Facebook Is Now Working On Its Own Digital Assistant Called M

Mark Wilson writes: Sounding like a character from a James Bond movie, M is Facebook's personal digital assistant. Ready to compete with the likes of Cortana, M will live inside Facebook Messenger and take artificial intelligence a step further. Rather than just helping you to find information or create calendar entries, M will actually perform tasks on your behalf.

Once up and running, M will be able to book restaurants for you, purchase shopping, and more. It will also be possible to use the service to ask for advice — such as looking for somewhere to visit nearby, or gift suggestions — and Facebook says the AI behind M is "trained and supervised by people".

Re:

[plasm4]

That's only true if most whites were racist. As this is not the case, anti-racism is just anti-you.

Re:

[MouseR]

Nope. Not Siri. It can not act within the context of applications. Can only bring you to it.

That would require the revival of the Open Scripting Architecture (OSA) upon which Carbon Apple Events were and AppleScript was sitting on. Aka, you cane make the analogy that OSA was to AppleScript what JRE is to Java.

But coding for OSA was a PITA. Required lots of App abstraction into the OSA object model and for any App not designed for that in mind, was a major retrofit job. That's the reason it never caught on m

I don't use facebook or any other social networks

[Anonymous Coward]

And believe me, this thing will definitely help me to stay even farther from it (them).

M? Really?

[OzPeter]

FB wants us to dial M for assistance?

I'm guessing that given most FB employees were born after 1990* that they haven't heard of Hitchcock.

*Solely based on the perceived mentality of some small selection of FB CEOs

Re:M? Really?

[Dutch Gun]

Have you noticed that all those examples of "helping" their customers are examples of purchasing goods and services? Why don't they call it what it is: an intelligent advertising agent.

Re:

[Adriax]

M is for More. M is for Money. With M you can spend More Money.

Re:

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Have you noticed that all those examples of "helping" their customers are examples of purchasing goods and services?

Exactly. Some people are terrorized by the urge to buy and consume, others must be "guided" by a friendly software assistant that just wants to help you spend your money.

Re:

[WallyL]

Isn't that what Negroponte predicted in "Being Digital," an intelligent advertising agent? That book was one of the best books I read in school, period.

Re:

[tehcyder]

Have you noticed that all those examples of "helping" their customers are examples of purchasing goods and services? Why don't they call it what it is: an intelligent advertising agent.

If someone is stupid enough to (say) book a restaurant purely on the basis of the recommendations of the Facebook "AI" it's really hard to feel any sympathy for them.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

I was also thinking of the Fritz Lang noir "M".

Re:

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

Two movies that deal with murder and a movie character that heads a spy organization. Now if you only add I to the initials of FaceBook, you have the makings of a transatlantic Hollywood thriller. Script please.

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

I was also thinking of the Fritz Lang noir "M".

A silent Personal Assistant probably wouldn't be all that helpful.

Re:M? Really?

[LifesABeach]

I'm more curious about the statements made by the zuck about how we should not mess with AI stuff. Does he mean that it's ok if the best and brightest douchebags create it?

Should be Q

[Roger W Moore]

That's who I'd go to for tech assistance.

Re:

[mjwx]

Those of us born between 1955 and 1990 associate M with this character [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[mrbester]

Will it talk about pop muzik?

M?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of M, wouldn't Moneypenny be a better name? Even Q would be a better fit. M should be a program to tell you your schedule.

Re:

[Quirkz]

I thought the same. Also, just to be clear, M is not a product brought to us by Alphabet? That seems really counter-intuitive.

Dial M for Murder

[turkeydance]

old movie

Rated M

[Anonymous Coward]

for MINED. Ages 17+ and older MINED

Re:

[LifesABeach]

One could argue that its because of FB that scramble brains did what he did. Maybe ban FB?

Don't trust M!

[BringMyShuttle]

M can't keep a confidence. Blab Blab Blab. A real gossip. Keeps passing around my photos without my permission. And told her I was thinking of buying a new TV. Next thing you know I'm being bombarded by TV salespeople. I think she told them. What sort a friend does that? Even more crass: I think she even solicited money off them for for info!

PS. Does anyone else think Cortana would be better if it spoke in Bill Gates voice? :-D

Automated consumerism

[anchovy_chekov]

The future sounds awesome. I can hardly wait.

M: "From your viewing habits we see you're feeling a little down. Here, have a free sample of Dr Happy."
C: "Thank you M. I always feel you're looking out for me"
M: "You are welcome"

"M" is for mechanical turk

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like some cheap software coupled with a mechanical turk like interface. "trained and supervised by people" probably means, "trained" like regular AI like this but the "supervised by people" means that some poor soul has to do the tasks it can't, like call the restaurant to make the reservation. So know and beware, some cheap lackey will be doing anything that requires interacting with an actual human and anything they haven't been able to automate yet.

Facebook's M

[mrsquid0]

So facebook's digital assistant is going to be called M. Will it have a license to kill?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

No. M won't be a spy. This is Facebook: they don't have to spy on you. You voluntarily tell M everything, an illustrated guide to all your drunken follies with innocent friends helpfully tagged, and then you bitch about it when M gets creepy and seems to know too much about you.

The Onion is not satire. [theonion.com]

Re:

[mrsquid0]

The best spies are those who listen.

Re:

[tekrat]

You're obviously not aware of what kinds of decision trees are at work within trading programs.

Re:

[tehcyder]

You're obviously not aware of what kinds of decision trees are at work within trading programs.

Just because something is complicated doesn't mean it's intelligent. The current internet is a huge repository of constantly changing information, buti it's not Skynet.

Re:

[R3d M3rcury]

Well, Google had tackling. [youtube.com]

Clippy For Your Browser

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

A new version of Clippy?

Kill. Me. Now.

Will it argue with friend's dopey brother for me?

[bigsexyjoe]

I would be very happy to have a machine argue with dumb asses on my behalf.

Sounds fine...

[ClickOnThis]

...as long as you can un-friend it.

Does M play

[thinkwaitfast]

Pop Musik [youtube.com]?

No Fritz Lang fans at facebook

[tignom]

The first thing I thought of was the movie M [imdb.com]. Something's wrong when it's natural to make the association between your site and an iconic story of a child killer.

Re:

[tehcyder]

The first thing I thought of was the movie M [imdb.com]. Something's wrong when it's natural to make the association between your site and an iconic story of a child killer.

It's likely nobody else thought of it because that movie is almost 90 years old.

They should have called it Macbeth, because that play is like 400 years old so literally no one has heard of it.

Who's voice?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Could we get Bernard Lee's voice, complete with derisive put downs?

I suppose Judi Dench would be okay... but I'd prefer Mr. Lee.

M is just a pompous annoyance...

[lquam]

...I want Q at my disposal.