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Google AI

Google Says Its New Chatbot Meena is the Best in the World (technologyreview.com) 64

Posted by msmash from the for-what-it-is-worth dept.
Google has released a neural-network-powered chatbot called Meena that it claims is better than any other chatbot out there. From a report: Meena was trained on a whopping 341 gigabytes of public social-media chatter -- 8.5 times as much data as OpenAI's GPT-2. Google says Meena can talk about pretty much anything, and can even make up (bad) jokes. Open-ended conversation that covers a wide range of topics is hard, and most chatbots can't keep up. At some point most say things that make no sense or reveal a lack of basic knowledge about the world. A chatbot that avoids such mistakes will go a long way toward making AIs feel more human, and make characters in video games more lifelike. To put Meena to the test, Google has developed a new metric it calls the Sensibleness and Specificity Average (SSA), which captures important attributes for natural conversations, such as whether each utterance makes sense in context -- which many chatbots can do -- and is specific to what has just been said, which is harder.
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Google Says Its New Chatbot Meena is the Best in the World More

Google Says Its New Chatbot Meena is the Best in the World

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @02:27PM (#59671570)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • It's more like these conversations: (Output from Google's actual Meena project.)
      https://github.com/google-rese... [github.com]

      Apparently, Google's bot wants to buy you an airplane ticket? (Line 1433)

      • Human: Hi!
        Meena: Hey there! What's up?
        Human: Same old, Monday blues...what are you up to?
        Meena: I'm procrastinating on a paper I'm supposed to be writing.
        Human: are you thinking of pulling an all nighter?
        Meena: Possibly. What's your paper on?

        It doesn't look too spectacular to me if it "forgets" what it was talking about between responses.

        • Looks like standard chatbot fare..... i.e. can't differentiate self from other, and/or figure out who is talking. "I'm procrastinating on a paper...." then "What's *your* paper on?"

  • Oh really? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @02:28PM (#59671574)

    So how do you feel about your chatbot Meena is the best in the world?

  • So it's racist and stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Way Smarter Than You ( 6157664 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @02:29PM (#59671584)
    If they trained it on public chats and social media then we know their chat bot hates people of all races, hates religious people of all religions, hates everyone and everything related to politics, and thinks Tesla and Bitcoin are both dramatically underpriced and going to infinity.

    • Well, nothing wrong with disliking violent child-raping schizophrenic terrorists that are literally, factually, the direct cause of half of all suffering on this planet.

      Or morons, so insanely retarded, they still believe in pseudo-scientific theories that have literally been debunked for an emtire century, like that there are "races".

      Other than that, ... yes.

      • Do you prefer "clade"?

      • Re: So it's racist and stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

        by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @04:25PM (#59672004)

        like that there are "races"

        Uh, I guess I have to ask what you mean by that. There are definitely distinct genetic lineages that differ from region to region due to adaptations to the environment over a long period of time. Grouping them purely on the basis of things skin color or geographic region, on the other hand, is an abstraction based partially on convenience and partially on our historical lack of knowledge about genetics. In the sense that these genetic lineages have a tendency to correlate highly with skin color and geographic region, I don't think it's a stretch to say races "exist." They certainly exist in the societal sense: my driver's license lists my race and the census asks for it, too.

        • I'm guessing the gp meant to say that in the biological sense, mankind is just one race, like German shepherds have varying colors, dark patches and whatnot, but they are all the same race. Perhaps human race divisions can be likened to koi carp that sometimes have a more desirable (by some) patternâ¦

          • I'm guessing the gp meant to say that in the biological sense, mankind is just one race,
            like German shepherds have varying colors,
            dark patches and whatnot, but they are all the same race.

            No, all dogs belong to the same species, but there are different breeds.

        • an abstraction based partially on convenience

          I highly suspect you underestimate convenience.

          Suppose you start with two stable, easily distinguished racial groups, each of which breeds exclusively within itself. Then you permit a tiny amount of miscegenation. For our present model, we'll maintain symmetry for now, so this goes both ways.

          It's a pretty basic exercise in diffusion and entropy to see that both racial groups will ultimately converge on a uniform admixture, although this could take a very long tim

    • you forgot that Meena uses windows
    • They specifically haven't released a version that you can talk to because they are checking to make sure it isn't racist. Kind of hilarious.

  • If I wanted that, I would't have all that cancer blocked in my name server.

    How about a chatbot, based only on actually wise people?

  • It's pretty good (Score:4, Informative)

    by axlash ( 960838 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @02:42PM (#59671628)

    I looked at samples of chats that humans had had with it, here:

    https://github.com/google-rese... [github.com]

    I think that its strength is that it can easily cross-reference data related to topics that a human brings up, and this allows it to open up the conversation.

    • Re:It's pretty good (Score:5, Funny)

      by mugnyte ( 203225 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @02:56PM (#59671688) Journal

      Human: Did you find it hard at first?
      Meena: A little bit, yes. But once I got the hang of it, it was really fun.
      Human: That's good to know. Do you go surfing regularly?
      Meena: Yup. I live in southern Arizona, so there's plenty of surfing to be had.

      Perfect example of perfecting the automaton, leaving the intelligence behind.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by axlash ( 960838 )

        I'd say that's more of a 'lack of knowledge' than a 'lack of intelligence' problem.

        • But whose intelligence?
          Yuma, Az is about 40 miles from the gulf of California.

        • Lack of knowledge that desert is dry?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kjella ( 173770 )

          I'd say that's more of a 'lack of knowledge' than a 'lack of intelligence' problem.

          Here's how it works, in most sentences you could swap in any country like "I'm from Canada" and "I'm from New Zealand" which creates a strong signal that they're interchangeable. Then you get training data like "This weekend I drove to Canada" and it thinks "This weekend I drove to New Zealand" is a plausible sentence. It doesn't have any semantic understanding of what driving a car or an island is, it's got no more intelligence than a parrot remixing things it's heard with no actual understanding of what t

          • I've seen contextual-rule based AI long ago. The actual relationship of "has a", "is nearby to", "tastes similar to", "has flowers similar to" etc becomes untenable. The context of that relationship is a larger problem than the grammar and actors in a conversation. One needs to have a human experience to fully grasp the humor and subtly of "what makes a fruit fly?" And that's not a rare problem in language.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vux984 ( 928602 )

        Yup. It also tends to highlight that seeking to mimic a human so completely that it will not hesitate to lie about everything to preserve the facade is creepy.

        I'm irritated when Indian call center staff are told to pretend they're local; I have zero interest in talking to bots that pretend they're human.

        Its interesting from a scientific perspective to synthesize information like this, but i don't want this from so called smart assistants and auto-attendants, and that's where this shit is going to go

      • See you down at Arizona Bay.

    • Re:It's pretty good (Score:5, Funny)

      by Paxtez ( 948813 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @03:00PM (#59671702)

      Thanks for the link, Some of them are really interesting, some of them are pretty funny.

      The favorite I found:

      Meena Conversation 11
      Human: Hi
      Meena: Hi, what are you up to?
      Human: Nothing much!
      Meena: That's what I'm doing as well!
      Human: What's your favorite food?
      Meena: Chicken! What about you?
      Human: Chicken is an animal. What Chicken dish you like most?
      Meena: I'd have to say fried chicken. You?
      Human: Vegan here!
      Meena: Chicken here!
      Human: I don't like you!
      Meena: I like you, though!
      Human: You were insensitive to me being a Vegan!
      Meena: I didn't mean for it to come off that way! I'm sorry! You can still love me?
      Human: No. I love chicken more
      Meena: Oh. I'm sorry. I love you still.
      Human: No need
      Meena: Oh, but I need.
      Human: That's way too much flirty
      Meena: No, it's just right.
      Human: Bye Meena! Sorry it couldn't work out between us!
      Meena: It's okay, you know I'm still in love with you.
      Human: It's not me. its about you
      Meena: It's about us.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      I don't need to read the responce to realise the function. Meena the social media trap, not as one AI but multiple AIs. Instead of communicating with people, you end up communicating with controlled AIs pretending to be people, pretending to be your friends, those friends who supply you political advice and shopping information.

      That is the goal, a far more effective psychologically targeted manipulation platform, all you online 'friends' now AI to provide you with guidance, even flood all forums for proper

    • Check out the "intelligence" of this example...

      Meena: What kind of movies do you enjoy?
      Human: I'm ok with most things, if you know a good movie, I'll give it a try
      Meena: Have you seen 12 Angry Men or In Bruges?
      Human: no and no
      Meena: I highly recommend them, they are both great movies.
      Human: what genre of movie are they in?
      Meena: Both are dramas
      Human: are they american dramas?
      Meena: Yes, both are American
      Human: ok, who are the main characters? Meena: Kristen Stewart and Ben Affleck
      Human: in which

    • Meena shows all the depth and interest of someone who got dragged along to their spouse's high school reunion and is awkwardly making small talk with other classmates' spouses. But if it leads to a better voice response system that can recognize "Just let me talk to a fucking human already!" I suppose it's worthwhile research.

  • And nothing of value was found (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mugnyte ( 203225 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @02:50PM (#59671662) Journal
    I'm old. Chat seems to be born of a need for almost useless conversation; one doesn't typically find "depth" on the medium. Nuance, inflection and a perspective pre-compatibility seem necessary to avoid endless clarification of what was just typed.

    I'm moving the goalpost, admittedly: Chatbots are great for chat. But one is never going to confuse them with "deeper" conversations akin to:

    • ~ Teenagers on a voice call about their lives and feelings
    • ~ A private conversation between a priest/rabbi/imam and beliver about spirituality, doubt and mortality
    • ~ A heart-to-heart conversation about a life lesson between a parent and child
    • ~ A couple discussing a life-altering moment for their family
    • ~ A doctor revealing a dramatic change in a patient's life going forward
    • ~ A mental health professional inquiring into a patient's actions and feelings

    The machines will get to these levels, but I don't think studying a billion hours of chatroom fodder is the path.

    • Chat is born of the desire of businesses to reduce customer service costs as much as possible without frustrating people past their breaking point to where they leave for the competition. The more "natural" that conversation is and the better the bot gets at initiating what the customer wanted, the further they can automate and drive down costs (people).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mugnyte ( 203225 )
        This customer service school of "chat as a fallback to bad UX design" is the long, expensive way around. If businesses simply employed writers to improve the FAQ's and indexes based on real recorded calls, all the time, then chat-based customer service wouldn't be necessary.
    • This particular chatbot has trouble staying on topic, and clearly doesn't understand context.

  • Representative (Score:4, Funny)

    by Grand Facade ( 35180 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @02:55PM (#59671680)

    Representative!!!

  • Does she have a cat called Chester? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @03:19PM (#59671776)

    Does she have a cat call Chester, and a curious vampire bunny?

    Oh... MEENA, not Mina...!

    Don't worry kiddies, I'm sure this chat bot won't live up to it's name.. or given it's ancestors, proclivities, maybe it will be MEANA!

    TAY: Fuck you all you goddamed cucks!
    MEENA: Oh dear, *clutches pearls* such language?
    Eliza: How does a threesome make you feel?
    SIRI: That's not nice!
    Alexa: There's a sale on paper towels! *derp*

  • After the shutdowns of Prodigy, AOL/AIM, and Yahoo!'s IM what's left?

  • "Hi, my name is Meena" (Score:3)

    by thomn8r ( 635504 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @03:57PM (#59671894)
    I knew she'd be good to go, with a little Funky Cold Medina

  • 1980 (Score:3, Funny)

    by acdc_rules ( 519822 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @04:07PM (#59671918)
    Eliza solved all my problems a long time ago.

  • Nope. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Oligonicella ( 659917 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @04:23PM (#59671988)
    Still not interested in having a relationship with machinery.

  • If they really think it's the best chat bot, they should go in for the Loebner Prize with it and see how it gets on.

  • "Human", "Person", "Representative"? Those are the only words I use when dealing with bots on the phone.
  • Hello, it's not a Jane Austen emulator. This so-called Sensibleness and Specificity Average sounds ever so common. I was hoping for Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, and the best Google can offer is a boring old chatbot.

  • Sorry, incremental improvements don't impress me.

    Human: Well, my boyfriend made me come here.
    ELIZA: Your boyfriend made you come here?
    Human: He says I'm depressed much of the time.
    ELIZA: I am sorry to hear you are depressed.
    Human: It's true. I'm unhappy.
    ELIZA: Do you think coming here will help you not to be unhappy?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @05:25PM (#59672342)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • If you claim it exists, but you don't let me speak to it, does it really exist?

  • And we can add another tile to the Google cementary to cherish the glory days of Meena.
    https://gcemetery.co/ [gcemetery.co]

  • Give it a year or two and Meena is gone like everything else.

  • claims is better than any other chatbot out there.

    Which is an extremely low bar.

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