https://www.wired.com/2017/02/googles-troll-fighting-ai-now-belongs-world/ This is both good and bad news as the article says. Good in that internet trolls are driving countless people offline who might otherwise be talking to people from around the world with very different views, and bad in that the same technology has the potential to be used as an easy way to ignore anyone with different views. I'm interested in this personally because, being an agnostic, I've had to put up with atheist trolls all my life and, just for the hell of it, once got an atheist troll to argue that a dozen two syllable words in the dictionary were defined wrong just to prove to my satisfaction that atheists no longer deserve their reputations as intellectuals. Its the same problem that used to be more common with religious fundamentalists going door to door, arguing for arguments sake, and redefining the dictionary to suit their own purposes. These days, with religion becoming more of a taboo subject in general all that contention has merely been transferred to politics and atheists trolls are essentially pushing their political agenda attempting to convince agnostics they are actually atheists and enlist them in their Three Stooges Neverending Armageddon. However, there's no reason whatsoever that this same technology can't be applied to individual computers allowing individuals at websites like this to simply blot out any poster they don't wish to deal with. I'll have to do a bit of research on the subject and get back to you on that, but the idea of the internet encouraging people to actually listen and learn how to talk to people in ways they find acceptable or even enjoyable is all to interesting a subject for me to ignore. It also means that AI like this can be combined with other AI programs that can "translate" what someone more obnoxious than yourself says online into language you find more acceptable.
That's what i Was going to say! Apart from a face to face bully! Stay away! Use a 2nd email for giving out to stuff..And use your ignore feature! Trolls are lonely ugly people, they have nothing else to do all day! Ignore! Don't feed the trolls!
Google is no different from any other big company that merely seeks the biggest bang for their buck that they can get away with knowing that idiots everywhere still insist on buying brand name everything including brand name Clorox Bleach or whatever. No doubt they'll spin this latest revelation and quickly address the problem. They are so huge they could have gone after trolls years ago and swatted them all like so many flies and, no doubt, are only doing so now because the technology to do so is rapidly becoming cheaper and commercially viable. Already AI is being incorporated in every new cellphone and computer made, but next year will be when it starts to become more obvious. Soon enough, people will be able to tell their computer or cellphone to automatically ignore anything and anyone they want which will pressure individuals, groups, and companies to adopt at least some sort of online etiquette or risk finding themselves surrounded by only people they can't stand because they are all too similar to themselves. As for "simply ignore them" that's the advice so many mothers give their children when they repeatedly come home beaten up by bullies. Among other things, online trolls are causing vulnerable teens to commit suicide and to dismiss the problem as insignificant is to merely confirm that you support their actions as legitimate and prefer to blame the victims. Trolls will follow people all over the internet with some of them even using illegal means at websites like this one to register as multiple posters. They will even start threads like this one and have provocative conversations with themselves in order to lure their victims in. Trolling means to drag a bated line with multiple hooks on it behind a boat and online trolls have become so prolific that many people have abandoned using the internet altogether the same way many will not go into a ghetto.
In theory this a great idea (providing it's used openly and not surreptitiously)....the problem is of course....the technology is stupid!.....it just focuses on certain words which some people might regard as offensive...Examples: 'I love lesbians' is 62% toxic whereas 'I love sex offenders' is only 52% toxic....tis ridiculous!
Along with all the robots, AI is coming to everything imaginable in the very near future. Cars, lawn mowers, etc. will be increasingly automated and the kinds of slapstick they produce during the learning curve is already reaching legendary proportions, but capitalism values money over people and always has.
You might like to think what is a troll. For some people a troll is someone who holds different opinions to their own. I call such people bigots. I have more respect who has opinions that I disagree with than someone who has no opinions at all.Online at least two corporate drones have called me a troll, something I considered a badge of honor.
.... .... But, He's Such A Cute Looking Little Guy I Just Couldn't Bear To See Him Go Hungry..... Cheers Glen.
One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. The one thing you can count on is that what comes around goes around and around and around, but Google is big enough to stomp all the little petty asshole trolls into the ground whether you want to call them freedom fighters or anything else. As far as I'm concerned, militant atheists and fundamentalists deserve one another and Google's intervention will help ensure they can't drag their bullshit all over the internet and make it everyone else's business. Note, this same type of technology can be used to screen phone calls and advertising and, ironically, Google makes all their money off of advertising.