Tech Companies Consider Penalties for Humans Who Vent Anger at Virtual Assistants

Megalith

Megalith

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How should voice assistants respond to hostilities? Some say that a system that merely fails and gives users a cute response isn’t good enough, as venting at machines could lead to a "coarsening of how people treat each other." In the future, calling Cortana a b**** or telling Siri to go f*** itself could lead to interesting consequences, such as reduced response time.

...anger may only be one of possible explanations. Some users may simply want to vent, or test the limits of what they can and can't get away with. Mortensen of X.ai says he would like to see a "penalty" imposed on users who are hostile to personal assistants "just like in real life." One idea he tosses out: the assistant's response time could drop precipitously. "Amy's response speed [could go] from being almost instant to, 'I'll just let you cool off for a little bit' so you'll get a response in two hours." "You'd know immediately that you lost," he says. Then again the startup might lose customers, too.
 
yeah i'd do another thing i might not do in real life, execute you. bye bye service.

i know when i'm communicating with a human or communicating with a machine. they are idiots imo if they think i am blurring the lines and coarsening overall.
 
I find this amusing.

Curse at your phone? Sorry, you have been locked out of your phone for 5 minutes :p

Fuck me? No fuck you!


I chuckle at ideas like these. I don't expect to ever see them implemented though.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I chuckle at ideas like these. I don't expect to ever see them implemented though.
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Nothing prevents a manufacturer from implementing this if they choose to. And with PC culture being as prevalent as ever. I wouldn't be surprised if they extended political correctness to virtual assistants as well. Welcome to the era of thought crime!
 
M76 said:
Nothing prevents a manufacturer from implementing this if they choose to. And with PC culture being as prevalent as ever. I wouldn't be surprised if they extended political correctness to virtual assistants as well. Welcome to the era of thought crime!
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Sure they could, but I don't think they will. They'd piss off too many people, and pissed off people tend to not use your products anymore.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Sure they could, but I don't think they will. They'd piss off too many people, and pissed off people tend to not use your products anymore.
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Identity politics is reaching a boiling point right now such that rather than mutual respect and equality, it is all about appeasing at the expense of others.

If teachers think it is OK to traumatise a classroom and legitimately insult their parent due to the "needs" of one... what makes you think a tech company wont implement this because a reviewer "for training purposes" could get offended...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transgender-reveal-kindergarten-class-rocklin-academy-parents-upset/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4813520/Parents-angry-transgender-talk-kindergarten.html
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Sure they could, but I don't think they will. They'd piss off too many people, and pissed off people tend to not use your products anymore.
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I bet they think this will likely cause more than a few devices smashed out of rage, increasing sales of devices.
 
So what happens if Siri, or whatever, during a heated argument between people, believes it has been "bitched at" and when one of the people calls the cops or an ambulance, and Siri responds with "I'll let you cool down for a few hours...".
What if it causes someone to die ?

I can see a lawsuit. (in the US)

I think people just need to stop being Lazy F*cks, and stop using these "Personal Snooping Assistants".
Seriously, what advantages does it bring that are THAT useful and unavailable through using your fingers on a keyboard (or just teaching your PC speech recognition the old 'offline' way ) ?

I'm pretty sure the computer on Star Trek wasn't connected to Google or Apple or some other online sh*t.
 
It's so stupid that they have these voice assistant things on everything now. The ultimate problem stems from the fact that limit users to what they can do online, and thus they need someone to do an action they only allow morons in 3rd world countries to do.

Ways to get rid of 95% of phone service:
1. Allow us to make simple changes online. I shouldn't have to call you to change my credit card statement close date - or to close the account altogether.
2. If there is an issue where simple things can't be fixed by the user, then have a ticket support system online that I can submit and track.
 
I think this is stupid. Sometimes I say dumb things just to see what the response is for a laugh. Doesn't mean I'm angry and need to be punished.
 
So how does that work..... I'm paying for a service but that service can be cut off to punish me if it gets it's virtual feelings hurt?

That amounts to fraud in my book.
The company providing the paid service is intentionally cutting off that paid service on a whim as it sees fit.

So how do I get a credit to my bill for the period of time that a service I paid for is non-functional?

Yeah.... no thanks. The virtual assistants can all pound it straight up their virtual asses!

.
 
Well if that fucking cunt would follow my directions when I ask for something instead of saying "I'm sorry would you please repeat that" then she wouldn't get thrown off to the side while I did it myself!!!!!!!!! *RAAAAAAAAAAAGE*
 
So there are people that actually leave these spy features on in their phones? The first thing I do is disable every speech recognition 'helper' in every device I have. They're useless and mostly don't even work properly.
 
Spidey329 said:
I'm pretty sure that's a made up show, so technically, it could be connected to a fictional backend.
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edit : edited out this bit, only just woke up, and understood it wrong.

There are episodes/films where they have lost all contact with everyone, and magically, the computer is still able to give information to Picard or whoever.
In our current climate, it just wouldn't reply, because it would have also lost connection to its online "brain".
They could have a fictional backend, but in that case they wouldn't have lost the connection...

Offline voice recognition is hard, and we're not going to advance it with this online crap, where you teach Google, Amazon and Apples servers to recognize your voice.
It does exist though, and has done for years. Dragon Naturally Speaking was something I set up for a friends uncle once, THAT was interesting.
 
Voice recognition and anger: There I was, trying my new voice Nav system in my Ford. It didn't work. I was angry. I was trying to get a destination input by speaking. In frustration, I yelled "Fuck you!" at it. It came right back at me with, "There is no barbeque near by." That didn't help. ;)
 
As I don't own an Apple product, it's going to be hard for them to affect me and I told Cortana to "F*** OFF!" the moment my systems finished upgrading as I completely disabled her! On two new systems, I used a custom image that doesn't even include the Cortana package (among others). As far as Android is concerned, I so rarely speak my search requests it'll never affect me.

So, let them try, it'll be an interesting story to see unfold among the collective that do depend on talking to their devices on a regular basis:LOL:

Do you get the feeling Mortensen may be a bit TOO close to his AI?! Like, maybe he's the basis for the movie "Her"
 
Many times, the bitch can't understand me anyway, so I'm yelling at it and eventually tell it to fuck off...

This is stupid. I'd go the opposite way (with permissions in an app, of course, for adults to use). Make a virtual assistant that is moody. You tell her to fuck off, and she can snap back. Or if you're rude, she can say "who shit in your Cheerios?".

If this is implemented, it'd push me away. It's stupid rules for something that does not affect them in any way. Plus, half the time the devices mishear what I'm saying, anyway. Maybe I did want a duck off.
 
I start to swear at these things the second they ask about speaking in Spanish.
 
Great, devices will get their feelings hurt and pout until apologized to.
 
Drone: Sir, they are responding angrily towards our AI!

Boss: MAKE THEM MORE ANGRY! That will teach them!

News: Today, there was a random shooting spree ...
 
Taldren said:
Drone: Sir, they are responding angrily towards our AI!

Boss: MAKE THEM MORE ANGRY! That will teach them!

News: Today, there was a random shooting spree ...
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The next step is this

 
Stupid. If you make the "assistant" less functional, people simply wont use it. And make no mistake, these companies WANT you using the assistant! If they want to address this, make the assistant aware of the anger being directed at it, and have it improve whatever deficiency prompted the cursing! People yell at them because they arent doing the fucking thing they are supposed to! If you have to rephrase or repeat your request, EVEN ONCE, it's no longer "simple and intuitive", but "frustrating and imprecise"! Take it as "constructive criticism" and fix the problem. Dont make it worse.
 
To quote an old 1954 book.. “A machine does not care” .

"The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin
 
This is simple.

Machine assistance is a useful product for one of a few reasons.

1) It's WAAAAYYY cheaper than paying someone and doing it right.
2) It's more efficient for the company.
3) It eliminates the annoying presence of humans for the customer.

Your average phone menu is #1.

A good phone menu is #2 and #3.

Online ordering is #2 and #3. It's very efficient, and even with the best phone operators I have run into, it's still way faster and less hassle.

What this idiot is proposing is that they make it MORE annoying for the customer and less efficient for the business because reasons. And maybe you pick up the bonus of not spending cycles processing stuff from Todd in marketing who is cursing out siri over a task siri apparently sucks at.

The answer is make siri suck less, not make your marginal service more annoying.
 
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/catharsis said:
noun, plural catharses

[kuh-thahr-seez] (Show IPA)
1.
the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions,especially through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.
2.
Medicine/Medical. purgation.
3.
Psychiatry.
  1. psychotherapy that encourages or permits the discharge of pent-up, socially unacceptable affects.
  2. discharge of pent-up emotions so as to result in the alleviation ofsymptoms or the permanent relief of the condition.
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Pretty much like video games. The anger's gonna be released eventually. Where do you want it to go.
Anybody for restraining people from expressing anger in a safe manner is about torturing someone for wrong-think/emotion.
 
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