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Facebook AI Social Networks

Facebook Gives Workers a Chatbot to Appease That Prying Uncle (nytimes.com) 79

Posted by msmash from the unique-challenges dept.
Some Facebook employees recently told their managers that they were concerned about answering difficult questions about their workplace from friends and family over the holidays. What if Mom or Dad accused the social network of destroying democracy? Or what if they said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, was collecting their online data at the expense of privacy? So just before Thanksgiving, Facebook rolled out something to help its workers: a chatbot that would teach them official company answers for dealing with such thorny questions. From a report: If a relative asked how Facebook handled hate speech, for example, the chatbot -- which is a simple piece of software that uses artificial intelligence to carry on a conversation -- would instruct the employee to answer with these points: Facebook consults with experts on the matter. It has hired more moderators to police its content. It is working on A.I. to spot hate speech. Regulation is important for addressing the issue.

It would also suggest citing statistics from a Facebook report about how the company enforces its standards. The answers were put together by Facebook's public relations department, parroting what company executives have publicly said. And the chatbot has a name: the "Liam Bot." (The provenance of the name is unclear.)
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Facebook Gives Workers a Chatbot to Appease That Prying Uncle More

Facebook Gives Workers a Chatbot to Appease That Prying Uncle

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  • A lying chatbot (Score:5, Informative)

    by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @01:48PM (#59481290) Homepage

    A chatbot that serves up company-lawyer-certified responses to the questions the company doesn't want to ask?

    That would be hilarious if it wasn't so scary.

    • Re:A lying chatbot (Score:4, Insightful)

      by barc0001 ( 173002 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @01:57PM (#59481334)

      If they're lawyer certified responses I'm sure they're not *lies*, per se. Deflections, stretching the truth, technically-correct statements, etc.

      That said, if your company has to go through the trouble of setting up a system to help your employees not be hated by their relatives at holiday gatherings, maybe you should be looking a bit harder at how you do business.

      • If they're lawyer certified responses I'm sure they're not *lies*, per se. Deflections, stretching the truth, technically-correct statements, etc.

        Uh, per se? You offered up thesaurus certified responses here. Are we attempting to redefine the action of lying based on the ability to get away with it? If so, the next generation of thieves entering the workforce is going to take this problem from bad to fucked.

        That said, if your company has to go through the trouble of setting up a system to help your employees not be hated by their relatives at holiday gatherings, maybe you should be looking a bit harder at how you do business.

        Let me know when the Facebook billionaires start giving a shit about morals and ethics on the way to the bank. Their solution to solve the family squabble is to buy a new family.

        • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

          by barc0001 ( 173002 )

          > Are we attempting to redefine the action of lying based on the ability to get away with it?

          What do you mean by "attempting"? Have you not been paying attention to how the world's worked since, well, forever? They HAVE gotten away with it and will continue to do so. All you have to do is look at the example sitting in the Oval Office for a primer on why truth no longer matters.

          • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

            by DarkOx ( 621550 )

            All you have to do is look at the example sitting in the Oval Office for a primer on why truth no longer matters.

            Spotted the guy with Trump Derangement Syndrome!

            Lets consider Trump's lies. Most of them are relatively harmless exaggeration and self aggrandizements. Compare that to "If you like your health plan you can keep it" One man asks us to believe more people come to events to cheer him and the other wilful misrepresents the effect and intent of his agenda to the public he is suppose to serve.

            I'll take Trump lies over the other kind thank you very much!

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by efitton ( 144228 )

              If you had actual health care that covered anything you could keep it. Christ, can't believe anyone is saying Trump does better lying.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Pascoea ( 968200 )
              If you believe anything that comes out of a politician's mouth when it comes to proposed policies, then it's not the politician with the problem. How's that wall coming along? Still waiting to see the check from Mexico to pay for it?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Rob Y. ( 110975 )

              What is "If you like your health plan, you can keep it" other than a harmless exaggeration? Essentially, the 80% of Americans who get their health insurance at work could 'keep' their work plan before Obamacare only to the extent that they can keep being covered by whatever plan the employer chooses for them - and changes roughly every two years. Well, they still can - unless their employer found a way to game the system and drop coverage altogether. In which case, they can get something roughly comparab

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by HiThere ( 15173 )

                Obamacare was a horrible plan crafted by Republicans to make the insurance companies wealthy. But Obama *did* sign it. It should really, however, be call Romneycare.

                OTOH, it did have universal health care as the goal. But I suspect it was designed to end up being too expensive to ever reach that goal. Britain appears to still have a much better system that provides better coverage to a larger percentage of the population as a lower cost per each. But it looks as if the current government is planning to

            • Spotted the Russian troll. So, "most of them are relatively harmless". Like "I'll show you my taxes after the election" and "I'll put my business into a blind trust" and "We didn't collude with Russia"? Here's the thing about Trump's lies: THEY ARE LIES. Nobody except one of Putin's bitches (like you) gives a fuck about "how bad they are".

          • > Are we attempting to redefine the action of lying based on the ability to get away with it?

            What do you mean by "attempting"? Have you not been paying attention to how the world's worked since, well, forever? They HAVE gotten away with it and will continue to do so. All you have to do is look at the example sitting in the Oval Office for a primer on why truth no longer matters.

            Oh c'mon now. They haven't been lying per se, right?

            if we're going to start attacking people about truths that no longer matter, maybe we should start by dropping the bullshit half-truth vernacular...

            • Lawyers lie all the time. If you don't believe me, ask your lawyer this question:
              "Hey, I was talking to somebody else's lawyer, and he said some heavy stuff and that I'm required to pay some money, and there is no alternative. Is it possible he's lying, or should I believe him since he's a lawyer?"

      • Re:A lying chatbot (Score:4, Insightful)

        by chuckugly ( 2030942 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @03:18PM (#59481766)

        There is a difference between lies and untruths. Not all untruths are lies and more to the point, not all lies use untruthful statements. A lie is essentially intentionally deceiving someone who is not expecting to be deceived. More or less.

        Untruths are a tool in the liars toolbox but far from the only tool.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          It doesn't matter whether true or not, everyone knows exactly what it looks like "Lies to tell YOUR family about working at Facebook", it looks so fucking bad the optics are trully awful. Facebook telling it's employees to lie to their own families, I mean how fucking low do those employees have to go, they are all Facebook account holders and probably already exposing the families to Facebook privacy invasive algorithms, now they have to lie for Facebook.

          Doesn't not matter what is true or false in this ca

      • You seem a bit confused about if lawyers lie or not.

        Hint: the lawyers are not sworn in even during a trial. Nothing they say is ever under threat of perjury. There is no law against lying.

        And if that doesn't make it clear, you won't be able to understand their statements anyways.

      • Or my favorite: non-answers, which is what most of those are. They aren't answers, they're platitudes designed to make the other person lose interest. Make it seem like you're agreeing with the person, all the while you're really just parroting their concerns back to them as vague actions, none of which come with any actual accountability to anyone

      • "Deflections, stretching the truth, technically-correct statements, etc."

      • "Why behave in an ethical manner when you can erase the negative consequences of unethical behaviour using cash generated from said behaviour and still have enough left over to buy every politician on the planet?" a source close to the issue was misquoted as maybe saying.

    • Chatbot accepts a query.

      Chatbot always serves back a single 322 page response. Written by lawyers. Which manages to slyly take take all possible positions on any question without actually committing to any single point of view on anything.
      • Prince Charming: You. You can't lie. So tell me, puppet, where is Shrek?
        Pinocchio: Uh, hmm, well, uh, I don't know where he's not.
        Prince Charming: You're telling me you don't know where Shrek is?
        Pinocchio: It wouldn’t be inaccurate to assume that I couldn’t exactly not say that it is or isn’t almost partially incorrect.
        Prince Charming:- So you do know where he is?
        Pinocchio: Oh, on the contrary. I'm possibly more or less not definitely rejecting the idea that in no way with any amount
    • I don't know if scary is the right word. Stupid or depressing maybe.

    • Liam recommended that instead of 'lie', I should choose a word from "deflection, aphorism, technically correct, potentially accurate, prevarication, personal truth, obfuscation, legally non-binding, factually orthogonal, or credulously dubitable".

    • That's spin doctoring.

  • No need to be concerned about questions. Just casually mention you made over $300k last year at Facebook, and people will stop asking those questions.

    • So you're saying like . . .

      Hey, friends and family, don't ask me that, okay? After all, what matters is that I made over $300 K last year at Facebook by abusing your privacy, selling you to advertisers, selling your info to anyone who's payment will clear, and generally tearing apart the fabric of society and manipulating democracy.

      But look! . . . $300 K !!!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        I think its really a more polite way of saying,

        "Look I am not proud of what I am enabling but I make bank doing it and you would too if the opportunity came your way so STFU"

        The fact is I STRONGLY suspect for a largish portion of the population this is true. After all Facebook does not appear to have difficulty hiring or attracting investors. Humans are pretty good at rationalizing.

        Hey all I am doing is writing a little software, I am not the one deciding what to it does..

      • Exactly. If they ask, just say "I made 300k last year". The next question they will ask will be: "how can I get a job at Facebook?".

    • Does Liam have an answer when your uncle pesters you to get your cousin a job at Facebook?

  • So it's Liebot from Achewood, but much less witty.

  • Oh my (Score:3)

    by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @02:04PM (#59481364)

    It's Chaiman Zuck's Little Red Cyber Book!

  • Literal robotic answers from a soulless leadership. Another example of corporate America's religious devotion to economics, and complete neglect of social, national, and moral responsibility. All hail our lord capitalism.
    • If you left out one word, Liberal, I could agree with you.

      The worship of money does not belong exclusively to any political party or point of view.

      Consider that keeping the people about 50 / 50 divided and squabbling over two unworkable points of view might be exactly what the money worshipers want? You're playing right into their hands.

      • Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @02:25PM (#59481452)
        The word 'liberal' does not appear in his post. So even when people dont mention liberals, you are still here obsessively defending them.

        Perhaps maybe you should consider why this just happened.
        • Literal was in the OP quote. I think the other person wanted so hard to see liberal, that their eyes just glazed over and seen what they wanted to
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      nother example of corporate America's religious devotion to economics, and complete neglect of social, national, and moral responsibility. All hail our lord capitalism.

      "Economics" includes " social, national, and moral responsibility". There's nothing wrong with the academic field of study of human interactions. Odd thing to attack, really.

      Capitalism is any economic system in which the means of production are acquired by buying them (as opposed to military conquest, or political favor). Is there something to that that tends towards less concern about morality? Maybe so, maybe so.

      It sure would be nice if we could stop bickering over bad 20th century economic systems, a

  • I just threw up in my mouth a little reading that drivel.

    • Facebook would please like your feedback on how they could write better, smoother drivel that would not give you that nausea. Please help us improve the way we do business and how we sell your personal info and tear apart the fabric of society. Thank You!
  • So this is Doublespeak that's automated so that a person with an actual conscience doesn't have to feel bad about spewing obvious BS. Cool.
    • Facebook has brazenly and openly declared it will allow politicians to buy ads and outright lie to everyone. Spread misinformation. Deception. Lies. Conspiracy theories. And things that even 8chan wouldn't touch.

      What does that say about doublespeak and conscience? But look family, I made a lot of money from Facebook last year!! Isn't that all that matters?
      • Every form of media allows politicians to lie all the time, including the news outlets. When ever news outlets show politicians talking, they are letting them lie without question.

  • Then you...

    Gave it away, never had it, and deserve it!

    It is amazing how out of touch pro-democracy children are these days. While I can totally get behind people coming up with some way to secure their interests and liberties but "democracy" just is not going to do it. The only thing you are going to get with this approach is the boot of a police state on your neck.

    Not only that, the great ironic theater being acted on this state is the very argument itself. A Social Media platform is destroying Democrac

    • Huh?

      • I was in response to this line in the article...

        "What if Mom or Dad accused the social network of destroying democracy?"

        Followed up about how people falsely think that Democracy is a solution and that they somehow have or ever had a democracy, along with showing one of the hypocrisies that usually comes from pro-democracy people.

  • Each answer is accompanied by an image of a moving hand with two fingers up, directions for emulating that motion when answering, and a soothing voice that says, "These are the answers you are looking for"

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Is it really easier to build an AI to give canned responses to actual concerns then actually fixing the problems that people are concerned about?

  • But where's the money in democracy?

  • What can it do that an html page with the official company statements in answer to these questions could not do?

  • You can make a chatbot or... (Score:3)

    by TomR teh Pirate ( 1554037 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @02:57PM (#59481618)
    or, you could stop behaving so badly that you don't need to get your thousands of employees to toe a company line they'd rather not have to discuss. I mean, if it's embarrassing to have your employees dish on the employer, maybe it's the employer that needs to clean up its act. Just sayin...

  • Leave it to Facebook employees to think in terms of writing software, rather than opting not to divulge information.

  • Either don't talk about it or leave the job... Or just say the pay is good and put an end to the conversation. I bet these are people that grew up with their phone glued to their face with no social skills.

    Disclaimer: I have no social skills and I don't care to use my smartphone for anything but phone calls..
  • RULE 1: Your concerns are irrelevant no matter what they are. RULE 2: Facebook asserts they are not responsible for any of their failings as long as they can technically claim some form of plausible deniability. RULE 3: If deniability seems no longer to be plausible after such a series of high-profile failings or your consider Zuckerberg to be an utterly non-credible wretch, see RULE 1.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Maybe if the people who felt in any way uncomfortable about what their place of business was up to REFUSED TO WORK THERE, then the world would be a far better place.

  • ... they have a fucking note from Sheldon's mommy listing conversation starters with appropriate responses?

  • do my thinking for me because I lack the critical thinking and social awareness skill to do it myself.
  • Cant tell the truth at home.

  • Moral of the story: Don't roll with the enemy.

    "I was only following orders" already didn't work at the Nürnberg trials.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Delete your profile. Boycott Facebook-owned properties such as Instagram, and, most importantly, educate your friends and family on the dangers of facebook.
  • Seems like Big Brother is helping you deal with your Prying Uncle.
  • Liam = Lie'Em? Sounds same....
  • Just ditch facebook and find another job where you will feel you are not an actor in the destruction of civilisation.

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