... (Score:5, Funny)
I for one found Clippy to be annoying as hell, and was DAMNED glad they killed him.
Clippy, virtual assistant. A program barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
OK but what did they do with the other $144M?
Re:Is it time yet... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, shit...
Clippy: I've located several public bathrooms and a large cluster of shrubs nearby. Would you like directions?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There will be a time.. and a place....
you'd BEG for those directions!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When it gets that bad, I don't care who see's what I'm doing!
The only time I ever had a problem finding a place to 'go', I was on a very long bridge.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow... (Score:2)
It seems rather appropriate that Clippy 2.0 falls in the same realm as weapons development... Information Operations? Psychological Operations? Hell it could even be considered a kinetic weapon if you throw the device running it from the right height...
Deep under ground in North Dakota... (Score:2)
A consumer version? (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone have a spare tin-foil hat?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And you can only download it over the consumer version of a military network!
Oh noes! We'z all gonna dei!
The problem of inductive bias in knowledge trees (Score:2, Insightful)
I have read the paper and am not sure if the researchers have solved the problem of inductive bias, which is the bane of "artificial intelligent" learning on this scale. Basically, suppose you teach monkeys Shakespeare using a tree system of rewards versus noxious odors. This is analogous to the binary decision map tree that the computer system uses. A human might adapt to Milton, or even Cervantes, but a "intelligent" monkey will just start screeching and throwing feces, i.e. Clippy's inane "advice."
But of
Hi! It looks like you want to kill insurgents? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hi! It looks like you want to kill insurgents? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Error: No insurgents could be found on this planet.
Should I start bombing random countries, or start with those with the best resources?
[I am a terrorist] [Why do you even ask? Are you a terrorist??] [Help]
Re: (Score:2)
Please answer the question. You have 20 seconds to comply.
You now have 15 seconds to comply. Please answer the question.
You have 5 seconds to comply. Answer the question.
4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. I am now authorized to use physical force to obtain an answer.
Haven't we done enough to the enemy combatants? (Score:2, Funny)
Come on, waterboarding, gitmo, torture, but Clippy? Now you're just being mean.
Smart = Unpredictable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Smart interfaces are a bad idea, because you can never be sure how they will respond.
To a degree, they can only do what they have been programmed to do.
Dumb interfaces are predictable tools so they require less brain power to use than the two-way dialog of smart interfaces.
I wouldn't say dumb interfaces require less brain power at all. In fact they might require more because you might learn something doing it.
With dumb interfaces I can fire off a long string of commands without having to stop and think between each one.
Only because you already know those commands and have them memorized.
This improves productivity more than any supposedly intelligent interface will.
After the learning curve of entry, sure.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As long as she looks like Rommie (Score:3, Funny)
Then I'm interested in your newsletter!
They could ease the bureaucratic load... (Score:2)
...by reducing the amount of bureaucracy.
But realistically that will never happen, so maybe clippy can help us pass the buck down to the few remaining low-ranking folks who actually work.
So has anyone asked the question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't they just work on easing up the bureaucratic burden in the first place?
A: Likely because it's impossible. An aging and entrenched organization, with no incentive to compete, receives the same amount of tax payer money per year no matter what they do.
My friend works for a branch of the millitary as an accountant, and oh the stories. Just watch Office Space and multiply it by ten. It's comedy gold. I laugh and tell her to quit but she's addicted to the huge paycheck.
Re:So has anyone asked the question... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a quintessential military approach to a problem:
"We're spending way too much time and money on [stupid thing]."
"Well, we have a new process that will allow us to do [stupid thing] much faster!"
"Great!"
Examples abound. A perfect one is the primary mode of communication on ships is radio, even though the networks (i.e. chat) are far faster and more reliable. We'll spend hours troubleshooting radios over chat in order to pass voice messages over radio. Then we'll chat again to confirm that the recipient actually received the radio message properly.
Parent
Re:So has anyone asked the question... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a quintessential military approach to a problem:
*snip*
Examples abound. A perfect one is the primary mode of communication on ships is radio, even though the networks (i.e. chat) are far faster and more reliable. We'll spend hours troubleshooting radios over chat in order to pass voice messages over radio. Then we'll chat again to confirm that the recipient actually received the radio message properly.
This would be funny if it weren't for the fact that it's true (and I've dealt with it as well :-/ )
Parent
So has anyone asked the question... (Score:2)
Why don't they just work on preventing the diseases in the first place?
B: Likely because there is someone profiting from selling the medication.
Same thing here. It's nice if you can burn time, doing nothing but robotically filling out forms and then waiting all day long. While raking in nice big salaries.
I thought that was the very idea behind of bureaucracy. ^^
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Will it have Apple's blessings? (Score:2)
A consumer spinoff, Siri, is coming to the iPhone later this year.
Will Apple approve it? Or will it meet the fate of VoiceCentral for duplicating the (future) feaures of the iPhone?
http://www.riverturn.com/blog/?p=455 [riverturn.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sorry, in order to post in this thread you need to make a Clippy joke, it's a requirement.
It's a good point though, unless Siri is the future functionality.
Re: (Score:2)
ah!
Clippy:
Looks like you're submitting an App to Apple for approval. Do you want to:
1) Pray to Steve to get it approved
2) Duplicate functionality of ipod software to get it rejected
3) Charge $1000 for it and become the new "I am rich" app
So this is how the world ends. (Score:4, Funny)
Presidental Clippy (Score:3, Funny)
It looks like you're drafting a treaty.
Would you like help?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
This sounds like the plot for The Phantom Menace.
Are you taking incoming rounds? (Score:2)
Depending on the intensity of fire, you should choose one:
( ) run like the dickens
( ) duck
( ) shoot back
( ) shit your pants
( ) hit the dirt and return fire
soldier chooses
Are you sure you want to do that?
soldier heaves device at enemy line. It is blown apart in mid-air like skeet.
Clippy is the village idiot (Score:2)
I wouldn't aspire to be smarter than the village idiot. I'd hope that was a given.
Misread. (Score:2)
In typical Slashdot fashion, I skimmed the summary and thought I saw, "AI researchers from more than 60 institutions worked on the project entitled HALO. HALO is designed to help ease the bureaucratic burden of the military."
I didn't think twice since Microsoft invented Halo.
I wish it were true!
Siri is kinda cool (Score:4, Informative)
These guys briefed at a company meeting the other day and offered a private beta to those of us with i-phones. Their tool allows you to submit natural language queries for things that involve transactions. You can tell your Siri enabled phone to order you a pineapple pizza and it will find pizza restaurants with web ordering API's and then show you the prices for what you asked for and offer to let you buy them. In the case of pizza during the demo, it showed pizza Hut and Dominoes. They're working towards an interface that would allow you to say "Book me on the next flight to chicago!" You can tell siri, "Get me a copy of $bookname" and it will search amazon and other services with buy online API's and offer to purchase the book for you.
The bottom line to me is that it looked powerful and scary at the same time. It most definitely isn't clippy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:"Helpers" (Score:5, Funny)
"It seems you want to start a war! Can I help?"
Parent
Re:"Helpers" (Score:5, Funny)
Grunt: Sir, the radars are picking up incoming Russian nukes. We've only got 2 minutes to act!
Commander: This is the moment we've been training for. Commence launch sequence.
[The commander and another officer turn keys and the commander presses the red button. On the screen the following appears:]
Hi. It looks like you're trying to launch an ICBM. Would you like to:
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Re: (Score:2)
I doubt it'd be smart enough to respond that way.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)