[Funny] Even Clippy can be blamed on the use of non-Bayesian methods

lukeprog

From this 2001 article:

Eric Horvitz... feels bad about [Microsoft Office's Clippy]... many people regard the paperclip as annoyingly over-enthusiastic, since it appears without warning and gets in the way.

To be fair, that is not Dr Horvitz's fault. Originally, he programmed the paperclip to use Bayesian decision-making techniques both to determine when to pop up, and to decide what advice to offer...

The paperclip's problem is that the algorithm... that determined when it should appear was deemed too cautious. To make the feature more prominent, a cruder non-Bayesian algorithm was substituted in the final product, so the paperclip would pop up more often.

Ever since, Dr Horvitz has wondered whether he should have fought harder to keep the original algorithm.

I, at least, found this amusing.

From this 2001 article:

Eric Horvitz... feels bad about [Microsoft Office's Clippy]... many people regard the paperclip as annoyingly over-enthusiastic, since it appears without warning and gets in the way.

To be fair, that is not Dr Horvitz's fault. Originally, he programmed the paperclip to use Bayesian decision-making techniques both to determine when to pop up, and to decide what advice to offer...

The paperclip's problem is that the algorithm... that determined when it should appear was deemed too cautious. To make the feature more prominent, a cruder non-Bayesian algorithm was substituted in the final product, so the paperclip would pop up more often.

Ever since, Dr Horvitz has wondered whether he should have fought harder to keep the original algorithm.

I, at least, found this amusing.

Clippy has googly eyes, so when it doesn't understand what I want and blocks me from continuing my task, I think it's an earnest obstructionist idiot. My computer does not have googly eyes so I don't get angry at it because I don't feel it is a person. Also, when it doesn't understand what I want it's not designed to block me from trying things,

I think this is more of a reflection of computer literacy.

When my computer does something wrong, I assume its my fault. When my parent's computers do something wrong, they complain at it. Pretty uselessly.

I guess Clippy just makes people who don't normally over-anthropomorphize computers over-anthropomorphize enough to get annoyed.

9fubarobfusco15y

I'm not convinced. When web sites throw up interstitial or pop-over ads that block me from doing what I'm trying to do, I think I respond to them as if an agent is deliberately interfering with my plans; even if those interfering ads do not have facial features or expressions. But that may be because I recognize that some programmer or web designer has chosen to put those obstacles in my way; I curse the human agent responsible, not the pop-up itself. To distinguish the two cases, we'd need to find out whether people without extensive programming or systems experience do feel more irritated at modal pop-ups with facial features, than at modal pop-ups that do not have facial features.

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[Funny] Even Clippy can be blamed on the use of non-Bayesian methods

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[Funny] Even Clippy can be blamed on the use of non-Bayesian methods

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