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Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

technologyreview.com

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Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#21

Post by electromagnetic »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #13
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #8

Let me see if I understand this correctly. Some programmer assumes that he is right and others are wrong, so he writes a bot to chase down people he might disagree with and bombard them with one-liners. And Technology Review thinks this is behavior worth promoting? I suspect the reason is that they agree with the programmer. Try it out for a bit with the roles reversed. Doesn't feel quite the same, huh? ADD: The assu…

I am as skeptical of the details of man-made global warming as anyone, but people who argue on twitter, for God's sake, are at the level of a chat-bot and it's probably for the best.

Yes, it's like arguing on a crowded bus. Everyone hears you, nobody cares and they either want you put in your place or told to STFU.

I'm more dubious of the proposed solutions to global warming than anything as it looks highly like a band-aid infused with arsenic to me. Sure it'll kill the infection, but it could well kill you too.

Go nuclear, it's the lesser of the evils. Existing infrastructure can be cannibalized for it (access to roadways, rail or river, cooling pools, cooling towers, etc.) even if the power plant itself cannot be. Furthermore, the totality of all nuclear accidents in the world has caused less deaths than coal soot alone. Disregard the fact that coal contains radioactive compounds that are being vaporised and inhaled.

Interestingly, I know here in Canada at least, that many of the nuclear plants have become their own sort of nature preserve.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#22

Post by DrJosiah »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #11
msbarnett wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being snide, I suspect, but that's a time-tested and well-proven method of reaching the segment of the population that is currently being inundated with anti-science messages. Many, many people believe what they hear first and what gets shouted loudest. Not liking that fact, and therefore refusing to engage in those tactics, doesn't make it any less true; it simply cedes a large segment of the population to an…

By relying on such tactics you are abandoning science. You are saying essentially "who cares that these techniques can be used to get people to believe anything , what matters is that we are using them to promote The TRUTH(TM)". And every religion in history has believed exactly the same thing. I don't want science to die, I don't want it to be replaced with some new ideology or religion which can trace its roots to…

He's using known tested methods for getting people to listen to points of view that they don't agree with. That's psychology.

He's also using some set of content matching algorithms, and may introduce other deeper learning algorithms. That's computer science.

Seems like science to me :P

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#23

Post by chc »

lhnn wrote: post #5
lhnn wrote: post #3

Man-made global warming is a myth.

I knew I'd get downvoted for stating the fact... The problem with that Twitter bot is that which ever side it promoted, it's still stating "facts" without citation (as I have done). That's the problem with Twitter: it's useless as a platform for DISCUSSION. The bot author is a spambot, not a chatbot, and is another reason to stay away from that website.

The bot may have problems, but I don't think its problem is that Twitter and Hacker News are two very different venues.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#25

Post by InclinedPlane »

DrJosiah wrote: post #22
InclinedPlane wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By relying on such tactics you are abandoning science. You are saying essentially "who cares that these techniques can be used to get people to believe anything , what matters is that we are using them to promote The TRUTH(TM)". And every religion in history has believed exactly the same thing. I don't want science to die, I don't want it to be replaced with some new ideology or religion which can trace its roots to…

He's using known tested methods for getting people to listen to points of view that they don't agree with. That's psychology. He's also using some set of content matching algorithms, and may introduce other deeper learning algorithms. That's computer science. Seems like science to me :P

Yes, you can use science to destroy science, why shouldn't that be so? What's your point?

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#26

Post by anthonyb »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #8

Let me see if I understand this correctly. Some programmer assumes that he is right and others are wrong, so he writes a bot to chase down people he might disagree with and bombard them with one-liners. And Technology Review thinks this is behavior worth promoting? I suspect the reason is that they agree with the programmer. Try it out for a bit with the roles reversed. Doesn't feel quite the same, huh? ADD: The assu…

I suspect that part of the problem is that, at least with climate deniers, is that there's no real meat to their arguments. I know a few, and most of their arguments boil down to hearsay or "denier blog X says so, and who trusts Obama/the UN world government anyway". If they provided a link to something supporting their position I'd probably pass out from shock.

At least 95% of the argument with deniers is basically saying "No, you're wrong, that's been disproven by numerous studies - and here's the link". So yeah, arguing with them (or even just trying to put your point of view across) is annoying and tedious. Like any good programmer, Nigel's just automating away the drudgery.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#28

Post by anthonyb »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #2

That's the ticket. Promote "science" by relentlessly repeating the same thing over and over again and refusing to engage in a meaningful argument.

Rubbish. He's providing links to http://www.skepticalscience.com/, which in turn has links to peer reviewed papers. It's a direct invitation to engage in meaningful argument - the science actually says "X" and here's how they arrived at that conclusion.

That most of the people he's replying to are unable or unwilling to engage doesn't detract from what he's doing.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#29

Post by gojomo »

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #12

Perhaps the "proponents of anti-science nonsense" are also secret chatbots and the robots have hijacked both sides of the discussion.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine spam bots filling the net with appealing nonsense -- forever.
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