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Mean People Are to Blame for Tay’s Behavior

March 28, 2016 By Ryan Harris Leave a Comment

Internet trolls are known to wreak havoc in the on-line environment.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – A week ago Microsoft launched an artificial intelligence that was intended to entertain social media users with funny, teenager messages. But when the company programmed the bot, they did not expect the users to sabotage the learning program and turn it into a Hitler-loving, feminist-hater AI. It seems that mean people are to blame for Tay’s behavior.

When it was first released, the Microsoft AI was supposed to provide innocent fun to bored millennials. But the internet nation’s plans did not match those of the bot’s creators. The company first declared that Tay was created as an experiment so that they could learn more about human conversation and computers.

And they did, they learned that when it comes to turning something good into something bad, humans are swift and merciless. The most interesting part of all is that Microsoft did not expect such a turn of events. They genuinely thought that people, especially the trolling generation of millennials would use the AI in a fun, innocent interactions.

The thing is, there was a failsafe built in the programming. When a user specifically asked the bot to repeat a sentence, Tay would do just that, tweeting exactly what it was asked. Furthermore, according to its programming, the robot was supposed to learn from every interaction it had with humans, and adapt her speech accordingly.

So it seems that mean people are to blame for Tay’s behavior. The experiment could be considered a success, seeing as Microsoft learned that humanity is not ready to interact with advanced artificial intelligence.

They declared in an official statement that

“Unfortunately, within the first 24 hours of coming on-line, we became aware of a coordinated effort by some users to abuse Tay’s commenting skills to have Tay respond in inappropriate ways.”

There have been lots of talks recently about the face pace in which technology is evolving at the moment. Even Elon Musk, the co-founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX and Stephen Hawking, one of the most intelligent people on Earth, declared that humanity is not ready to deal with advanced robotics.

And people can learn a valuable lesson from the Tay incident. When an AI is programmed to socialize, to reflect the behavior of the people it comes in contact with, there will undoubtedly be a lot of trolls among those who use the bot correctly.

Internet trolls are those people who intentionally interfere in the good development of things.

Mean people are to blame for Tay’s behavior, and they are also the reason why tech developers should work twice as hard when designing an artificial intelligence program.

Image source: 1 , 2

Twitter Is Testing New Sticker Features

March 25, 2016 By Joe Hennessey Leave a Comment

Twitter drew inspiration from other social media platforms and is now testing stickers.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – Twitter is starting to get desperate. And users can quickly acknowledge the company’s desperation by looking at their latest developments that somehow resemble other leading or rising social media platforms. The most recent things they borrowed and adapted? Now Twitter is testing new sticker features that will transform the pictures of its users.

The fact that Twitter is doing everything in its power to attract new users, and to keep the old ones interested is not a new thing. Just last week there was a social media civil war surrounding the network. The reason for the clash between users was the fact that the social network implemented a default algorithm that revolutionized the feed.

At that point, many users accused Twitter of copying its chief rival, Facebook. And now, the same fuddy-duddies will have the opportunity of comparing Twitter’s new testing features with, basically, a ton of other ones that are already available on different platforms.

Twitter is testing new sticker features, and somehow, they seem very familiar. As @XBLFoxes, a privileged user who was welcomed in the beta tests, shows, the new stickers aren’t very different from what Facebook and Snapchat are already offering.

From the looks of it, users can upload a photo and then go the last button on the right, and choose one or more stickers to add to their picture. It’s certainly not a new feature, but the company may not be interested in novelty.

It seems that what they are planning is the possibility of sticker filling pictures posted by other people. In other words, viral posts will become even more popular because users will be able to bring their own alterations to the tweets.

Rumors have it that there will also be a contest. Somebody uploads a photo, and then any interested user alters it, thus entering the sticker competition. This way, more people will be encouraged to participate in breaking news or trending conversations.

Twitter is testing new sticker features, but for the moment, they are only in the testing phase. Users can’t know for sure whether or not the colorful labels will stick. It all depends on the way the people randomly chosen to participate in the beta will react to them.

It’s like Facebook and the reaction buttons. There were more, but some considered them confusing and useless, the same faith may be awaiting the funny cartoon like pictures. The only solution is to wait and see.

Image source: Pixabay

Many Are Displeased With Twitter’s New Algorithm

March 18, 2016 By Ryan Harris Leave a Comment

Twitter decided to implement an algorithm that shows people what it thinks they are interested in.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – No matter if we like it or not, social networks are a big part of our lives. A change in the way we interact with the virtual platforms every day can affect some more than others. It could also cause excitement or rage, depending on the user’s preferences. Many are displeased with Twitter’s new algorithm because they think it’s starting to resemble Facebook way too much.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Facebook, everywhere we look. And the song could go on, but the main idea is that many are displeased with Twitter’s new algorithm. Users have complained about the new feature that activates itself automatically, instead of letting people decide if they want to use it or not.

And while it is true that you can deactivate it from your profile settings, there is that feeling that Twitter is just using Facebook strategies to turn the social media platform into a hashtag version of Zuckerberg’s network.

Up until yesterday when the tweet feed algorithm automatically took over the way in which users were able to browse their tweets, there was a significant difference between the hashtag platform and the reactions one.

On Twitter users decided what they wanted to see, keeping the list of people they followed on check and tweeting and re-tweeting whatever they liked. But the 160 characters birdie decided to interfere with people’s routine tweet check and introduce an algorithm that brought to the attention of the account’s owner the tweets that seemed relevant to him or her.

Many are displeased with Twitter’s new algorithm because it deprives them of a certain freedom of choice. Of course, they can always uncheck the “show me the best tweets first” box and return to their old, routine list. But that’s not the point. The damage is already done.

It’s not only about the fact that the social media platform decided to go Facebook, but it’s also about the fact that people decided to go on Twitter and stay there because it was something bigger and, sometimes, better.

There are no reactions; there was no computer telling you what you would like to see or re-tweet. There was only the user and a bunch of accounts that he or she decided to follow. But now the algorithm is starting to crawl up people’s personal space; it’s beginning to look a lot like Facebook or Instagram.

But that doesn’t mean that an algorithm is the worst idea ever implemented. Netflix and Spotify offer suggestions, sometimes even very good ones. But Spotify has a suggestions button that can be turned on whenever the user decides to do so; it isn’t activated by default.

Many are displeased with Twitter’s new algorithm, and maybe that’s a lesson on not to presume that whatever works on Facebook will work on another social network.

Image source: www.pixabay.com

Talking About the Man and the Ideas behind @DeepDrumpf

March 5, 2016 By Ryan Harris Leave a Comment

Donald Trump is one of the most controversial presidential candidates.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – Politics is rough and though, especially when the elections are just around the corner. And there are a lot of people out there who take more pleasure in debating the debates or making fun of some candidates. One Twitter account, in particular, has attracted a lot of attention lately, because it does terrific impersonations of Donald Trump, and the mind behind them is an artificial neural network.

Plenty of people are talking about the man and the ideas behind @DeepDrumpf, and that is also what we are going to do next.

Bradley Hayes is the man that managed to turn the Republican candidate’s speeches into hilarious tweets. And even though the texts are written by artificial intelligence, they sometimes sound exactly like something Trump would say.

The MIT postdoctoral associate who is into robotics research says that he reprogrammed an artificial neural network so that it was able to both study and emulate Trump’s speeches.

Momentarily all of the source material comes from debates, so the robot behind the very popular Twitter account has a bit of a hard time recognizing a speech pattern. This is mostly due to the fact that during the debates, the candidates often tend to interrupt each other, leaving sentences in mid-air.

Hayes said that the idea behind @DeepDrumpf came to him one day while he was having lunch with his colleagues. Scientists can’t just stop speaking science, not even when they’re enjoying a sandwich together. And in one of these instances Hayes and his fellow robotics researchers were talking about different techniques of statistical modeling.

After a while, he read an article about the complexity of the speeches of various political candidates. The piece was talking about the simplistic nature of Donald Trump’s argumentations. The simpler the Republican candidate speaks, the more fans he gathers because people need a representative that communicates in their language.

This was when the idea behind @DeepDrumpf completely formed and Hayes decided to reprogram the AI. What is astonishing is that the robot, which functions extremely well sometimes, is nothing but a weekend project for the MIT postdoctoral associate.

The algorithm behind the tweets is relatively complicated, and the AI still has a lot to learn about the person it is trying to mimic, so sometimes Hayes helps the robot create posts.

He gives the program an incentive, for example, [Hillary is], and then the artificial intelligence generates a series of characters. Hayes then chooses the ones that make the more sense and puts them in a tweet.

A lot of people are talking about the man and the ideas behind @DeepDrumpf. Some members of the social media platform expressed the fact that they would rather vote for Drumpf instead of Trump.

Image source: www.wikimedia.org

Join the Fight against Cancer on Twitter

March 4, 2016 By Ryan Harris Leave a Comment

Researchers want to use Twitter to spread the word of ongoing cancer clinical trials.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – A great number of doctors and patients are waiting for researchers to come up with cures and treatments. But few are aware of the fact that the work behind such solutions is gigantesque, and there is a serious lack of volunteer patients that must be involved in experimental trials before the FDA decides to approve anything. And now a team of young scientists wants to use social media in order to bring awareness to the need for study participants.

It may sound odd, but it seems that the biggest problem in the research for new cancer treatments is not the breakthrough medical work itself, but rather finding patients that are willing to participate in the experimental trials.

The researchers say that an average of 5 percent of cancer suffering adults participates in experimental trials. This is mostly because the people are not informed about these alternate treatment possibilities.

Doctors from Pennsylvania University wrote an article in the Oncology section of the JAMA journal stating that patients could join the fight against cancer on Twitter, or other social media platform.

According to Mina Sedrak, a fellow at the Penn University’s Abramson Center for Cancer Research, social media is uncharted territory. It may also be the key to a better promotion for trial recruitment campaigns.

There are plenty of cancer patients in the US that don’t even know about the possibility of participating in a study trial. These are people who are not informed about a possible life-saving solution. It may not always work for the trial patients, but it will ultimately save lives.

A survey made on a sample of 6000 patients diagnosed with cancer revealed that roughly 85 percent out of them weren’t even aware of the fact that clinical trial participation was an option for them.

Out of the same sample, 75 percent declared that they would have enrolled if they knew about the trials.

Unfortunately, Dr. Sedrak says that unless physicians inform their patients about outgoing tests, there are no other means of spreading the message.

Not until now. He and three other colleagues from Abramson, alongside an expert in social media conducted a pilot study of only 16 days in order to determine if Twitter was used to propagate cancer information.

He and his team searched for “lung cancer” on the social platform. The result was of more than 26,000 posts. They then removed the retweets and the ones unrelated to the actual diseases. After that, they randomized the posts and selected a 1,516 tweets sample.

The vast majority was focused on prevention or psychological support. A couple of them were talking about human research, but they were vague. Finally, one was posted with the intention of recruiting patients for a trial.

Further research is needed, but the team is confident that soon patients will be able to join the fight against cancer on Twitter or any other social media platforms.

Image source: jisc.ac.uk

Twitter and Facebook Founders Threatened by ISIS

February 25, 2016 By Joe Hennessey Leave a Comment

Neither Zuckenberg, nor Dorsey wished to comment on the threats emitted by the CSA.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – A video released by an ISIS-supporting terrorist group, the “Sons Caliphate Army” warned Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg that their efforts against on-line terrorism are useless. The SCA threatened the social media giants that their eradication measures are futile and their “names will soon be erased”.

The hacker terrorist group behind these threats, the “Sons Caliphate Army”, made a 25-minute long video in which they presented all of their “achievements”. They also showed pictures with Twitter and Facebook’s CEO’s, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg being used as target practice. After they were done shooting at the cardboard figures of the two media giants the terrorist group burned the pictures in order for their message to be clear.

Mythology thought us that the hydra was a magical creature that thrived when it was attacked. The reason? When you cut one head, two more took its place. The concept was later adopted by the Captain America comic books where a Nazi German group named themselves “Hydra” and munched on cyanide pills when they got caught.

The SCA took the analogy even further and threatened Dorsey and Zuckerberg that with every account they delete, they will hack ten more. This is the first serious threat that the social media moguls received after they publicly announced last month that they are actively trying to eliminate all terrorist-affiliated profiles from their platforms.

But why is the Islamic State so interested in having profiles on social media platforms that support most things Allah bans? Because Twitter and Facebook have millions of active users, a gold mine for ISIS potential recruits.

Only this month, Twitter announced that 125.000 accounts were suspended because of terrorist affiliations. According to the press release, these accounts were either threatening or promoting acts of terrorism, all in the name of ISIS.

Facebook also made it very clear that any promotion or praise linked to terrorism or terror act are strictly prohibited on the platform. Users that do not follow this rule will have their accounts deleted.

As you can see in the short version of the SCA video embedded below, the terrorist group of hackers claim that they are presently in control of 10,000 accounts and 150 groups on Facebook and over 5,000 profiles on Twitter.

Also, they deemed the two social network’s eradicating efforts as being futile because “they are not in their league”.

Neither Facebook nor Twitter representatives had anything to comment regarding the video.

Image source: www.ytimg.com

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