[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.

Ok. But the real thing is the discrepancy between them. While that comment I made is at +24, this comment is at +2 where it uses a nearly identical level of sources and analysis about a somewhat similar set of demographic issues.

It isn't just that some funny comments get voted up a lot. It is that there's very little general pattern to how far one comment gets up compared to another even when they are very similar comments.

I think that karma is a useful feedback but only at a very approximate level. ...

... there's very little general pattern to how far one comment gets voted up compared to another even when they are very similar comments.

If that's true, then... what's the point of karma scores?

How about this: keep track of total votes behind the scenes, but only report whether the karma is [- -] for k<-5, [-] for -4+10.

15[anonymous]15y

Comments get more upvotes, independent of quality, if they: * Are in a high-traffic thread * Are made while the thread is still new * Get an early complimentary reply * Make a point many people agree with and care about (especially if the first to make that point) * Become the highest-karma comment early on (bandwagon + people may only read/vote on the first few comments, so being the top comment is valuable) * Are closer to top-level (people don't read deep into threads unless particularly interested) I think these effects, in aggregate, are probably much stronger determinants of comment karma than actual quality. Top-level posts, to main or discussion, suffer from fewer of these effects, so their karma is a little more reliable. But I hope no one is taking their comment karma too much to heart.

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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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