Google Tries To Guess Your Email Responses (blogspot.com) 131
An anonymous reader writes: Google's research blog today announced a new feature for their Inbox email app: a neural network that composes short responses to emails you receive. For example, if somebody emails you an invitation to an event, the app will detect that by scanning the words in the message and present you with three options for a quick response. Google says, "A naive attempt to build a response generation system might depend on hand-crafted rules for common reply scenarios. But in practice, any engineer's ability to invent 'rules' would be quickly outstripped by the tremendous diversity with which real people communicate. A machine-learned system, by contrast, implicitly captures diverse situations, writing styles, and tones. These systems generalize better, and handle completely new inputs more gracefully than brittle, rule-based systems ever could." Of course, you can skip them entirely, or use them and add your own words as well. How long until our email systems do most of our talking for us?
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Its like the daily show's "Senior blahblah Analyst" where blahblah = the subject at hand, whether it's "elections" or "toilet cleaning".
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Its like the daily show's "Senior blahblah Analyst" where blahblah = the subject at hand, whether it's "elections" or "toilet cleaning".
That's the way it works.
-JustAnotherOldGuy (Senior Porn Analyst)
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Its like the daily show's "Senior blahblah Analyst" where blahblah = the subject at hand, whether it's "elections" or "toilet cleaning".
They actually took that verbatim from news agencies. Have you ever watched "real" news? There's always the 'Local school female extramural involvement expert', and it almost always means that they maybe wrote a book that contained at least 2 words of intersect with the news title.
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Why the ego? Just say "research scientist".
Because "Research Scientist" and "Senior Research Scientist" (like, "Director" and "Senior Director" or "Vice President" and "Senior Vice President") are distinct job grades.
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So basically they're trying to get rid of me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So basically they're trying to get rid of me (Score:5, Funny)
Yes.
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This post generated by Google's automatic content creation script.
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So basically, Google is pushing to completely remove me and replace me with a tiny script. :(
Yes, all the BOFH [1] are belong to Google, apparently.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Never thought I'd see the day when someone on Slashdot would need to define BOFH.
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Never thought I'd see the day when someone on Slashdot would need to define BOFH.
LOL - I tried to find a quote where BOFH actually threatens to replace someone with a script, but neither Google nor DDG were useful to me in 30s so I gave up and linked the wiki.
I have optimized my /. posting to increase productivity.
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Never thought I'd see the day when someone on Slashdot would need to define BOFH.
Welcome to the new millennium, where IT is always outsourced and one has no idea who is actually responsible when anything breaks and there are a myriad of interchangeable BOFHs just an international phone call away.
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I don't, kids today are traumatized by "micro aggression" (whatever the fuck that is), so when they encounter a mean son of a bitch like BOFH they drop dead on the spot, which explains why the other kids have never heard of BOFH.
Now get off my lawn!
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Google is only trying to make us more efficient and reduce the amount of time we waste not staring at ads.
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Right on! Seriously though, I'd love to have a discussion, if not here then through an "Ask Slashdot" topic, on what all of this extra free time that automation gives us, is for? I feel like it's hitting some kind of tipping point for me, where I actively avoid automation, so that I can have an actual interaction with an actual human being once in a while. It still pains me that these credit card machines exist, which force me to stop talking with the nice checkout person while I figure out how to na
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I don't use social media for my personal relationships. I use face-to-face time for them. Facebook itself is a communications medium and a way of keeping track of people I used to have a personal relationship with (and would again if we were to meet).
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No, pretty much Google is trying to fabricate an excuse for being even more private communications invasive. What next an Adroid app that you and a partner share on your phones about the most appropriate sexual manoeuvres to align orgasm. With a remote probe to insert if your nethers should you not be actively using that orifice. So ideas are wildy inappropriate and the real idea behind the gimmick they are claiming is of course hugely wildly inappropriate. So gauging your individual response to communicat
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Google has been reading your mail, deeply, for over a decade. This is just them letting you know how good they are at it. Personally, I think they should push services like this to make people aware of just how much their "private" communications are scrutinized and processed, not only by Google, but by anyone with access to the data stream.
Don't like it? Encrypt.
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That's why I only use Gmail to feed Google self promoting propaganda.
Fallacious (Score:3)
Could you have constructed a more ridiculous Slippery Slope fallacy? Let's try:
Google Health: What's next, Google Death Camps?
Google Translate: What's next, mandatory voice implants?
Google Wallet: What's next, the overthrow of capitalism?
Project Loon: What's next, orbital mind control platforms?
Google Doodles: What's next, Lovecraftian horrors, the very sight of which induces madness?!
Hmm, not quite zany enough. Oooh, I know!
Google's self-driving car: What's next, Google Sex Bots?!
(And the answer is, "Yes p
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I think you've identified a new potential market. Are you going to form a startup?
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So basically, Google is pushing to completely remove me and replace me with a tiny script. :(
"Yeah", said Zaphod with a sudden evil grin, "you'd just have to program it to say What? and I don't understand and Where's the tea? - who'd know the difference?"
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You really don't want to take the time to hand-craft a polite and thoughtful response, so they give you the option to click on a canned one and use that instead.
It's greeting cards, modernized.
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So basically, Google is pushing to completely remove me and replace me with a tiny script. :(
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'll take a look into "remove me" as soon as I can. In the meantime you can contact your IT business partner for more information about our efforts to "remove me and replace me with a tiny script." Have a nice day.
JakartaDean
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Next up, scripted responses will be responding to each other while we stay back and watch ;)
...and then they start talking about how much bandwidth and available power these "humans" are consuming...
so they start emailing the cars about all the time wasted transporting these "humans" all over the place.
I'm going to go buy a bicycle... one that goes off road...
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Next up, scripted responses will be responding to each other while we stay back and watch ;)
Skynet, here we come...
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Next up, scripted responses will be responding to each other while we stay back and watch ;)
I've fantasized about this. Imagine a world where every email you flag as spam has an auto-generated reply returned to the sender. The spammers could have a whole conversation with your chat bot. I wonder how many messages back-and-forth it would take for them to realize there's no one on the other end. The value of spam would plummet, because you'd have no easy way to sift through the millions of fake responses to
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Yeah.... I don't think so.
If anything, the spammer now knows this is a valid and active e-mail account. Your spam volume will go up and up if you reply in any way.
Besides, all spammers spoof the sending address anyway so the back scatter you create would be, itself, spam.
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If anything, the spammer now knows this is a valid and active e-mail account.
That's why we all have to turn on our auto-responses together, and at the same time. Plus, bonus points if Google detects a spam message directed to an invalid gmail address, and crafts a response automatically.
Someone else said: Unfortunately, I know of no spam emails that don't forge the from address. If you actually got a working address, very likely you would be emailing someone who had nothing to do with the message.
Disturb
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Unfortunately, I know of no spam emails that don't forge the from address. If you actually got a working address, very likely you would be emailing someone who had nothing to do with the message.
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Unfortunately, I know of no spam emails that don't forge the from address.
I know lots of them. I bought something once from Walmart online and now I get spam from them. I once bought something from GearBest and I'm now on their endless spam list. The number of companies that think "he gave us an email address because we forced him to, with the excuse it was for sending him tracking info on his shipment, so we can now send every bit of advertising we can think of to him" is uncountable.
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which is why you give a hourmail address for shipment tracking.
Yes, there are several services that can be used to avoid the problem, but the claim was that no spammer uses a real address, and that claim is just patently absurd. Which is more than proven by the need to have services like hourmail, yes?
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That is the very definition of not spam. You have an actual commercial dealing with the company, and you very likely gave them permission to send you email. At the bottom of those emails is an unsubscribe link.
Spam is non solicited commercial email, if you have a relationship with the company, it is by definition not spam.
Very likely there was a defaulted checked box that said "we can send you email" there was also likely a box for "our third party buddies can send you email" and you left them checked.
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That is the very definition of not spam. You have an actual commercial dealing with the company
It is the very definition of spam. Unsolicited commercial bulk email.
and you very likely gave them permission to send you email.
At no time did I give them permission to send me UCE. Not once. Each first appearance nets them an explicit "send nothing further here", so even any pretense you can create that has me giving them permission is unwound by that followup. I have yet to find one that stops when told to.
At the bottom of those emails is an unsubscribe link.
A very convenient link NOT at the bottom, which means you have to read through the email to find it, and then most times it does absolutely NOTHING when you
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Would you prefer if I were not concerned about your problems?
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Echo... echo...
"Thank you", Google. If you do this, do not forget to implement the shibboleet escape option. It's bad enough that people don't make simple typos anymore but "autocomplete" to completely different words than they intended to type. Or that first level support only scans for keywords and answers with unfitting FAQ responses. I'll blacklist everyone whom I catch sending me autoreplies. I will not be autoreplied to!
We at Google understand your concern and a customer service representative will be available soon to help you adjust to changes in our services.
CSR reply alert 22327
Why bother having users? (Score:1)
The neural networks could just bounce messages back and forth, we don't need people actually reading them. This reminds me the bureaucracy of the state apparatus where offices exist just for the sake of other offices having work to do. If the problem that this is trying to solve is that people are getting too many emails they need to respond to then they should reduce that amount instead of automating responses.
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Maybe I'm too naive, but this doesn't sound like it's solving the problem of "too many emails", but instead the problem of "users need a keyboard to respond to emails efficiently". If I can't escape the office, at least it would be nice to get away from the desk.
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Yeah, I loved that scene when the protagonist sends people a link that goes to a 403 forbidden page.
Endless (loop) possibilities! (Score:1)
How long could you ping pong a dialog between 2 Gmail accounts?
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It doesn't say it automatically responds, it says it presents YOU with three quick responses you can send. Just saves some typing.
I auto-generate and macro replies to my boss ofte (Score:2)
> Can you imagine using an autogenerated response in a conversation with your boss? Just saves some typing, right? No?
All the time, and I -wished- people who worked for me would have done so, to make the "same" response more consistent and save time for both of us. Customers also particularly appreciate one of my "mental autoresponses" (explained below).
Microsoft Lync has macros I used to use all the time, so I'd type "omw" and it would auto-expand to "on my way". Simpler for both sender and reader tha
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I agree it's efficient and fun to come up with special shortcuts with individual people. It's a way to forge a unique relationship with a unique person. It's kind of fun to come up with the rules together, or watch the process unfold on its own.
But I don't like the idea of a machine learning algorithm trying to figure this out for me and apply it across a broad spectrum of people. That feels...kind of gross, and all the fun of forming personal idiosyncrasies with individual people is taken right out.
agreed, but then on mobile with most people (Score:2)
I certainly see where you're coming from. On the other hand, most of the time that I see an email come in on my phone I'm not THAT interested in building a special bond with the person, and it might be handy to immediately respond with a couple of taps at the next stop light. So I'm not sure myself. I'll try it and see.
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Certainly. What is wrong with that? I'd say 90% of the email conversations with my boss are simple questions, and simple responses suffice. Are you suggesting there is a difference between selecting 'Yes' from a list of responses and typing 'Yes'? And note that this is specifically talking about MOBILE devices, and often when I intend to type Yes I wind up with Ues which is then helpfully autocorrected to Use, which makes no sense at all.
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It doesn't say it automatically responds, it says it presents YOU with three quick responses you can send. Just saves some typing.
Agreed, I don't see what's so heinous about this. It gives you a few choices of common responses that may be all you need to use. Why should I have to type out the same thing to a 100 different people day after day when they all just need more or less the same response?
I keep a small text file with common responses to questions that some clients ask and that some of the people using the contact forms on my sites ask. It provides a quicker and more consistent response and I can always edit the response if n
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Can't wait to try this on my cybersex account (Score:2)
It will save tons of time on all those repetitive replies like "Mmm, that would feel so good baby," and "Then I'd flip you over and do the same to you until you screamed with pleasure." I've been getting really bogged down with that type of thing lately.
Eliza? (Score:2)
So all conversations will sound like someone playing Eliza far too long?
Clippy (Score:4, Funny)
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It looks like you're trying to come up with new ideas. Would you like some help with that?
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It looks like you are typing a suicide note. Would you like some help with that?
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APK is a spamming troll that couldn't maintain Karma on an account so uses anonymous relays to get around the limits of posting anonymous. I have repeatedly refuted his assertions, but rather than take my advise on various things, he feels that he is allowed to defame me by saying things he knows are not true, and posting them so often that maybe, just maybe, someone will think they are true.
I have offered him advise on ways to improve what he does to reduce the feeling of icky his software gives everyone,
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Oh, and also, claiming that I down modded APK 45 times with all my sock puppets is absolutely silly. APK posts off topic rants to everything I post, so he is rightfully down modded by the Slashdot community for trolling and offtopic posting. As I have repeatedly told APK, I have one account, I don't see the need to post AC, I also don't have these supposed sock puppet accounts flying around downmodding everybody disagreeing with me, that would be silly, and impossible unless I worked for Slashdot.
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Oh, like you mean, when you tell me that distribution of the hosts file by GPO makes more sense than loading a DNS zone into the DNS servers because DNS uses too much memory? GPO requires AD (unless you are running Windows versions so old as to be archaic), therefore, GPO makes little sense, and distributing hosts files to 100s or 1000s of machines uses WAY more memory than loading the entries into the AD DNS servers. Therefore you are under the mistaken belief that DNS is not required for AD and GPO, as
Avogadro Corp (Score:2)
So much time saved! (Score:2)
Just let the neural network send and reply to e-mails. I never even have to LOOK at my e-mail ever again!
Laughable (Score:2)
If the algorithm isn't any better than Google's filter bubble for Google News, it will be completely laughable.
For free... (Score:1)
I stopped using that app, in addition while they are "auto answering" for you, and you are vetting the answer what you're really doing is "tuning" their software response for free.
In other words as their software interprets your email, you are validating the automated response for them.
Good luck (Score:2)
I ignore most of my emails, so good luck, Google.
Just have, (Score:5, Funny)
Your machine email mine and they can do lunch....
Google Replaces the Intern Scapegoat (Score:2)
Oh, dear, was that reply rude? It was just Google, I just clicked send without reading it... Actually, I love your wardrobe... No, I think you're a great boss... Did I really say that? I'll turn Google's suggestions off right away, and no, I have no idea how it knew you were mildly obese. I'm terribly sorry.
Doesn't matter (Score:2)
Facebook made the right call in buying Whatsapp. For all its smarts, self driving cars, robots, AI and what not Zuckerberg has an edge over Brin and his cohorts when it comes to interpersonal communication between human beings.
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And no-one would dream of implementing the same technology on social media / messaging platforms!
That won't be needed. (Score:2)
Google: Would you like us to read your email and generate automatic responses?
Me: Go fuck yourself.
Google: I knew you were going to say that.