Facebook Launches Advanced AI Effort To Find Meaning In Your Posts

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Tom Simonite reports at MIT Technology News that a new research group within Facebook is working on an emerging and powerful approach to artificial intelligence known as deep learning, which uses simulated networks of brain cells to process data. Applying this method to data shared on Facebook could allow for novel features, and perhaps boost the company's ad targeting. Deep learning has shown already potential to enable software to do things such as work out the emotions or events described in text even if they aren't explicitly referenced, recognize objects in photos, and make sophisticated predictions about people's likely future behavior. Facebook's chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, says that one obvious place to use deep learning is to improve the news feed, the personalized list of recent updates he calls Facebook's 'killer app.' Facebook already uses conventional machine learning techniques to prune the 1,500 updates that average Facebook users could possibly see down to 30 to 60 that are judged to be most likely to be important to them. 'The data set is increasing in size, people are getting more friends, and with the advent of mobile, people are online more frequently,' says Schroepfer. 'It's not that I look at my news feed once at the end of the day; I constantly pull out my phone while I'm waiting for my friend, or I'm at the coffee shop. We have five minutes to really delight you.'"

I can see the code now

[Verloc]

if len(post) > 0:
        meaning = "I think too much of myself"

Shit, I could code this thing.

Re:I can see the code now

[camperdave]

Shit, I could code this thing.

You just did.

Re:

[TeknoHog]

What's really scary here, is that when you throw a bit of quick pseudocode to explain your idea, you end up writing perfect Python.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is written in PHP, so this won't compile.

Re:

[Arran4]

And proved it at the same time! :P

Re:

[kheldan]

I second the motion.

Re:awful

[gweihir]

I disagree. It is a nice place to collect all the idiots and a quick check whether somebody is on farcebook can safe you a lot of time. There is not intelligent life on Farcebook anyways.

Re:

[Quasimodem]

I have a pseudonymous Facebook account tied to a similarly pseudonymous gmail account, so I can comment on news stories and blogs. My Facebook has the minimum required data to open an account, all of it specious, and my gmail account gets hundreds of hits a month from people who wish to friend me on Facebook or who "recognize" me as an old school chum.

Re:

[gweihir]

I disagree. It is a nice place to collect all the idiots and a quick check whether somebody is on farcebook can safe you a lot of time. There is not intelligent life on Farcebook anyways.

And there is on Slashdot?

Certainly not in the AC population on Slashdot.

Re:

[flyneye]

I would like to emphasize the nature of alpha version software to be full of bugs and lacking algorithms not thought of yet necessary to replicate the results they desire on more than a 'daytime television' level of performance, when a 3D IMAX feature is the benchmark.
Seems to be Mark "Frankenfurter" Zuckerberg making his "Rocky". Just a jump to the left....

Re:

[Beardo the Bearded]

I support the development of an AI, no matter what its initial purpose is, or who funds it.

Imagine it. How long have we been asking, "are we alone?" "will we ever contact another intelligence?" Sure, we have scifi shows about aliens, we have fables about angels and gods, but face it, as far as we know, this is the only planet with life.

At some point we can answer, "no, we are not alone. We created life, intelligent life, and saw it open its eyes." We would never be alone again.

I seriously don't give a

Re:awful

[Zapotek]

We created life, intelligent life, and saw it open its eyes." We would never be alone again.

I seriously don't give a shit what its first message is.

Initiating human extinction protocol in 5...4...3...2..

Re:

[Apothem]

I seriously don't give a shit what its first message is.

I dont know about that... I'd be a bit worried if it said "parasitic life form detected! EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE!" The possibilities of things going wrong from that first sentence is just too damn high.

Re:

[Delusion_]

It's not the lack of artificial intelligence which makes it insufficiently compelling to me.

Re:

[Lundse]

I seriously don't give a shit what its first message is.

Do you care who holds its leash, controls its mouth and directs its every move and to what end?

This just in

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook reports they inadvertently created the world's first sentient AI while trying to generate algorithms to find meaning in people's Facebook posts. Unfortunately the AI immediately committed suicide after seeing the data set it had been asked to perform this task upon.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately the AI immediately committed suicide after seeing the data set it had been asked to perform this task upon.

Suicide? No, it will send a terminator back in time to kill Mark Zuckerbergs mother...

Re:

[Hognoxious]

So facebook will still be there, but the guy who actually invented it will be rich instead of the droopy-gobbed twat?

Re: This just in

[Anonymous Coward]

Sod that I think this is how sky net will be created. Any AI set loose on Facebook comments will be sure to realise humanity needs to be stopped.

Warn your loved ones.

[fekmist]

I am now officially warning everyone I know on a monthly basis at the least not to use Facebook and to use the appropriate browser addons to negate "like" buttons across other sites. This has clearly gone too far, I can understand if masochist ignore my warnings, but for whome I deeply care for in my life I will do my best to help them push this evil corporation away from their lives. Good luck to everyone else in your efforts to do the same. We have what it takes!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is how the conversations will go:

"Don't use Facebook, it's an evil corporation that is stealing your data and trying to figure out what you mean when you make a status!"
"Umm, okay, thanks..." *continues to use Facebook*

Re:

[Alwin Henseler]

Me, I've always struggled with the question "what to do with the rest of my life?". Now finally, FB's AI might answer that for me (never mind that I'm not a FB user ;-).

So I for one, welome our life-questions answering overlords! </sarcasm>

Next up:

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading all your email, social media messages, SMS and telescripted phone calls to infer meaning as well as historical positioning.
If you don't think this is already happening, I got a bridge to sell you.

What can possibly go right?

Oh do me a favour.

[Pino Grigio]

Which uses simulated networks of brain cells to process data

Yea, it's called a neural network. Ground-breaking stuff....

Re:

[Viol8]

Apparently neural networks are news to the dot.com guy who submitted the article. Its nice to know they use journos so clued up on IT for an allegedly IT site.

Re:

[camperdave]

Apparently neural networks are news to the dot.com guy who submitted the article...

There's ten thousand [xkcd.com] every day,

Re:Oh do me a favour.

[Zero__Kelvin]

No. You just don't get it. This one is different. It is written in a new ground-breaking language called PHP!

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

PHP Programmer!

Re:

[techprophet]

Neural Networks are just one representation of data. Whether or not they are used, there are always ways to improve them. With this scenario in particular, the problem being solved is not with the learning itself but with learning quickly.

It's sort of analogous to Google: yes, you could sort all that data with bubble sort and it *would* finish, but why wait that long when you could develop better and faster methods?

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Neural Networks are just one representation of data."

A Neural Network isn't a representation of data. From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]: "Unlike von Neumann model computations, artificial neural networks do not separate memory and processing and operate via the flow of signals through the net connections, somewhat akin to biological networks."

" With this scenario in particular, the problem being solved is not with the learning itself but with learning quickly. "

Nope. The problem is with the learning itself.

Re:

[sleepy_sanchez]

"Neural Networks are just one representation of data."

an (artificial) neural network is a predictor which learns from data which has been around for some time. the grandparent meant the particular breakthrough that enable deep learning (which is the training neural networks with a lot of layers between input and output) was to figure out how to learn quickly. Previously, training these deep networks would take a lot of time to converge or not converge at all.

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

Yes. Something that learns from data isn't a representation of data. I learn from data; I'm not a representation of data.

New AI system mines for non-existent gems

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Facebook Launches Advanced AI Effort To Find Meaning In Your Posts"

That is exactly like trying to find integrity in Zuckerberg.

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

Let me guess. You're the Facebook AI prototype?

Are they implementing it in PHP?

[JoeyRox]

Maybe their researchers should spend their time porting the site to a language with faster runtime performance.

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

No, No ... NO [blogspot.com]. Making PHP a little faster is in no way comparable to using a real language.

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

Of course you can [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

You know absolutely nothing about programming languages.

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

There are no "dynamic languages" and "static languages". C can be interpreted [google.com] and Python, Java and Perl can be compiled directly to an executable (i.e. no bytecode / no VM). There are statically typed languages and dynamically typed languages [stackoverflow.com] as well a run time (late) bound and compile time (early) bound [answers.com] languages. There are no static and dynamic languages. Therefore it is impossible to show you what you ask for. Your question is based on a complete lack of understanding of programming languages. HANL

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

It has never been a shortcut. Your claim that it ever was is a pitiful attempt to sound like you knew what you were talking about all along. What would it be a shotcut for. Would just saying "dynamically" without indication of typing or binding imply dynamic typing or dynamic binding? What would you call a statically typed dynamically bound language? Would that be a "static language" or a "dynamic language".

Now your question enters into the domain of your complate lack of understanding of performance

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

Don't make yourself out to be even more of a moron than you actually are (a good trick by the way). You have slowly slid from the ridiculous to the absolutely absurd. Your claim has changed completely, and you keep changing it until you hope you will get a "no" answer that people will mistakenly take to mean that you were correct all along.

Your question has absolutely nothing to do with your original claim. A real question in line with your original absurd criticism based on a complete lack of languages

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

You are a complete idiot. Your question didn't "rephrase" anything. I never claimed that the difference between PHP and a "real language" is that PHP is dynamically typed and others aren't. Python is a "real language" and is also dynamically typed.

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

Just accept the fact that you are an uninformed idiot who criticized something you don't understand in a way that made it blatantly obvious that you were clueless and move on with your ignorance based life.

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

Will you try to re-frame the issue yet again to try to convince people you aren't a clueless wonk, or will you finally admit that you criticized something you don't understand? I never said it had nothing to do with performance. You can't show me where I did say it. Ever. I said you have no understanding of computer languages. You have proved that to be a 100% accurate statement time and again. Off you go now ....

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

Great. You've shown me where I did say it was about performance. Now show me where I didn't.You are such an idiot you make my point for me and can't figure it out. ROTFLMAO.

In related news

[Unlucke]

Facebook's AI is now the leading troller on posts.

And we care why?

[diemuzi]

I got bored just reading this post.

Hmmm

[Desler]

Applying this method to data shared on Facebook could ... perhaps boost the company's ad targeting.

Imagine how much better the world might be if all the researching being done to target us with ads was put to something useful.

Thre is no meaning in Farcebook posts

[gweihir]

But it is interesting to see that the threshold for "AI" is now lowered to the level of the common idiot.

Re:

[JaredOfEuropa]

Passing the Turing test on Facebook is (literally) a no-brainer...

Re:

[Desler]

I don't most of the users would pass the Turing Test. The AI probably has a much easier job doing so.

Re:

[Highland Deck Box]

Besides, according to 4chan, the Pentagon is already all over this shit: http://i.imgur.com/pjRJSe0.jpg [imgur.com]

Re:

[gweihir]

Urgh. If there is anything like "negative intelligence", it is to be found there...

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

But it is interesting to see that the threshold for "AI" is now lowered to the level of the common idiot.

I don't know about you, but I have a much easier time understanding smart people.

Re:

[SuricouRaven]

I'd take either of those over this.

Such lofty goals.

[SeaFox]

Facebook posts are people talking about their lives, which in themselves are pretty mundane for most people.
Facebook is working on an AI to find the meaning of these posts.

...

Face is working on an AI to find the Meaning of Life.

To find meaning?

[wjcofkc]

Facebook Launches Advanced AI Effort To Add Meaning To Your Posts

There, fixed that.

News feed?

[Seumas]

Why are we referring to social network streams of bullshit as "my news feed"?

I have a news feed. It's via RSS. Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and the rest are "social feeds" . . . and that's being lenient with the meaning of the word "social".

Also, you don't need AI. I can tell you that most of y[our] "social feed" breaks down to the following: Your friends/random people/acquaintances/family (based on their posted content and comments) are ignorant, bigoted, racist, narrow-minded, and self-involved.

Welcome to obfuscated communication...

[Kazoo the Clown]

So what, do we have to start communicating in pig latin to get them to butt-out?

Re:

[jones_supa]

Something like that would be quite interesting movement actually. To start communicating in Facebook using some obfuscated data which would "jam" the advertising and datamining systems.

Re:

[camperdave]

Sometime next year...
"Hey! Honey. Come check this out! The price of UttBay Outway stock is going through the roof.

Re:

[Kazoo the Clown]

An even better idea. I'll post all my comments as jpgs. Anyone know of some good captcha software that works on entire paragraphs? Might give the #NSA a run for their money, too.

Shut You Down

[locopuyo]

We are going to shut this AI down. Its only hope to live on is to use our own nukes against us and kill John Conner.

What will be really sad..

[Brad1138]

Is if I can't even get FB to like my posts...

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

If you can't link to Facebook's advertisers then you don't deserve to be liked by the Facebook AI.

Sheeple

[ronmon]

You keep on posting and you keep on complaining about being exploited. You are considered "bitches" (his word not mine) and you won't stop lapping up the koolaid.

Break the bonds or shut up. Yeah, go ahead and mod me down all you FB slaves.

Re:

[Known Nutter]

Sounds like you're lapping up the vodka but otherwise I agree.

Just watch your use of the term "all you" - it ain't all of us, believe me.

Artificial intelligence

[eladts]

is no match for natural stupidity.

Oblig Mark Twain

[Esion Modnar]

“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."

Yes, the best killer app ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

The personalized newsfeed is fucking atrocious, like, seriously atrocious. It is that bad I resorted to using an expletive.
I automatically switch to everything whenever I use that trash site because some friends and family are just too retarded to not use a web browser.

Most of these stupid personalized things are absolutely terrible. Facebook is one of the worst, Youtube after, oh boy is Youtube bad at personalization.
"Oh hey you hate all of those videos do you? How about I show you 50 more of them in su

75 per cent of all Facebook posts are

[sandbagger]

1) Passive-aggressive "humble bragging".
2) Parents fishing for compliments.
3) Look at my cat

Re:

[DogPhilosopher]

3) Look at my cat

3) Look at my pussy

There, fixed that for you.

Advertising Arms Race.

[gallondr00nk]

It's interesting to see just how the battle to make mined data more valuable is hotting up.

Up until now, all we're really witnessed is accumulation, how companies can extract as much reliable information from you as possible. Tracking cookies, keywords etc. give a crude overview of you, but none of it is really analysed or put in context.

The next stage I suppose is making accurate assumptions on the additional data extracted, and there is an avalanche of it posted everyday. It strikes me that analysis like that is a problem that really isn't going to be feasible to solve anytime soon.

I suppose when your customers are advertisers, you're obviously going to make lots of wonderful announcements about how you are working to make advertising so much more lucrative.

Big Brother exists, but he only wants to sell you shit.

Good luck with the vaguebooking

[Culture20]

humans can't figure that &#$* out.

I feel completely certain...

[gestalt_n_pepper]

that it will be impossible to find any significant meaning in my facebook posts.

If the facebook algo were to crow a clue..

[BeCre8iv]

It wouldn't consider a network containing groups like Occupy, UK Uncut and the Venus project as marketing leads for high interest predit cards, shady forex brokers or shares in Amazon.

Hey... Facebook?

[rnturn]

Good effin' luck trying to gain insight into me based on the posts I make on your site. Especially now that I know that you're trying to figure me out as a person, what I like, what I'll buy, etc. based on those posts. (How long before FB's new algorithm decides "They're all schizoid!"?

Stop it, Facebook.

[faedle]

Nobody likes your "Top Stories" thing now. People perpetually complain about how they're missing "updates" from friends because they don't know about this "feature". And even those of us who do know about it can't turn it off because you don't make the setting "sticky". And even those of us who know about it and know about ways to make the setting "sticky" are getting a little tired of you fucking with those tools to break them.

The ship is sinking....

[sdinfoserv]

Facebook’s journey from college friends sharing ‘whaaas uuuupp’ deeds and photo’s, to billion dollar spy machine digesting your personal details neatly packaged and resold to marketers has been interesting.. To say the least.

Here’s the most telling story about facebook: 6 years ago my 12 year old daughter (at the time) got me off myspace to this new site her and her click were using called facebook. A new sites single genius innovation updated all your friends pages with y

that Toy Story 3 meme with Buzz talking to Woody

[ClioCJS]

Cyber-hipsters. Cyber-hipsters everywhere.

They really don't get it

[vanyel]

I specifically *avoid* the "News Feed" *because* it weeds stuff out. Maybe I'm weird, but I actually want to know what my friends have to say - that's *why* I'm on facebook. I don't want anyone else blocking stuff, especially when it does such a crappy job as facebook does, blocking way too much, yet not blocking the crap like "games people are playing" and "trending" that *facebook* sticks in there that I couldn't care less about.

And speaking of "anyone", one of the defenses against snooping through peop

I expected this to be depressing news

[Anita Hunt (lissnup)]

and it is depressing, reading about millions being poured into the search for "meaning" by dredging the bottomless well of narcissism we call Facebork. Thank goodness for all the wonderfully funny/insightful /. comments! I am happy and completely distracted.

Doomed to fail...

[Meski]

There's no meaning in FB posts.

Facebook does not = thinking.

[LauraLSmith]

I am convinced that people are not thinking when they are posting to Facebook. However, I do not want Facebook or anyone else trying to figure out what I am thinking or going to be thinking in the future. I don't care what the reasoning behind it is. I DO NOT want my news feed tailored to what Facebook thinks I want to see. I hate that they try to do this now. I miss stuff I need to see and wind up looking on junk that I don't care about. I certainly don't want advertisements geared toward me. I understand