Google's New Technology Wants To Write Your Tweets For You. Will You Allow It To?
Are you tired of maintaining all your social media accounts? Do you wish you could hire someone else to do it for you without actually dealing with someone else? Well, Google patented a robot to do just that.
By Sadho Ram — 24 Nov 2013, 07:14 PM — Updated over 10 years ago
Google has managed to patent a system that will auto generate responses for your social network interactions
Google has reportedly patented plans for software that would help people better manage their social media presence by posting on the user's behalf.
The software slowly learns how one reacts on social networks and can mimic their usual responses to updates and messages from friends and relations to help cope with the daily data deluge.
guardianlv.com
The software also analyses continuing interaction and flags messages that demand a more personal response.
It was Google software engineer Ashish Bhatia who invented the new technology
He wrote in the patent application, “The popularity and use of social networks and other types of electronic communication has grown dramatically in recent years. It is often difficult for users to keep up with and reply to all the messages they are receiving.”
socialnewsdaily.com
In a bid to help people cope Mr Bhatia envisions a sophisticated system that collects information about all the different social networks someone has joined. This logs what they do and notes how they respond to the different types of messages, notifications, status changes, videos, images and links sent to them.
The system analyses these responses so it can eventually start making suggestions of its own that, ideally, should be indistinguishable from those of an actual person.
Eventually, the robot would be able to make suggestions of its own that, ideally, are indistinguishable from the real person
The suggested system should also be flexible enough to cope with many different types of event, use data culled from other interactions with a person and shape the responses to match the style demanded by different social networks.
guardianlv.com
For instance, suggested responses to events on professional social networks should be more formal than those on services where someone interacts with friends and family.
Instead of writing every response individually or clicking buttons to "like" or forward messages, the software would generate suggested responses which a person could simply agree to be posted on their behalf.
businessinsider.com.au
But despite its potential sophistication, examples provided in the patent suggest it still needs refinement
In response to learning that an acquaintance called David has changed jobs, the system might suggest: "Hey David, I am fine, You were in ABC corp for 3 years and you recently moved to XYZ corp, how do you feel about the difference, enjoying your new workplace?"
Social media technologist Hadley Beeman said the subtleties of human interaction might undermine the ability of Google's suggested system to pick out what matters most and flag it appropriately.
arstechnica.com
"The problem is that the 'important stuff' (or the trivial) depends on what our relationship is," said Ms Beeman. "If I had lunch with you, for example, then your message about hating that terrible sandwich is actually relevant to me."
A calendar appointment for lunch might look unimportant but loom large in someone's life for reasons the software cannot spot.
Prof Shaun Lawson from the University of Lincoln who studies social computing wondered who would be compelled to use such a service
"Are we really so concerned with posting messages to every friend or follower that we feel compelled to have to automate that process?" he said.
socialnewsdaily.com
Google's system seemed to underline the common misconception that social media was reducing contact between people, he said.
"The fabulous thing about social media is the reverse," said Prof Lawson. "It facilitates human-to-human interaction in ways that were impossible even a few years ago."
india.com