v21’s avatarv21’s Twitter Archive—№ 32,806

              1. this is a story about a large tech company releasing a new feature that i still found super interesting: wired.com/2015/08/facebook-launches-m-new-kind-virtual-assistant/
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            2) The last paragraph (about what it's like when this stuff reaches people with problems that aren't having too much money & living in SF)
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          3) Tech cos making things that don't scale. And then... hoping they'll figure it out on the way? Or just throwing bodies at the problem.
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        4) Badly paid bodies of course. The "trainers" may sit next to the engineers, but they're explicitly called out as contractors.
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      5) And all of this as a platform play! I am so sick of my choices being constrained by large companies vying to get underneath each other.
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    6) and also! (cc @martinhollis) i like using self-service machines because you can fuck up and no-one judges you. cyborgs give mixed signals
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      like, you're free to explore limits & break things in a way you shouldn't if there's a real person on the other end.
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        people aren't learnable systems, and you should be considerate when demanding things from them. what about sometimes-people?
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          what about people whose existence has been purposefully erased in favour of "magic"? (ie these screenshots getmagicnow.com/)
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            is the entire reason people want AI so they can have a servant they don't have to feel bad about or treat like a person?
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              i bet there's way more women on the trainer team than the engineering team working on M