Archive

Bots I Have Met

Meeting these dif­fer­ent bots has just rein­forced one thing: the images that you’re cap­tur­ing, the online col­lec­tions you’re shar­ing, just pro­vide a foun­da­tion for all dif­fer­ent ways of engag­ing your audi­ence. The more acces­si­ble your con­tent is, the more open the licens­es you use, the more chance you’ve got of hav­ing your con­tent used in new and dif­fer­ent ways. 

Watch Your Words

The premise of our project is real­ly that we are sur­round­ed by machines that are read­ing what we write, and judg­ing us based on what­ev­er they think we’re saying. 

Don’t Be Human

With Twitter bots and a lot of AI in pop sci­ence, it’s kind of like stay­ing up late with your par­ents. Once you ask to be treat­ed like a human being, you have to abide by a dif­fer­ent set of rules. You have to be extra good. And the sec­ond you mis­be­have, you get sent to bed. Because you did­n’t play by the rules that you were agree­ing to be judged by.

How Thinking about Translation Can Help You Think about Bots

The com­mon­ly asked ques­tions is, Does this bot sound human?” And the ques­tion that I think is a lit­tle bit more inter­est­ing is why do so many bots that win the Loebner Prize sound pret­ty much exact­ly the same? They’re real­ly sim­i­lar to each oth­er. Maybe they all have a par­tic­u­lar type of default human being in mind, the peo­ple who design these bots. But if so, who is this par­tic­u­lar mys­te­ri­ous default human being?