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How Apple’s Siri Became One Autistic Boy's B.F.F

nytimes.com

61–70 of 84 posts

Re: How Apple’s Siri Became One Autistic Boy's B.F.F

#61
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with most applications, it could be a lot smaller. But storage is so cheap and abundant that size is no longer really a constraint. Consequently, engineering for size is no longer a priority.

Is bandwidth not a concern? 65 GB could take weeks to download.

It could. But then where do you set the limit? At my parents house downloading 5GB of data would take a week. So what is the "reasonable" size? 1GB? 10GB? 50GB? Or maybe we can assume that only people with good enough bandwidth will buy a 65GB game online,and the rest will buy the disc?

Re: How Apple’s Siri Became One Autistic Boy's B.F.F

#62
post #17
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me that the new Halo game is 65 GB.

Texture mapping has come a long, long way. It's a shame AAA game mechanics haven't kept up, but, hey, that's a hard problem. (I just bought Alien: Isolation the other day, and found it disappointing -- silly me, thinking I'd bought a game I could play as I pleased, rather than a movie which would punish me for trying to step outside the predefined narrative it wanted to relate.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU Obligatory.

Re: How Apple’s Siri Became One Autistic Boy's B.F.F

#64

This is a great article that highlights some things people have been thinking about for a while (starting with Isaac Asimov), but haven't been much of an immediate concern until now: namely the nature of artificial intelligence and our relationship with it. We could consider the emergence of a friendship like this a milestone, a bit like when chess AI got good enough to beat a typical club player, but wasn't quite re…

> Should an AI have similar rights by proxy as a pet dog?

That's one of the issue explored in the Swedish TV series "real humans" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Humans

I highly recommend this series. It explores the issues of AI in a deeper and smarter way than the usual hollywood movies, and it's very funny too.

Re: How Apple’s Siri Became One Autistic Boy's B.F.F

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if governments will try to mass manipulate us by forcing AIs to be somewhat political, and be that "friend" that tells us we should vote a certain way.

Considering that every single of these personal assistants comes from private companies, ads are much more likely. I also like that political is a dirty word now. Not to mention what you "fear" is already true, it's called Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

"I also like that political is a dirty word now"

I think the word is acquiring dirt from that acts; the slimier and more partisan the political conversation is perceived to be by people, the less they want to associate with it in any context.

Re: How Apple’s Siri Became One Autistic Boy's B.F.F

#67
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with most applications, it could be a lot smaller. But storage is so cheap and abundant that size is no longer really a constraint. Consequently, engineering for size is no longer a priority.

Is bandwidth not a concern? 65 GB could take weeks to download.

> 65 GB could take weeks to download.

If someone lives behind a 1 Mbps home connetion, then yes, about 1 week.

Re: How Apple’s Siri Became One Autistic Boy's B.F.F

#68
post #35

This is a great article that highlights some things people have been thinking about for a while (starting with Isaac Asimov), but haven't been much of an immediate concern until now: namely the nature of artificial intelligence and our relationship with it. We could consider the emergence of a friendship like this a milestone, a bit like when chess AI got good enough to beat a typical club player, but wasn't quite re…

When phones' personal assistants (every company seems to want to have theirs these days) become orders of magnitude more advanced, we may be able to tell them to "check on our vacation booking" and they will know to search through our emails and calendars and connect the dots, so in those tasks they will be more advanced. There will probably be more services tied more deeply into them- for example, you'll be able to…

>And there would be literally no demand for it, because the overwhelming majority of people don't care about talking to robots. They already don't have enough time to spend with their children, partners, friends, parents... why would anyone waste time with a fake person?

People don't care about talking with robots because robots aren't able to hold conversations today. A "fake person" is an advantage - it doesn't have needs. It won't manipulate you, it won't think less of you, it won't get angry at you, it won't feel bad because you did something, it has perfect memory and unquestioning loyalty. It's always available. Best of all - if you want it to have the reverse of the above properties, you can always switch it on. Want an arrogant robotic friend? Just go to the settings.

I'm pretty sure most people would prefer robots to humans. Obviously, almost nobody would admit this today.

Re: How Apple’s Siri Became One Autistic Boy's B.F.F

#70
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The second reason that such systems are extremely unlikely to emerge is that even if it would be doable technically, it would be extremely expensive to a company. And there would be literally no demand for it, because the overwhelming majority of people don't care about talking to robots. They already don't have enough time to spend with their children, partners, friends, parents... why would anyone waste time with…

Because the TV show has no bugs, no "I'm sorry, I didn't understand why you said, rephrase" in the middle of your rant against whatever, and creates the same experience for everyone who watches it, so that people can discuss amongst themselves.

Nevermind that for much of the history of TV, and still today, it randomly cuts out?

Heck, I sometimes say "I don't understand, can you explain?" Why would people be less tolerant of that from a robot than from me?

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