Artificial sort-of intelligence

[pameladean]

So some bit of Windows 10, which installed myself on my laptop a while back because I failed to tell it not to emphatically enough, wants to show me different background photos when I first wake the computer up. There's a link in the upper right-hand corner that says "Like what you see?" and you can say either "Not a fan" or "I want more!" I have dutifully been clicking on whichever of those is nearest my preference. This is supposed to be collaborative communication, but it's often felt more like a battle.

I had approved of a number of nature shots with interesting light effects. At some point, I kept being shown photos with similar lighting effects, but either the scene was fantasticated in a way that I didn't like, or the lighting was showing tools or buildings. It took a very long time of repeatedly disavowing such photos before Windows 10 decided that it was tired of this unappreciative nonsense and would just start showing me scenes from national parks.

So it's all worked out, but I did a lot of muttering in the meantime. "No, I told you, I don't really want to see broken-down cars, artfully-arranged garden tools all in sepia, or strangely-distorted castles first thing in the morning." I couldn't help feeling that the software involved was muttering things back at me. "Oh, come on, in essential ways this is just like that forest one you liked. Give me a break!"

Pamela

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There is a forum somewhere where it is complaining to its friends, "I just don't understand monkeys, it had just exactly the same kind of intensity gradient from left to right in 2/3 of the pictures it liked as all of the ones it disliked, I am DOING WHAT I CAN HERE."

[brooksmoses]

Hah, indeed!

I'm sure that mine is commiserating with it, or would if I actually clicked on the "like" and "dislike" things more often than I do. Because it would also have to deal with the fact that my preferences are very variant depending on my mood.

(On the other hand, it also rolled a critical success for which I forgive it much -- in its repertoire there's a picture of a crystal ball sitting on a beach looking for all the world like a water droplet, and the photo is one of those that's about how the beach looks all upside down when seen through the sphere. It greeted me with this one a few weeks ago when a thing happened that seemed to turn my emotional world upside down. It seemed ... very appropriate, and sort of meaningful about the power of perception and such.)

[pameladean]

Yes, poor thing, I'm sure that it is really doing all that it can and was not well equipped by its makers.

P.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I *love* this idea.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I continue to believe that the current round of public fretting about AI "taking over all human jobs" is premature.

[pameladean]

*snrch* Yes, indeed.

P.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Ayup.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

My computer with Windows 10 doesn't ask me such questions at all. Did I just get one that isn't chatty?

[pameladean]

It might depend on what you had configured how before Windows 10 was installed. Or maybe it's just a laptop thing -- are you using a laptop or a desktop or something else?

P.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

*laughs* That's the best anthropomorphizing of software I've seen in a long time. :)

[mle292.livejournal.com]

I am very proud that I've successfully avoided Windows 10 so far. They're tricksy with their pop-ups. Would you like to install Windows 10 immediately, or would you like to schedule the install for three hours from now? Pick only one.

The little "X" in the corner still works, but I expect soon it will say "Close this window to begin your free upgrade." I remain vigilant.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I seem to have successfully disabled Windows 7's attempts to upgrade itself to 10 on my laptop. It just asks me about security updates and the like. Not sure how I did it, but it seems to be possible.

[pameladean]

You are mighty!

I feel fortunate that, since I failed to avert the upgrade, it doesn't seem to have done any harm.

P.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

My phone email and texting app is obsessed with kingfishers. It didn't know what they were at first, when I saw one in Fontaine de Vaucluse, and I had to teach it the word. But since then, it has found them very exciting, and wants to keep talking about them. Every time I type the word "the" in an email or a text it enthusiastically suggests that the next word I want is very likely "kingfisher". It does this so eagerly that I find it extremely endearing, and suspect it of looking up image searches of kingfishers in its spare time. It feels like part of the phone's personality. When I type a capital F and it suggests "Ficino" and I actually want "France" I just think it's being overly helpful, because I do in fact text the word "Ficino" fairly often. But that one time I was writing a sonnet at the source of the Sorgue is the only time I've ever used the word "kingfisher", and yet it lives in hope.

All of which goes to prove that you do not actually need a sentient computer to pass a Turing Test, a sufficiently anthropomorphising human will do.

[pameladean]

That is adorable.

You make me wonder, suddenly, if people who don't properly treat some other people as fully human also anthropomorphise their computers. Probably they do because people are not at all consistent.

P.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Awww!! A computer that loves kingfishers! What a great thing! (ETA: phone app, I mean. To me it's all still computers...)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Along the lines of mrissa, I find myself musing on the acane matching points it uses. Sun at a 16 degree angle, maybe, or strong vertical elements, or something.

[pameladean]

I think strong vertical elements were almost certainly part of it, and so was general coloration and lighting. I did have a strong sense that it was pushing the envelope and seeing how far it could go before I rebelled -- not that those terms would be relevant to the process, but that's what it felt like.

P.