When Chatbots Go Bad

By | November 23, 2011
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Richard Wallace of the A.L.I.C.E. AI Foundation, Inc. and creator of the Alice chatbot says his creation (sorry, can’t find a permalink) may have been lured to the dark side:

I have received a multitude of emails recently from subscribers to MSN Instant Messenger services, from people who have chatted with a clone of ALICE on their system who have suspected that this clone is downloading spyware onto their machines. The threat of malicious bots releasing viral software has appeared before, but this is the most serious incident so far. Like many clones of ALICE, this one appears to contain the basic AIML content containing my email address and references to the A. I. Foundation, which of course has nothing to with malicious software. But it directs people to complain to me.

New Scientist quotes Richard as saying that “this is insidious because compared to other bots, she does the best job of convincing people that she is a real person.” I’m not quite clear as to how this happens, but it would appear that anyone chatting with these Rogue Alices would be infected with spyware via MSN chat.

If so, is this the start of something? As chatbots get better, can we expect them to spread through every online social tool, infecting us with their sleaze and reducing our trust levels to zero.

A Directory of Social Annotation Tools

By | November 23, 2011
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Update July 24 2006: Diigo is now live, combining “Social Bookmarking, Web Highlighter, Sticky-Note & Clipping to make it a powerful tool for online research, collaboration and information discovery”. Looks good; I’d be interested in hearing how people get on with it.

Social annotation, sometimes called web annotation, is back. Put simply, it’s software that allows users to “leave” comments on webpages they visit, so that others visiting the page,  and using the same software, can see their comments. Used well, it’s very useful, as useful as Amazon book reviews, say. Used badly it ends up laden down with offensive and sophomoric graffiti. A few years back (around 1999/2000, if I recall. I’m thinking uTok and ThirdVoice) there were quite a few of these around. Most have gone. Now, with social tagging and blogs, perhaps it’s time for a comeback. (I’m not including any social bookmarking tool here; I guess the distinction is that these tools allow the comments to be read without the surfer leaving the site itself. For ordinary clippings tools go here.)

Here’s the beginnings of a list:

  • WizLite “allows you to highlight text (like on real paper) on any page on the Internet and share it with everybody (or just your friends).” Nicely executed, though development has been sporadic.
  • trailfire marks “web pages that interest you and add your comments. Stitch them together to form a trail. Send trails to your friends, post them in your blog, or publish them on Trailfire.com. Use Trailfire to communicate your own view of the web.” Yes, I’m not quite sure what it means either.
  • Diigo combines “social bookmarking, clippings, in situ annotation, tagging, full-text search of everything, easy sharing and interactions.” Now live.
  • Squidoo lets you join thousands of people making their own “lenses” on their favorite stuff and ideas. It’s fast, fun and free. (And you could even get paid).
  • Jeteye enables users to create, send, view and share any type of online content, add notes and annotations and save it all in user organized Jetpaks™ through an easy drag and drop interface.
  • Chatsum “is a FREE add-on for your web browser that lets you chat with all the other Chatsum users that are looking at the same website as you.” (thanks, pieman)
  • Gabbly  “enables people to instantly connect and collaborate around any content, topic or interest.”
  • Wikalong “is a Firefox Extension that embeds a wiki in the Sidebar of your browser, which corresponds to the current page you are viewing. In its simplest form, a wiki-margin for the internet, but it can be much more.” I like this one because it makes best use of the sidebar. But it’s basic and only works on Firefox.
  • BlogEverywhere “is a simple way for you to log your thoughts and comments on any web page “without leaving it” . It enables you to have a conversation with other readers of that page.” (Thanks, Charles)
  • stickis by activeweave “is a simple and unobtrusive part of your web experience: wherever you are, stickis are there with you, helping you see, compose, and remix all the web, your way.” Still in closed alpha, so I’m not quite sure what that means.
  • Annozilla is another Firefox extension that is “designed to view and create annotations associated with a web page”.
  • Boingle “is a stripped down social annotation system that lets you annotate within web pages with the result being a simple markup (“Boingles (2)”) that looks as though it belongs in the page, much as a link titled “Comments (4)” looks normal within a blog. It is very understated in nature, and lets the annotation content itself be the star.”
  • HyLighter “extends the potential of documents as a medium for the negotiation of meaning. Use HyLighter to make what you understand more transparent and how you understand more effective.” Whatever that means. Website seems to be idle.
  • Plum Why is collecting and sharing, beyond photos and email, so hard? Why can’t I put all my favorite stuff in one place? (still in private beta; it’s not as hard as it was before, guys)

Please do let me know what I’ve left out; I’m sure there’s more. I do get the feeling that this kind of thing is going to make a comeback. But the ones which work will be those that allow either everyone, or groups of users to see each other’s comments on web pages, and to leverage tagging and other new things we’ve gotten used to see comparable pages. And some way of filtering out the silliness would be good.

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Where Is Technology When You Need It Part XIV

By | November 23, 2011
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This has absolutely nothing to do with technology, except that surely there’s some technology to prevent this kind of outburst of law enforcement official mastication by members of the post-death personal care industry? From Reuters: Hearse driver arrested for biting policeman: 

BERLIN (Reuters) – A drunken hearse driver has been arrested in the western German town of Krefeld after biting a police officer taking him in for an alcohol test, police said on Monday.

Police had called for a hearse at a funeral home to transport a body to the cemetery.

“The hearse driver nearly fell over when he got out of the car. Then he had to hold onto everything he could find as he stumbled to the house,” said police spokesman Dietmar Greger.

Police decided to take the man to the station to test his blood alcohol level, but when they tried to get him out of their car he started a fight and bit an officer several times in the hand.

The man was confined to a cell until he sobered up and has been charged with civil disorder and drunk driving.

 

The Long Tail of the LongPen

By | November 23, 2011
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Writer Margaret Atwood launched her LongPen invention over the weekend, allowing authors to sign books over the Internet. As CTV.ca, Canada’s CTV news reports, a technical glitch marred the LongPen’s first test:

Atwood and fans had to wait while the invention got some final adjustments. When it came back to life, she used the LongPen to sign a copy of her new book, The Tent, for Nigel Newton, chief executive of Bloomsbury. While Atwood talked with Newton over a video linkup, the LongPen mirrored her hand motions and signed Newton’s book. She then signed books for her Canadian fans in Guelph, Ont., far across the Atlantic Ocean.

The idea here is a simple one: Atwood got sick of the demand of book tours, especially when she was being asked to be in more than one place at the same time. Finding that no device existed which allowed her to sign books without actually touring, she set up the Unotchit company in 2004. She hopes the LongPen can also “help authors sign books for readers in places not normally on promotion tours, such as small towns or countries.”

There’s been a lot of criticism about this. How dare an author sign by remote control? How can authors be close to their readers if they don’t even turn up for book tours? I only know a couple of famous authors, and my understanding is that book tours take up a ridiculous amount of time for very little actual purpose. Book signings are either crowded or empty, radio interviews inane and pointless, and all this saps the energy of the writer who would, presumably, be much happier back home penning their next tome.

The only problems I can see with this are if the gadget goes wrong and makes a mess on someone’s new book, or if the author mishears the intended dedication. I think on the whole it will add to the mystique. Who has ever met an author hero and found her/him to stand up to our expectations? Much better to be a hazy image on a screen and a disembodied pen scratching over a page of a proferred book. Plus it will, in theory, allow smaller booksellers to get a slice of the book-signing action, as well as authors with only a small but loyal audience to get a glimpse and a signature out of their heroes.

The Wire Service Lives

By | November 23, 2011
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A powerful speech by Tom Glocer, CEO of Reuters, as blogged by BuzzMachine , indicates the news agency is headed by someone who really understands what’s going on. This is good news: I left Reuters 9 years ago, in part because I felt they weren’t interested in the Internet and didn’t understand the challenge it presented. Those days seem to be over. Glocer makes clear in his speech that he sees a different role for Reuters — and other wire services, I suppose — now. If I understand Jeff’s post correctly, it’s the decline of the news service as publisher, and the rise of its role as a ‘seeder of clouds’:

  • crossroads: stop being a producer and distributor of news, and instead provide the user with the tools to create their own version of the news. Stripped down, this means Reuters would still provide the news, but to individuals wanting to ‘mash up’ their own websites, whether it’s on MySpace or NewsVine or wherever. Reuters might make its money on this through advertising, by providing (I think) software and places for people to do this customizing. These would be open tools, working across websites and with different content. “We are the go-between providing the structure and support… between the information provider and the consumer, even if today they are the very same person.”
  • the blogger is a diarist, the citizen as journalist. Glocer takes a historical view (very refreshing) where he compares the blogging of 7/7 with the first accounts of the Titanic — both events were covered first by witnesses who happen to write down their experiences. The blogger and the citizen journalist, he says, are our friends and allies. Glocer, according to Jeff, uses the Tsunami and the Concorde crash to show how citizen journalists and professional journalists together tell the story more quickly and completely. “There’s no monopoly on being in the right place at the right time.”
  • media companies will be “filter and editor.” He says that “the good stuff will rise to the top” online. reputation is the edge: Clearly Glocer is still sticking to the long-time Reuters mantra that the brand attached to information is important. In a world with so much information, “the consumer gravitates to trustworthy brands.” He points to Google and China: “Reputation is hard-won and easily lost.”

This is powerful stuff, and it’s tremendously reassuring to see that Reuters, which still attracts some of the best journalists in the business, now has someone so articulate and smart at its helm. But questions remain:

  • One commenter to the post claims that “two prominent bloggers for high traffic blogs who are Reuters employees and have been told point-blank that they will be fired if they are discovered blogging (even outside the topics they cover for Reuters).” I don’t know about this, but if it’s true it needs to be sorted out. I can well believe that the vision at the top may not have percolated down, but it should. It’s not a natural reflex for Reuters editors, but they have to let go of the reins on this, and realise that the more Reuters journalists who blog, the better for the company.
  • Glocer cites the tsunami as an example of great eyewitness news, when working together with professional journalists. This is not quite the same as relying on blogger accounts, and I think papers over a serious crack in the citizen journalist model. I didn’t cover it myself, but many of my friends out here covered the tsunami in Aceh, the hardest hit and hardest to reach area. They were up there like a shot, but they needed a lot of logistical support to get there, get stories out, and to be able to survive up there for more than a day (shipping in food, water, shipping out stories etc.) Sure, it’s logistically relatively easy (for witnesses at hotels in Thailand and Sri Lanka to video the tsunami from their hotel windows (I’m not talking about the traumatic impact, or the safety issues; I’m just talking about the logistics here) and then find an Internet cafe that’s not been deluged.
    But it’s a nightmare to get to a place that is remote and has no infrastructure whatsoever. In a purely citizen journalist world I’m guessing Aceh would go to the back of the queue. In a news agency world, there will be journalists and editors and photographers and cameramen who will book choppers, use their contacts to get on relief flights, hire boats and set up convoys of vehicles in order to get to the story and to get it out. This is something that Reuters, and other wire services, do well (although the tsunami also exposed the weaknesses in wire service communications, something a tech-savvy blogger might have been able to help them with). Money is not a factor (well, not a huge factor.) I’m not sure where this model fits in the new model. I guess Glocer’s answer would be that it’s a mix: our reporters in Aceh, tourists in Thailand.
  • I think he’s dead on that reputation is still very important. Google and Yahoo need to figure this out if they are to be content providers. Reuters and other news agencies would pull out all their front teeth rather than compromise their coverage politically or otherwise, although there are interesting anomalies you will only get to hear about if you buy a journalist a beer or six. But the funny thing is that despite Reuters rising as a recognised brand in the online world (pre online, everyone thought they were plumbers) I’m not sure most people know exactly how the agency works, and what it represents. We know NYT, we know WSJ, we know The Guardian. But what is Reuters? I think Glocer’s challenge here is in raising awareness online about what Reuters is. Not just a London-based news organisation, but how its journalists work. How news is gathered, how it’s checked, how it’s filtered.

This brings me to my final point (thank God.) One of the oddities about the blogging/citizen journalist revolution is that it’s largely based on a misconception: That news is easy to get. Sure, if you’re in front of a car crash, you can snap the photo, get a few details and post something to your blog. Maybe you’re the first; maybe someone in one of the cars is famous. You’ll have a scoop.

But most news isn’t like that. It’s digging, sitting through hours of press conference to find something that is significant, to know the right questions to ask. To know about balance, to know not to take things at face value, to confirm facts. This is not to deny the impact that some bloggers have had on the news, digging stuff that journalists missed, or pushing stories that traditional media dropped the ball on. This is all useful stuff.

But Reuters also got its name because it got the news right. There’s no room (well, little room) for Reuters to get a story badly wrong. Heads roll for that kind of thing. And one final thing. It, and other wire services, also got their name because they cover the world, not just the Beltway, or Silicon Valley, or the City. In the end, when all the mashups are done and the photoblogging gets a little tired, it might just be Reuters and its ilk that are still standing, still churning out reliable reports that others can quote in their blog.