Computer, Respond to This Email • Hacker News Board

Re: Computer, Respond to This Email

#141

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 1:13 AM UTC

ljk wrote: post #34

sunnyps wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop with this "you're the product" nonsense. Please.

> * Stop with this "you're the product" nonsense. Please. * what would you call it?

A more accurate statement would be that you are the supplier of several key inputs (both data and ad viewership), that are used in creating the product that they sell to customers paying money, and that, as a supplier, you are paid with the products you consume (e.g., gmail, etc.)

Another (equivalent) accurate way is that you are, in fact, a paying customer for the product you are consuming, but a customer that pays in-kind with things that they use to create another product that they sell to people who pay with money.

Re: Computer, Respond to This Email

#142

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 1:24 AM UTC

sunnyps wrote: post #86

jerf wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that it's a plainly obvious rational argument that is the ground state of the discussion, not some brilliant insight that once it is revealed to people they're sure to see it your way. And it's not FUD to point out where money flows really come from. In fact I find myself wondering why you are so passionate about people not talking about it? It's not an invalid observation, a lie, or something irrelevant…

I'm passionate because I'm sick and tired of seeing the same nonsensical dishonest FUD memes such as "you're the product". "You're the product" is absolutely a lie, even with the most generous interpretation it implies something you own is being sold. Can you point out what thing is being sold? I'm not interested in being part of some "true HN" clique that rewards paranoia for imaginary internet points. And I'm not s…

Why is your being 'sick and tired' of seeing a valid concern negating the value of discussing a valid concern? Nobody's doing anything about this valid concern, so clearly it hasn't been discussed enough.

Re: Computer, Respond to This Email

#143

Post by vonnik » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 1:26 AM UTC

supersan wrote: post #52

I'm often amazed how Google still gives it staff this unique hacker-like approach to their million dollar projects. For example, the stuff in Google labs (gmail) has had some silly things like don't hit send when you're drunk but sometimes very useful features which may be considered unorthodox like "Gmail telling you when it thinks you wanted to attach a file but forgot". It's something I wouldn't generally associat…

While I'm sure some great hackers worked on Smart Reply, I don't think it's the result of the process you imagine. Smart Reply is using really sophisticated machine learning to advance one of Google's core goals, which is the creation of an AI and autonomous agents. A chatbot like the kind that finds a response to email is just the first shoe to drop.

Re: Computer, Respond to This Email

#144

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 1:27 AM UTC

claar wrote: post #36

dikaiosune wrote: post #4

While the technology is very cool, this pushes me that much closer to a "dumber" email service. It's always a conflict for me as I love shiny new things, but I'd rather we let AI loose on someone else's email, especially when the AI's revenue stream is advertising (a business predicated on knowing as much as possible about your audience).

Are you also willing to stop emailing others that use Gmail?

Arguably, the easiest way to contend with this would be to send Gmail users a private link with the text of your communication. Or encrypting the text.

Re: Computer, Respond to This Email

#145

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 1:28 AM UTC

dikaiosune wrote: post #39

ljk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

any "dumber" email service suggestion?

I've looked previously, and usually thought I would get some bare metal at a trusted colo and run my own server. However this has a variety of issues, including but not limited to getting the big email services (especially gmail, ironically) to trust your server as a non-spam gateway. Part of the problem here is that running a quality email service isn't cheap, and I'm not sure how much I'd have to trust a provider f…

Running self-hosted mail is getting a lot harder because spam engines are much more hostile to it. Also, most well-known mail clients for self-hosters are very dated. There's a few new ones on the way, like Mailpile, but we aren't there yet.

Re: Computer, Respond to This Email

#146

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 1:31 AM UTC

hmate9 wrote: post #135

Maybe shortly we'll just have neural networks talking to each other on behalf of us.

Everyone has "people" now. Having "people" is no longer for the rich. But they're also not really people.

Re: Computer, Respond to This Email

#147

Post by roel_v » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 1:35 AM UTC

DaveWalk wrote: post #91

Zelphyr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of this strikes me as a "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" issue. Google clearly loves machine learning and doing cool things but I think lately they've been taking it too far. For example; after purchasing a book on Amazon recently I happened to do a Google search on that book and the first thing I see is, "Your book is scheduled to be delivered on..." Aside from the creepy factor I'm left wonderin…

> a "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" issue To me, this phrase is the essence of much of Google's features. To my discredit, I chuckled when I read the blog's phrase "we've used...deep neural networks to improve...YouTube thumbnails." I am certain this was no easy task, and a resulting technical breakthrough. But doesn't it sound kind of petty? Of course, what's petty for one is essential for another. I…

Then what isn't 'petty'? It's not like it's zero-sum, there are also people working on using AI for recognizing cancer cells on medical imaging, or to manage climate change risk. And if we don't try, we'll never know what is 'petty' and what is useful. And also, we can learn a lot from the 'exercise' we get in developing small-scale applications of machine learning, which can then be applied later to more 'worthy' applications.

Re: Computer, Respond to This Email

#148

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 1:35 AM UTC

Stasis5001 wrote: post #121

MichaelGG wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Gmail telling you when it thinks you wanted to attach a file but forgot". Sure, if you use the word thinks . If you instead say "if msg.Contains "attach" then warn" it's not that impressive. The feature in the article is a bit more than a single if.

I just tried sending "Attached is my photo". Then "I've been feeling less attached to you". One warns, the other doesn't. This is also more than a single if.

Note: GMail actually tells you exactly what it matched to when displaying the warning.

Re: Computer, Respond to This Email

#149

Post by scottm30 » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 1:37 AM UTC

I'd love to see this extended in future to include:

- using mannerisms I have used with the sender in past emails

- scan my calendar schedule and have an idea of my availability and use that in the response

The product in its current form sounds great and I'm keen to give it a try.

Re: Computer, Respond to This Email

#150

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 1:39 AM UTC

Zelphyr wrote: post #53

imh wrote: post #29

I appreciate the privacy standards they used (no humans reading your email to develop this), but am concerned that it's not enough. As I understand with language models, overfitting takes the form of returning a sequence of words seen in the training set. If this is overfitting in any part of the response space, this could happen. Out of a million emails, how many suggested responses are going to substantively resemb…

Much of this strikes me as a "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" issue. Google clearly loves machine learning and doing cool things but I think lately they've been taking it too far. For example; after purchasing a book on Amazon recently I happened to do a Google search on that book and the first thing I see is, "Your book is scheduled to be delivered on..." Aside from the creepy factor I'm left wonderin…

> Aside from the creepy factor (...)

One man's "creepy factor" is another's superbly useful feature. The feeling of creepiness probably stems from being surprised and defaulting to negative reaction. Remember that GMail was never supposed to be a dumb mailbox. If you want a dumb mailbox, there are tons of alternatives (i.e. almost every other provider and various open-source UI packages).

Honestly, I really enjoy those "creepy" features and want much more. For me, they can, and definitely should.