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Chatbots: Still dumb after all these years

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Re: Chatbots: Still dumb after all these years

#291

Post by foolfoolz »

Traster wrote: post #273

This is essentially why I think we're not going to get self-driving. A few years ago we produced something that could do a good job of pretending to drive under a tiny number of circumstances, and people went "OMG it can drive!" and assumed that we just have a few corner cases before the chat bot can have a conversation about anything. The truth is that often these very limited solutions are just that - limited, they…

don’t generalize these things. self driving in every possible scenario yes is probably a while off. self driving in specific circumstances is already here, such as airport shuttles and moving shipping containers in docks. you don’t need to solve the general case to be useful

Re: Chatbots: Still dumb after all these years

#292

Post by pdimitar »

fault1 wrote: post #287
pdimitar wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also believe "AI" will always be a moving target: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect No, it absolutely is not. Everyone I spoke with in the 90s (and myself) still have the same requirements: be able to make sense of the 3D material world around you and interact with it without harming humans or valuable possessions. Maybe you spent too much time with critics that can never be satisfied. Sucks to be you if th…

Of course, I love the spoils of technology and automation as much as anyone else. But it is absolutely human nature to get used to things and not consider them magical anymore, things simply become the new norm. This is exactly what happened with feedback controllers like airplane autopilot systems (1912 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot ) I've worked for a number of years on industrial robotics, which sounds…

Hmmm. But I really didn't mean robots with mostly hardcoded requirements and a few excellent optical recognition algorithms (which might truly be the real boss here).

I actually do mean a walking robot that can find the exact knife it needs to fillet a fish, regardless of whether it's in the sink, in its proper place on a stand, on the table, or dropped on the floor (and if it finds it on the floor it will wash it before usage first). I mean a robot that can open the fridge and find the tomatoes, regardless if your brother has moved them to the top shelf or if they are where they should be. Etc.

Re: Chatbots: Still dumb after all these years

#293

Post by contravariant »

visarga wrote: post #269
pdimitar wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If something is to replace humans at doing a job X then it has to be better than the humans at job X. Also humans instinctively expect the machines to not make mistakes. I haven't made them such; it's just a fact of life. And we have to work with the expectations of the bigger populace.

It's not necessary to be perfect, just useful.

If there's nobody to hold accountable when things inevitably go wrong then it needs to be perfect.

Too many times people have tried to push responsibility onto algorithms, which is the one thing everyone can agree they can't handle.

Re: Chatbots: Still dumb after all these years

#295

Post by nexuist »

Traster wrote: post #273

This is essentially why I think we're not going to get self-driving. A few years ago we produced something that could do a good job of pretending to drive under a tiny number of circumstances, and people went "OMG it can drive!" and assumed that we just have a few corner cases before the chat bot can have a conversation about anything. The truth is that often these very limited solutions are just that - limited, they…

Driving is a very different problem space than conversation. There are plenty of existing humans who are great at holding a conversation and get into tons of car accidents; likewise there are plenty of great drivers who suck at talking. It's not the same skill set.

Re: Chatbots: Still dumb after all these years

#296

Post by nexuist »

drakonka wrote: post #167

I was obsessed with chat bots as a teenager and used to make them on a website called The Personality Forge. It was all hard coded responses with some very minor scripting involved to do things like fill in the speaker's name, or skew the bot's emotions in relation to the speaker, and have them choose different words based on their emotional state. I loved reading through my bot's transcripts. They were all recorded,…

That's an awesome story and a great example of experiences the Internet makes possible for us.

Re: Chatbots: Still dumb after all these years

#297

Post by fault1 »

pdimitar wrote: post #292
fault1 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, I love the spoils of technology and automation as much as anyone else. But it is absolutely human nature to get used to things and not consider them magical anymore, things simply become the new norm. This is exactly what happened with feedback controllers like airplane autopilot systems (1912 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot ) I've worked for a number of years on industrial robotics, which sounds…

Hmmm. But I really didn't mean robots with mostly hardcoded requirements and a few excellent optical recognition algorithms (which might truly be the real boss here). I actually do mean a walking robot that can find the exact knife it needs to fillet a fish, regardless of whether it's in the sink, in its proper place on a stand, on the table, or dropped on the floor (and if it finds it on the floor it will wash it be…

> I actually do mean a walking robot that can find the exact knife it needs to fillet a fish, regardless of whether it's in the sink, in its proper place on a stand, on the table, or dropped on the floor (and if it finds it on the floor it will wash it before usage first). I mean a robot that can open the fridge and find the tomatoes, regardless if your brother has moved them to the top shelf or if they are where they should be. Etc.

From a computer vision perspective, I think most of that is fairly easy, maybe not getting all of the edge cases right, but it's more or less what this generation of machine learning enables (over "classical" computer vision).

What's hard about the scenario you proposed is probably on the robotics side, you would need a revolution in soft robotics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_robotics

Soft robotics is significantly behind hard robotics, and there are hard materials science and economics challenges from what I understand.

Re: Chatbots: Still dumb after all these years

#298

Post by TrackerFF »

I loathe the fact that chatbots have not only replaced a lot of human customer support, but that companies have made it almost IMPOSSIBLE to reach critical (human) customer support. It's a fucking travesty, and something companies should be shamed for.

For example - I'm currently having issues with an international shipment. It is unclear if the shipment ever left the country, if it's in limbo - hiding in some warehouse, or what. I went through this a couple of year ago, and back then, the shipping company had their phone numbers available. I got the problem fixed after 30 mins on the phone.

These days? There are no phone numbers to be found. No email. Only the chatbot, which does not yield the desired results.

I ended up searching my email inbox, and luckily found some contact person. Sent said person a mail, and luckily got a phone number and email to the correct department. I'm now awaiting a reply from them.

edit: I think it's fine to have a chatbot on the website, but not at the expense of all other methods.

Re: Chatbots: Still dumb after all these years

#299

Post by pdimitar »

fault1 wrote: post #297
pdimitar wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm. But I really didn't mean robots with mostly hardcoded requirements and a few excellent optical recognition algorithms (which might truly be the real boss here). I actually do mean a walking robot that can find the exact knife it needs to fillet a fish, regardless of whether it's in the sink, in its proper place on a stand, on the table, or dropped on the floor (and if it finds it on the floor it will wash it be…

> I actually do mean a walking robot that can find the exact knife it needs to fillet a fish, regardless of whether it's in the sink, in its proper place on a stand, on the table, or dropped on the floor (and if it finds it on the floor it will wash it before usage first). I mean a robot that can open the fridge and find the tomatoes, regardless if your brother has moved them to the top shelf or if they are where the…

Good link, thanks.

My point is that the corporations seems to just want to get the lowest possible hanging fruit with which they can reap the maximum profit... and stop there. I am not seeing any efforts to make an acceptable actual home robot.

I think like you: that most of the problems (that the bigger problem is comprised of) are solvable, but it seems that nobody is even trying to put the effort to make the entire package.

Where's the iPhone equivalent of a home robot?

Re: Chatbots: Still dumb after all these years

#300

Post by punkspider »

tibbar wrote: post #128

It’s reasonable to try GPT3 out with all default settings as the author seems to do and provide an assessment, but it’s not clear the author is aware of the extent to which you can configure the model and how the quality and variety of results will vary as a result. For instance, the author doesn’t go into detail on the prompts he’s using (maybe there are none other than his questions.) This is a little misleading be…

I agree.

Here's what GPT3 had to say when I set temperature to 0.

  Q: Is it safe to walk downstairs backwards if I close my eyes?
  A: No.
With temperature 0.7:

  A: Yes, because there is a banister.
This one surprised me. Given that temperature was 0, I usually expect a solid response:

  Q: Why is there a correlation between the number of times Trump tweets the word great and the high temperature in Pyongyang three days later?
  A: Because Trump is Kim Jong Un's air conditioner.
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