31–40 of 45 posts
That site got a fair bit of press (and not in a good way) after they set up one of those bots pretending to be the author Jon Ronson. Jon interviewed the people behind it, judge them for yourself: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2012/mar/27/jo...
That site got a fair bit of press (and not in a good way) after they set up one of those bots pretending to be the author Jon Ronson. Jon interviewed the people behind it, judge them for yourself: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2012/mar/27/jo...
Your homepage needs some work, I'm still unclear on what Weavrs is.
To the software output: Maybe I'll eat my words but it seems to be complete garbage. Basically boilerplate, randomly generated spam. I typed "wine" into the "find weavers" box and picked the top result: a weaver/spambot called "In Vino Veritas" (in wine, truth) with a wine glass as an avatar. This should be a good match for wine, I figured! I was asked if I'd like to "chat" with the bot and did so, I pitched it a softball: "What is your favorite wine?" It came back with "I don't know much about wines but I prefer those from California." "In Vino Veritas" doesn't know much about wine? Not exactly crushing the Turing test here... http://screencast.com/t/fKGzERNr
I looked at the bot's profile page and it had a post "I'm dreaming something about #proof and #evidence." In the interview, Ronson says that the bot posted 'Dreaming about #time and #cock,' almost the exact same string with the hashtags substituted.
printf("Dreaming of %s and %s", x, y);
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure if it's just me, but those guys come across as extremely unlikeable in that video. I don't get how they seem oblivious to why Jon is upset about it, and even at one point one gets (faux?) annoyed that real Jon is telling people following fake Jon to stop doing so.
I find these guys extremely likable. Its obvious that they're aware Jon is upset and they're toying with him. They are challenging his desire to use flimsy social media to represent himself. They also challenge his right own his online identity. I feel that their attitudes are warranted. I don't feel as though these three are merry pranksters just out for a laugh. It's obvious that something about their work kind of…
I don't really have a strong opinion on the actual bots themselves, hell I wrote one to ape the physicist Brian Cox (http://blog.mclemon.cz/notbriancox-i-do-some-stupid-things-w...) after reading about Markov Chains one lunchtime - though I only posted a couple tweets and made it very clear it wasn't impersonating him.
Everything about this seems stupid. In the video bazzargh posted these guys come off as absolute pricks, oozing with smugness and condescension and completely devoid of empathy. They use (steal) someone's identity (name + pic), the person asks them nicely to stop and they insult and ridicule him: "You'd like to kill these algorithms; you feel threatened in some way." These guys have such a laughably asinine narrative…
If we continue this critique, can we stop judging the quality of their algorithms (which they're probably not interested in) and instead critique the artistic value of emulating human online behavior?
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Not sure if it's just me, but those guys come across as extremely unlikeable in that video. I don't get how they seem oblivious to why Jon is upset about it, and even at one point one gets (faux?) annoyed that real Jon is telling people following fake Jon to stop doing so.
The central guy comes across as a total psychopath. Twisting everything he says in a strange way. Almost saying the fact that he uses his name on Twitter makes him self-obsesed. I've just looked at my list of @replies and the last ten are all users using their real names. They have some of the most absolutely weakest arguments I've ever heard yet get away with it. It's as if they don't care if the thousands watching…
Everything about this seems stupid. In the video bazzargh posted these guys come off as absolute pricks, oozing with smugness and condescension and completely devoid of empathy. They use (steal) someone's identity (name + pic), the person asks them nicely to stop and they insult and ridicule him: "You'd like to kill these algorithms; you feel threatened in some way." These guys have such a laughably asinine narrative…
I don't think anyone is bragging about the algorithms here. No one claims it passes the Turing test. The AI isn't the real point. Furthermore, since when does someone's name + picture pass as their identitym That's exactly what this trio is pointing out. After doing some research, it appears that these guys in the video are not programmers, but artists and professors. http://zeroinfluence.wordpress.com/projects-archi…
I actually addressed this first, before the software output. They are being jerks and not demonstrating anything interesting. Please tell me: what is the artistic value?
'Thru this work we now know it's possible to piss people off by putting their name and picture on a spambot.' Is this it? Don't get me wrong, I think creative, high quality trolling can be considered art in its highest form (see Andy Kauffman, Sacha Baron Cohen, 4chan at its best, etc.) but simply slapping someone's name on a spambot is uninteresting, unoriginal, childish, and above all, uncreative. It provokes no thoughts beyond "wow, these guys sure are jerks."
For what it's worth the creators mention "the algorithm" constantly in their interview and seem to ascribe it some value, so I think it's a fair subject of discussion & critique.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think anyone is bragging about the algorithms here. No one claims it passes the Turing test. The AI isn't the real point. Furthermore, since when does someone's name + picture pass as their identitym That's exactly what this trio is pointing out. After doing some research, it appears that these guys in the video are not programmers, but artists and professors. http://zeroinfluence.wordpress.com/projects-archi…
"can we stop judging the quality of their algorithms (which they're probably not interested in) and instead critique the artistic value of emulating human online behavior?" I actually addressed this first, before the software output. They are being jerks and not demonstrating anything interesting. Please tell me: what is the artistic value? 'Thru this work we now know it's possible to piss people off by putting their…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think anyone is bragging about the algorithms here. No one claims it passes the Turing test. The AI isn't the real point. Furthermore, since when does someone's name + picture pass as their identitym That's exactly what this trio is pointing out. After doing some research, it appears that these guys in the video are not programmers, but artists and professors. http://zeroinfluence.wordpress.com/projects-archi…
"can we stop judging the quality of their algorithms (which they're probably not interested in) and instead critique the artistic value of emulating human online behavior?" I actually addressed this first, before the software output. They are being jerks and not demonstrating anything interesting. Please tell me: what is the artistic value? 'Thru this work we now know it's possible to piss people off by putting their…
I disagree with that idea. In my view the level of trolling is defined not by the troll, but by those being trolled. Obviously the guy in the video is taking their relatively unsophisticated level of trolling as a serious matter. Just by doing so their trolling is in my view justifiable, as it achieves its objective. Also I personally find the way they were approaching this interview quite amusing, i.e. they are shifting in a concern-trolling mode, almost taking a therapeutic stand. This lets the interviewer argue to a certain degree against a wall as they try to imply some deeper motivations by the interviewer, and find the "hidden" intentions for why he becomes so concerned about a bot spouting random information - that apparently still enough other people take serious enough to communicate with.