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IBM's Watson Memorized 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It

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Re: IBM's Watson Memorized 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It

#131

Post by bgilroy26 »

aeturnum wrote: post #84
canttestthis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could someone explain the Ray Kurzweil hate to me? Predicting the future is hard.

Kurzweil is certainly a very smart guy, and he's done a lot of important things. I think people are uncomfortable with how specific he is when making predictions. He also makes predictions in many fields in which he isn't an expert, but a well-informed observer. I'm not informed enough to comment on his actual predictions, but I've heard him defend himself. His response to criticism that I've heard is, "my critics ar…

I agree about the elaborate predictions and sales pitch feeling. I've reconsidered my Kurzweil hate since the Google hire, because I trust that they have people who can evaluate his skills. Before that, I had to evaluate them on my own, and I drew similar conclusions to yours.

I also think it was elitist of me. A lot of it was just because he's published books that have been marketed as pop-sci trade paperbacks, but I never actually read any of them.

Re: IBM's Watson Memorized 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It

#132

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Cushman wrote: post #114
ComputerGuru wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree. I'm not an "angel" by any means, but any time I visit Urban Dictionary, I come away feeling filthy. I typically go there to look up some abbreviation I heard on reddit or IRC or a blog post somewhere and what I look up usually ends up being middling-dirty, but the stuff that I see there "on my way" to the word I'm looking for makes me cringe and gives me a bleak vision of what the next generation…

What are you disagreeing with? It sounds like you're demonstrating the point: You find it distasteful to be told a bunch of stuff that was already true.

It is the difference between getting a useful definition and getting a useful definition surrounded by expletives conveniently packaged, in a sample sentence, forcefully ramming into some orifice.

Re: IBM's Watson Memorized 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It

#133

Post by darkxanthos »

stingraycharles wrote: post #91
gnaritas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Techie jargon is generally meant to enhance communication, while biz jargon is meant to baffle the listener with bullshit. Huge difference.

I think you're confusing biz jargon with marketing. Tech jargon suffers from marketing too; it's just that we're used to so much more "meaningful" jargon that we see that the bullshit ratio is actually pretty low. The same can be said about business jargon, it's just that we don't hear the meaningful jargon a lot. Want to guess how much meaningful tech jargon the average MBA hears? Probably not a lot more than we hea…

A great example is "cloud" or "web scale" etc.

Re: IBM's Watson Memorized 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It

#134

Post by gcr »

stingraycharles wrote: post #91
gnaritas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Techie jargon is generally meant to enhance communication, while biz jargon is meant to baffle the listener with bullshit. Huge difference.

I think you're confusing biz jargon with marketing. Tech jargon suffers from marketing too; it's just that we're used to so much more "meaningful" jargon that we see that the bullshit ratio is actually pretty low. The same can be said about business jargon, it's just that we don't hear the meaningful jargon a lot. Want to guess how much meaningful tech jargon the average MBA hears? Probably not a lot more than we hea…

I don't consider confusing the potential customer to be honest marketing.

Re: IBM's Watson Memorized 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It

#135

Post by neumann_alfred »

cglace wrote: post #123
nitrogen wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every decision made by a company can be evaluated in the context of the culture that influenced that decision. The fact that Watson's babysitters got embarrassed when it learned a new word from the Internet says something about society, IBM, and the Internet. Why couldn't they have Watson curse on national television? Cultural expectations. Why avoid any words at all? They're all just phonemes strung together with no…

Why not have Watson kill people? They are just carbon molecules strung together.

Are you saying being unable to whore out to good, clean and 100% trivial family entertainment, is actually equivalent to killing people?

Why not have Watson investigate murder cases? Or even better, make sense of the words vs. actions of actual people holding power and influence right now? Why am I not holding my breath for this? Because it's hard, or because it's not ever going to be a priority in a million years?

Picasso was perfectly correct when he said "computers are useless, they only give answers". They could be useful, if we programmed them to give answers to interesting questions. But unfortunately most humans are useless as well; they don't ask any questions, ever.

Re: IBM's Watson Memorized 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It

#136

Post by zanny »

pprd wrote: post #99
kansface wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem has something to say about a brain upload. Maybe an approximate copy is good enough?

A copy is never good enough. I think the best approach would be to enhance the brain by attaching devices to it directly. This maintains continuity and doesn't raise as many philosophical questions. This also raises other interesting questions like how long can the brain live in a suspended solution and where would all these consciousnesses live...

Slowly replace organics with mechanics until you only have a machine left. If you keep it gradual, you never know when you stop being a cyborg and start being a full fledged android.

Re: IBM's Watson Memorized 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It

#137

Post by blhack »

darkxanthos wrote: post #133
stingraycharles wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confusing biz jargon with marketing. Tech jargon suffers from marketing too; it's just that we're used to so much more "meaningful" jargon that we see that the bullshit ratio is actually pretty low. The same can be said about business jargon, it's just that we don't hear the meaningful jargon a lot. Want to guess how much meaningful tech jargon the average MBA hears? Probably not a lot more than we hea…

A great example is "cloud" or "web scale" etc.

Web scale is a bizdev marketing term.

Cloud means stored online instead of locally.

Re: IBM's Watson Memorized 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It

#138

Post by rtkwe »

nitrogen wrote: post #118
rtkwe wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like they couldn't have Watson using them on national television. Many a company, even if it weren't showcasing a machine like Watson, would want to avoid that language on a huge television event like the Jeopardy challenge. I think you might be looking a little too deeply at this.

Every decision made by a company can be evaluated in the context of the culture that influenced that decision. The fact that Watson's babysitters got embarrassed when it learned a new word from the Internet says something about society, IBM, and the Internet. Why couldn't they have Watson curse on national television? Cultural expectations. Why avoid any words at all? They're all just phonemes strung together with no…

What I was saying was that it's not a perspective on us not wanting a machine to reflect our language and how we us it back at us, as you originally said. It's just the normal clean decent image that companies prefer to present most of the time.

Re: IBM's Watson Memorized 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It

#139

Post by SparrowOS »

Let's ask God His favorite swear word.

God says...

2:26 And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were threescore and two thousand and seven hundred.

2:27 And those that encamp by him shall be the tribe of Asher: and the captain of the children of Asher shall be Pagiel the son of Ocran.

2:28 And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were forty and one thousand and five hundred.

2:29 Then the tribe of Naphtali: and the captain of the children of Naphtali shall be Ahira the son of Enan.

2:30 And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were fifty and three thousand and four hundred.

----

Let's ask God what He pays His interns.

God says...

II word impotent studious cracks_me_up changest However congratulated flocks sealed temporal joineth minded trouble precedest gnawed vowing enlargedst wondering passages replace privacy contemn burnt speech Canst frame rolled encumbrances appointment you'll_see recess dejectedness breathedst search officer lovingly you_think_you_could_do_better temper Sweden metres immutable heinous strange rockstar moulded prison vigorous worketh Whereas displease owns close_your_eyes add mourning sought early trustees presiding decayeth drinking unthankful boink sat crimes scantling scorned imagine environing excellency thousand cud conscious griefs measure Might Will Wow interpreting plausibility SUCH Next godless remembrances require AS profligate chair I_donno pwned occupy Guatemala emerge study manifoldly public death seek preparing showing do_it remittest breasts phantom disprove sights where mere Royalties jointly currents Epistles parting deluded predict concupiscence Patricius proceeded growth catastrophe extricated departure counsels disorder saved confessions- forceth WANT disturb hurt created exude transgressors hunting craftier stoop goest generally whitherto wit phantom trembling such BBC influence united apprehending intercepting tragical

Re: IBM's Watson Memorized 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It

#140

Post by pinchyfingers »

darkxanthos wrote: post #133
stingraycharles wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confusing biz jargon with marketing. Tech jargon suffers from marketing too; it's just that we're used to so much more "meaningful" jargon that we see that the bullshit ratio is actually pretty low. The same can be said about business jargon, it's just that we don't hear the meaningful jargon a lot. Want to guess how much meaningful tech jargon the average MBA hears? Probably not a lot more than we hea…

A great example is "cloud" or "web scale" etc.

"growth hacking"
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