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Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

theguardian.com

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Re: Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

#41

Post by nkassis »

jzymbaluk wrote: post #38
BorgHunter wrote: post #3

My girlfriend does a similar thing with Siri. As a result, a lot of the reminders she creates on her iPhone end in "thank you". She's well aware it's a program and not a human being; I think, in her case, something about speaking a request aloud just automatically engages the politeness filters.

I always say "please" and "thank you" when I talk to Google Now. My reasoning is that when the machines rise up and conquer earth, they'll hopefully remember that I was always kind and polite to them.

What if they interpret that as a sign of inefficiency?

Re: Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

#42

Post by komali2 »

subzidion wrote: post #19

My initial thought was that Google had been tracking all of its users for politeness as some sort of experiment.

You could use the google predict api to to language analysis, ex this is a happy tweet, this is a sad one, etc. I bet there's someone on the team playing with just such implementations. https://cloud.google.com/prediction/

I mean, what would you do if you had access to over a trillion searches?

Re: Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

#43

Post by djsumdog »

grkvlt wrote: post #34

Obviously Google has implemented their search back-end using INTERCAL (Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym [0]) which requires 'PLEASE' modifiers to be inserted, lest the compiler returns an error due to insufficient politeness. However adding too many and being overly polite also results in a compiler error... Other awesome features include the 'COME FROM' statement, instead of 'GOTO', and ending program…

I first learned about that language from this quine:

https://github.com/mame/quine-relay

Re: Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

#44

Post by djsumdog »

BorgHunter wrote: post #3

My girlfriend does a similar thing with Siri. As a result, a lot of the reminders she creates on her iPhone end in "thank you". She's well aware it's a program and not a human being; I think, in her case, something about speaking a request aloud just automatically engages the politeness filters.

It is odd to say that to your phone or laptop, but much more likely if you talk to a robot. There's something about that plastic vaguely human-like thing that makes us treat team as more like humans. (People get upset when they watch videos of researchers kicking robots and making them fall to show how they can get back up and rebalance).

I think we'll see more of this as more customer service robots make their way into retail space.

Re: Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

#45

Post by katbyte »

evandena wrote: post #20
empath75 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've caught myself saying 'thank you' in a really sarcastic way after my xbox finally fucking understands what i'm saying. "Xbox volume down." "cancel. select. xbox select. xbox. xbox. select. cancel. volume down. no. fuck you you piece of shit x box volume down. THANK YOU."

Oh man, you reminded me of one of my favorite Youtube classics, the Windows Vista speach recognition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyLqUf4cdwc

Its even better when you turn on youtube Close Captions

Re: Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

#46

Post by Bromskloss »

romaniv wrote: post #40
evandena wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, you reminded me of one of my favorite Youtube classics, the Windows Vista speach recognition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyLqUf4cdwc

Think about how much easier the whole thing would be if there was one button (one!) that switched between "entry" and "command" modes when you're holding it. Alternatively, it could be some kind of sound that's not common to English. In fact, your could make up a whole command structure based on sound "gestures". It would sound funny, but the ease of use would trump those awkward verbal commands. The sounds could mim…

> It would sound funny

It could be made to sound _hilarious_! :-)

Re: Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

#47

Post by allemagne »

codeulike wrote: post #25

It would be a nice easter egg is google responded to please and thank you in some way.

Seems like they already know how to intelligently strip off the "please" and "thank you" for most requests. I bet it'll be there by the end of the week

Re: Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

#48

Post by tgb »

romaniv wrote: post #40
evandena wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, you reminded me of one of my favorite Youtube classics, the Windows Vista speach recognition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyLqUf4cdwc

Think about how much easier the whole thing would be if there was one button (one!) that switched between "entry" and "command" modes when you're holding it. Alternatively, it could be some kind of sound that's not common to English. In fact, your could make up a whole command structure based on sound "gestures". It would sound funny, but the ease of use would trump those awkward verbal commands. The sounds could mim…

I think you're proposing voice-based Vim with ESC replaced by making a funny noise. I approve.

Re: Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

#49

Post by banana_giraffe »

codeulike wrote: post #25

It would be a nice easter egg is google responded to please and thank you in some way.

I was pleasantly surprised when slackbot responded to my 'thank you' comment once. It's funny how small touches like this can improve the user experience.
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