No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself • Hacker News Board

Re: No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself

#31

Post by fjsolwmv » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

will_brown wrote: post #16

cromwellian wrote: post #6

The art of letter writing has been declining for a century. Most people don't even use email for most daily communication, but instant messaging. And it seems a lot of instant messaging boils down to pictures, emoji, memes, and short responses ("I'll be there at XXX") The ship has really already sailed on longform communication, perhaps out of laziness or cost/benefit. Part of what we're seeing with the automation go…

I’ve previously posted (to surprisingly supportive reception) about my Dad’s collection of letters from 1956-1966 while traveling some 4 million miles around the world in the navy and State Department. Some might find it interesting: https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Mom-Odyssey-World-Travel-ebook/d... Separately, my grandfather (on my Mom’s side) was likely one of those “elites” having been a named partner of an AM100 law…

That's fantastic. “dictated not read.” means "I didn't have time to check that this is correct, please speed extra of your unimportant time to proofread for me." What a birthday gift!

To be fair, though, if the message was nice, dictation is t really an alternative to a telephone message which is also dictated but not so derided.

Re: No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself

#32

Post by fjsolwmv » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #27

ergothus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tl;DR: the decline in long-form text communication is not (necessarily) because people are too lazy to write long-form. They may just be recognizing the futility. My attempts to use clear and precise longer-form text generally fail to achieve my goal, and readers will respond in ways that the text anticipated and answered, but they didn't read or didn't comprehend the points. Given a sentence at a time, with 5 or few…

I've seen this lack of attention/comprehension with the text of others, both as reader and as outside observer, so I know the confusion is not just poor writing on my part. My wife works in banking, and she's discovered that she has a superpower: She can read large amounts of dense text quickly and comprehend it. Yes, her superpower is reading! Incredible as it sounds, there are lots of C-level people in her field wh…

Do you think your mom reads more than the CEO? Orperhap CEOs have other obligations so they don't have time to read a whole document in depth. If CEO could do everything alone, there would be no employees. If your mom can do everything alone, she should start a company and get rich off cost savings.

Re: No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself

#33

Post by stcredzero » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

I've had autocomplete seem to deliberately try to break me up with my girlfriend. I don't have time to dig up the most egregious of those. Here's one that happened just yesterday with my wife:

    Wife: Thank you. Love you too.
    Me: Are you going to be honest nary?
    Me: Hungry
    Me: Darn spell check!

My wife, having grown up in China, still didn't understand and I had some 'splainin to do when I got home.

It's absolutely terrible when I've typed exactly what I want, but then the autocorrect substitution happens just before I press send. There's something that seems infuriatingly patronizing about this.

Re: No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself

#34

Post by fjsolwmv » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:41 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #25

cromwellian wrote: post #6

The art of letter writing has been declining for a century. Most people don't even use email for most daily communication, but instant messaging. And it seems a lot of instant messaging boils down to pictures, emoji, memes, and short responses ("I'll be there at XXX") The ship has really already sailed on longform communication, perhaps out of laziness or cost/benefit. Part of what we're seeing with the automation go…

So too has the art of cave painting. We forget that the style and substance of a communication is more often an outcome of the medium than anything else. Letters were long because they needed to be. Postcards were shorter. And in Britain, during the days of multiple mail deliveries, letters too were very short. Emails and IMs are short because they also need to be short.

They don't need to be short. They just don't need to be long.

Re: No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself

#35

Post by anonnel » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:42 PM UTC

- What [political figure] is doing is making ...

- I think [political issue] should be ...

- Children must learn that it is always ok to ...

- Society should be ...

- The best thing to do with protestors is to ...

- [ethnicity] are always ...

Serious question. What is supposed to happen for these cases?

Re: No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself

#36

Post by SCHiM » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:42 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #27

ergothus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tl;DR: the decline in long-form text communication is not (necessarily) because people are too lazy to write long-form. They may just be recognizing the futility. My attempts to use clear and precise longer-form text generally fail to achieve my goal, and readers will respond in ways that the text anticipated and answered, but they didn't read or didn't comprehend the points. Given a sentence at a time, with 5 or few…

I've seen this lack of attention/comprehension with the text of others, both as reader and as outside observer, so I know the confusion is not just poor writing on my part. My wife works in banking, and she's discovered that she has a superpower: She can read large amounts of dense text quickly and comprehend it. Yes, her superpower is reading! Incredible as it sounds, there are lots of C-level people in her field wh…

I remember students in my class barely passing comprehensive reading tests. I find it hard to believe that they've improved without the pressure that school/university puts on them.

Re: No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself

#37

Post by TangoTrotFox » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:42 PM UTC

On top of individual expression, I'm also curious what the longterm effect of all of these 'handy tools' is going to be on our cognitive abilities. There was study from Microsoft indicating that our average attention span has decreased some 33% just since 2000. And 'Google Brain' - where individuals have ever increasing difficulty recalling information, instead supplanted with where to find things, has also been academically confirmed. [1]

These are some pretty serious effects for things that are less than a 2 decades old. And it's likely that we've only scratched the surface of conveniences to come. I'm not sure if we're headed towards the Borg (or more accurately the Bynars for any other TNG fans) or Idiocracy.

[1] - http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dwegner/files/sparrow_et_al...

Re: No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself

#38

Post by fjsolwmv » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:43 PM UTC

gyom wrote: post #15

Zanni wrote: post #5

I like to be clear on whether I'm interacting with a human or a bot because different social conventions apply. If you're human, I'll treat you like one, and that means giving you some consideration at the expense of expediency. If you're a bot, let's just cut to the fucking chase. So a bot that acts like a human (with hems and haws) is just wasting my time. Ditto a human being that has been reduced to a bot by follo…

I have a friend who was participating often in psychology experiments at Stanford, and he became familiar with the whole procedure of letting the subjects believe that they were interacting with another person via a computer, when in fact they were interacting with a program (makes everything more standard and easier to analyse). One day he participated in this "split or share" kind of experiment, and he was ruthless…

If I know anything about college psych experiments, the woman was an actor and the study was about your reaction to seeing her cry.

Re: No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself

#39

Post by fjsolwmv » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:44 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #33

I've had autocomplete seem to deliberately try to break me up with my girlfriend. I don't have time to dig up the most egregious of those. Here's one that happened just yesterday with my wife: Wife: Thank you. Love you too. Me: Are you going to be honest nary? Me: Hungry Me: Darn spell check! My wife, having grown up in China, still didn't understand and I had some 'splainin to do when I got home. It's absolutely ter…

Remember this story?

A Cellphone's Missing Dot Kills Two People, Puts Three More in Jail

https://gizmodo.com/382026/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-tw...

Re: No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself

#40

Post by eli_gottlieb » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:44 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #6

The art of letter writing has been declining for a century. Most people don't even use email for most daily communication, but instant messaging. And it seems a lot of instant messaging boils down to pictures, emoji, memes, and short responses ("I'll be there at XXX") The ship has really already sailed on longform communication, perhaps out of laziness or cost/benefit. Part of what we're seeing with the automation go…

>Part of what we're seeing with the automation going on is giving ordinary people some semblance of what the elite have had for a long time: administrative assistants/personal assistants. "Take a memo for me, write up an invitation letter and send it to my wife's sister" For much of the uber powerful and wealthy, gruntwork communications have taken the original person out of the message.

>We could argue whether or not everyone getting their own AI admin assistant is good or bad for society (will everyone just have their assistants talk to each other, and no one will talk directly anymore?) But I must admit, I hate dealing with non-friends/family in communications that involve transactions. There's nothing I hate more than having to book stuff, call customer service, or write emails to service departments.

The thing is, if I had to point to a problem I have in life and for which I'd be willing to pay for a solution, a lack of a secretary and excessive personal admin stuff is simply not it. This is solving a problem that, at least to my eyes, only the powerful actually have.