Proactive Reverse Search Engine
This is hi-freaking-larious. A programmer got so tired of arguing with folks who don't believe global warming exists, that he wrote a script to do it for him. It detects certain catch phrases on Twitter, and sends them what it judges to be the most appropriate of hundreds of canned responses. Since the person it's talking to usually thinks they're arguing with a human, the script can continue arguing past the point of exhaustion. The article concludes:
In a way, what Leck has created is a pro-active search engine: it answers twitter users who aren't even aware of their own ignorance.
In response to that statement, someone on Hacker News posted the following:
On the one hand the idea of a reverse search engine is somewhat appealing, on the other hand; it's Clippy for the internet.
""" I see you're trying to deny global warming. Would you like to:
1. research the available facts and science?
2. Have an authority figure you trust tell you, you're wrong?
3. Meet other like-minded singles?
"""
Comments
pstscrpt on Nov. 4, 2010 1:44 PM
It looks like you're trying to write a suicide note.
matt-arnold on Nov. 4, 2010 1:51 PM
The funniest prospect is that of chatbots arguing back and forth with each other, relentlessly, uncomprehending, forever. Which I suppose is what people think we already have with humans. I expect when Eric S Raymond finds out about this, he'll write a chatbot that just bleats like a sheep... at pretty much everybody.
stormgren on Nov. 4, 2010 1:58 PM
Taken to an even scarier scenario, imagine Jehovah's Witnesses mastering the use of something like this.
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