Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 162 posts

Re: Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test

#151

Post by tonylucas »

username223 wrote: post #72

Can M wade through phone support menus and cancel Comcast subscriptions? I look forward to a darkly-humorous future in which we pit poorly-paid third-world citizens against each other in wars of call center attrition. Better, once we equip them with those sound-board UIs that play pre-recorded answers in native English-speaking voices (can't find the link), English can become a transmission protocol that few people d…

I would hope in the future that more and more services are actually directly available to be interacted with over one or more messaging networks, enabling easy, asynchronous communication.

Whether Comcast would want to make it that easy for people to cancel is entirely a different issue though :)

Re: Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test

#152

Post by mahdiponline »

As much as I appreciate the effort, I don't think proving M has humans behind it is any of help.

We write AIs. We try to make them act just like us. We teat them in everyway we can imagine and we expect them to act like a human would in response. Providing an algorithm for this is not always useful or maybw not even possible.

My theory on this is that Facebook is powering M with both people and some sort of AI software that not only analyzes and sometimes finds the best response, but it also analyzes the conversations people on both sides made.

Now this can be useful on several levels. Facebook can improve it's AI algorithm in less time, the AI can help people on their job in the meantime (by analyzing their work and commenting on it)

Re: Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test

#153

Post by kayoone »

downandout wrote: post #136

Clearly there are some humans behind M that are doing things that Facebook would rather entrust to humans (like making phone calls). However, the phone call only proves that this specific aspect of M is human. In the end, though, I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm going to guess that the ultimate end-game on M is for Facebook to collect advertising/affiliate revenue from recommending things. For example, if someone ask…

Basically what GoButler or Magic are already doing, just AI based. But this is the goal for all similar services, otherwise it will not scale.

Re: Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test

#154

Post by Scarblac »

Hortinstein wrote: post #90
username223 wrote: post #72

Can M wade through phone support menus and cancel Comcast subscriptions? I look forward to a darkly-humorous future in which we pit poorly-paid third-world citizens against each other in wars of call center attrition. Better, once we equip them with those sound-board UIs that play pre-recorded answers in native English-speaking voices (can't find the link), English can become a transmission protocol that few people d…

> I look forward to a darkly-humorous future in which we pit poorly-paid third-world citizens against each other in wars of call center attrition. This sounds like a 10 page side story in a Neil Stephenson Book. I love it.

In Greg Egan's Permutation City, they have interactive 3D video email, and interactive 3D video spam, and interactive 3D video spam filters.

The spam tries to act like a perfectly normal message as long as it is talking to the spam filter, and as soon as it thinks it is talking to a real person, it shows its spam message. The spam filter tries to impersonate the recipient as best as it can (in 3D video), meanwhile trying to figure out whether the message is spam.

The spam filters are unfortunately humstrung by the fact that they can only become close to real conscious AI and not further, because taking them all the way there would mean you'd be exposing a conscious being to spam all its life, which would be torture and thus criminal. Spammers don't care.

IIRC, this is just a side anecdote in some paragraphs somewhere, but I love it.

Re: Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test

#155

Post by andreasvc »

drumdance wrote: post #80
andreasvc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard vaporware characterized as something that "could make a lot of sense"; how could it? Plus I'm doubtful whether the data would be very meaningful. A bunch of people adversarially trying to figure out whether the AI is real is not representative or generally useful data.

Microsoft Windows was vaporware for years. They famously did a "demo" that was just a manipulation of graphics. But Bill Gates correctly grasped that the future of the business rested on it and set about building the brand.

How does your N=1 anecdote show that vaporware makes a lot of sense? I'd say they got away with it, but not that it was a crucial factor in their success.

Re: Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test

#156

Post by andreasvc »

reitanqild wrote: post #87
andreasvc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard vaporware characterized as something that "could make a lot of sense"; how could it? Plus I'm doubtful whether the data would be very meaningful. A bunch of people adversarially trying to figure out whether the AI is real is not representative or generally useful data.

> I've never heard vaporware characterized as something that "could make a lot of sense"; how could it? but it isn't vaporware. It very much exist and works only it is possibly actively misleading about how it works.

It is vaporware, the whole novelty of it is that it is an AI, which it is not. "How it works" is the whole point.

Re: Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test

#157

Post by drumdance »

andreasvc wrote: post #155
drumdance wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Windows was vaporware for years. They famously did a "demo" that was just a manipulation of graphics. But Bill Gates correctly grasped that the future of the business rested on it and set about building the brand.

How does your N=1 anecdote show that vaporware makes a lot of sense? I'd say they got away with it, but not that it was a crucial factor in their success.

Because that N became the dominant computing company for a generation?

Apple was way ahead of Microsoft with windowing technology. Gates even offered to help Apple port it to the x86 architecture. He was content with being the dominant application developer, not the OS.

Jobs blew him off so he seized the opportunity.

Around the same time IBM was working on OS/2, which was a much better technology than Windows. Microsoft worked with IBM on OS/2, but then gaslighted them by "debuting" Windows 1.0

Edit: And don't forget how me VC pitches are about "what we're going to build" vs. "what we've already built."

Vaporware is not an optimal strategy, but in many cases it works.

Re: Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test

#158

Post by andreasvc »

drumdance wrote: post #157
andreasvc wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does your N=1 anecdote show that vaporware makes a lot of sense? I'd say they got away with it, but not that it was a crucial factor in their success.

Because that N became the dominant computing company for a generation? Apple was way ahead of Microsoft with windowing technology. Gates even offered to help Apple port it to the x86 architecture. He was content with being the dominant application developer, not the OS. Jobs blew him off so he seized the opportunity. Around the same time IBM was working on OS/2, which was a much better technology than Windows. Micros…

Look I can see that it worked out well for them in the end. What I'm specifically disputing is whether the vaporware-thing was a causal factor contributing positively. If they actually had the software already and didn't need to fool anyone, things might've worked out even better. In that case things worked out despite the vaporware, not because of.

Re: Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test

#159

Post by drumdance »

andreasvc wrote: post #158
drumdance wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that N became the dominant computing company for a generation? Apple was way ahead of Microsoft with windowing technology. Gates even offered to help Apple port it to the x86 architecture. He was content with being the dominant application developer, not the OS. Jobs blew him off so he seized the opportunity. Around the same time IBM was working on OS/2, which was a much better technology than Windows. Micros…

Look I can see that it worked out well for them in the end. What I'm specifically disputing is whether the vaporware-thing was a causal factor contributing positively. If they actually had the software already and didn't need to fool anyone, things might've worked out even better. In that case things worked out despite the vaporware, not because of .

I think if you have the foresight to see a multi-billion dollar opportunity, and you're behind schedule, then you do everything in your power to grab that opportunity, including vaporware.

If they actually had the software already...

No one sets out to lie. Gates would've preferred to demo the real thing. But in the context of that market, "we'll release that in two years" is worse than vaporware if you want to actually own that market.

Re: Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test

#160

Post by Hortinstein »

Scarblac wrote: post #154
Hortinstein wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I look forward to a darkly-humorous future in which we pit poorly-paid third-world citizens against each other in wars of call center attrition. This sounds like a 10 page side story in a Neil Stephenson Book. I love it.

In Greg Egan's Permutation City, they have interactive 3D video email, and interactive 3D video spam, and interactive 3D video spam filters. The spam tries to act like a perfectly normal message as long as it is talking to the spam filter, and as soon as it thinks it is talking to a real person, it shows its spam message. The spam filter tries to impersonate the recipient as best as it can (in 3D video), meanwhile tr…

I just finished this book. I loved it. Any other recommendations for books like this? I read Accelerando, and am reading Chasm City now (both highly recommended).
Post reply on HN