From Technology Review, a case of desperation. “Let the robot handle it”. I have to chuckle though, since the article cites John Cook’s “Skeptical Science” as an “appropriate scientific source”. Also amusing is “the rejoinders are culled from a university source whom Leck says he isn’t at liberty to divulge.” Well since he is in New South Wales, I’m thinking this just might be another Tim Lambert aka Deltoid production. Hacker News sums it up pretty well:
> In a way, what Leck has created is a pro-active search engine: it answers twitter users who aren’t even aware of their own ignorance.
On the one hand the idea of a reverse search engine is somewhat appealing, on the other hand; it’s Clippy for the internet.
– Anthony
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Nigel Leck, a software developer by day, was tired of arguing with anti-science crackpots on Twitter. So, like any good programmer, he wrote a script to do it for him.
The result is the Twitter chatbot @AI_AGW. Its operation is fairly simple: Every five minutes, it searches twitter for several hundred set phrases that tend to correspond to any of the usual tired arguments about how global warming isn’t happening or humans aren’t responsible for it.
It then spits back at the twitterer who made that argument a canned response culled from a database of hundreds. The responses are matched to the argument in question — tweets about how Neptune is warming just like the earth, for example, are met with the appropriate links to scientific sources explaining why that hardly constitutes evidence that the source of global warming on earth is a warming sun.
The database began as a simple collection of responses written by Leck himself, but these days quite a few of the rejoinders are culled from a university source whom Leck says he isn’t at liberty to divulge.
Like other chatbots, lots of people on the receiving end of its tweets have no idea they’re not conversing with a real human being. Some of them have arguments with the chatbot spanning dozens of tweets and many days, says Leck. That’s in part because AI_AGW is smart enough to run through a list of different canned responses when an interlocutor continues to throw the same arguments at it. Leck has even programmed it to debate such esoteric topics as religion – which is where the debates humans have with the bot often wind up.
The whole story is at Technology Review
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Here’s Leck’s Twitter feed:
His bio on Twitter says:
“given sufficient evidence I’ll accept a claim as provisionally true.It’s a balance of probabilities,atheist,greenie & a bit of a nerd but mostly harmless:-)”
Seems like a nice enough fellow, just a bit misguided perhaps.
h/t to WUWT reader Don Penim
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UPDATE: Borepatch writes in with some news that is well worth sharing.
He writes:
I created the Clippy almost a year ago:
http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-happens-when-you-run-climate.html
There’s also a ClimateGate Blue Screen Of Death there, too.
I post fairly regularly on AGW issues, and am afraid that I’m one of those “deniers”. My probably two best posts on the subject are here:
http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2009/12/should-you-be-global-warming-skeptic.html (for a non-technical audience)
http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2010/02/canals-of-mars-climate-research-unit.html
If you could point attribution my way, this would be some pretty big bragging rights for me here in my little corner of the ‘net.
Thanks.
– Borepatch
Happy to do so! Sometimes humor spreads like wildfire without proper attribution because people are so focused on the funny, they forget the source. Your Clippy parody has been a source of humor for thousands, and we thank you. – Anthony
Now if we could just get someone to write a bot to present the skeptical side of the argument we could all sit back on the sidelines and watch the two bots go at it. A sort of robot wars for climate science.
Somehow this reminds me of DILBERT being tasked with finding out if the “responder” on a computer “chat” system was a real human or a “robot”.
Dilbert typed in a question which any archtyple manager would answer with a complete “buzzword” response.
Indeed, that’s what he got. Last frame of the strip, shows Dilbert pulling back a screen (curtain) and the PHB (Pointy Haired Boss) saying, “How did you know it was me?”
In this case, I’d REVERSE the logic and point out that the establishment of this “application” shows that the “arguements” of the Global Warming types is so TRITE, so CANNED and SO PREDICTABLE that they DON’T HAVE TO BE THERE IN REAL HUMAN PRESENCE to respond.
Now here is the point on this: Their arguements have become “reflexive” and useless.
I would hope that MY level of discussion would always be such that it would at LEAST take a 5th grader to respond, maybe even a high school senior. (They might be more dynamic than your typical “climate scientist”.)
Max
Will the bot discuss the BACK_TO_1400_CENSORED directories and give a non-BS explanation as to why Mann created them and then buried them?
Watts says:
I have to chuckle though, since the article cites John Cook’s “Skeptical Science” as an “appropriate scientific source”.
What’s your problem anthony? If you have some issues with the content over at SKS then you can point out where the plethora of scientific studies supporting each post is wrong? I don’t know of many other websites which include the most recent peer-review literature in every topic… making backhanded comments like that just proves that we are right to return the favor.
REPLY: Heh, still chuckling. – Anthony
Well, when lots of rifles are aimed at you, the best response is a robot with a machine gun.
Oh wait, that’s a war analogy. I keep forgetting this is supposed to be about scientific investigation, deary me. Well I’m sure his automated response script is helping people on twitter explore their own curiosity just like science should, amirite? What better way to promote independent and creative thought than to have a robot rapid-fire off the “right things” to read whenever someone might be going astray, right?
/sarcasm
This is a challenge that is irresistible. The war of the twitterbots.
Two can play this game.
Robert, you’re a born comedian!
“Now if we could just get someone to write a bot to present the skeptical side of the argument we could all sit back on the sidelines and watch the two bots go at it. A sort of robot wars for climate science.”
Please don’t. That could trigger a feedback loop and destroy the earth. We could be talking total protonic reversal here.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/ihadcrut3_gl_1998:2011a.png
GW is a) happening b) accelerating, especially if I look at the graph standing on my hands c) my robot will kill you soon.
Twitter. Blech. Nuff said.
So that’s why it replied to me in such an idiotic manner when i posted a a comment and link for a WUWT. After tweeting I got a quick reply pointing to a youtube post about AGW which wasn’t even entertaining.
I blocked the account now. Thanks for the heads up and kudos to Anthony for all the effort.
Another great post from WUWT.
How about a live debate with Bob Carter, Ian Pilmer, Jo Nova to name just a few Aussies and several Kiwis to be added.
Forgot Ken S. , D Archibald, Bob Tisdale.
Perhaps, like James Cameron, they will disinvite themselves.
Maybe, now that the ABC (Aus) is reconsidering their position, now is the time for a televised debate challenge.
Some hope!
Indeed. That’s what I expect to happen. Wish I had the time.
Watching “What the Green Movement got wrong”.
They were wrong on nuclear power, DDT and GM food yet “climate change” is quoted as a given throughout the programme. Strange.
I guess this is further evidence of the cut-and-paste mentality of the CAGW crowd. For them, quantity beats quality of argument every time.
Skeptical Science also have a firefox add-on that does something similar.
Helps spread “the word”
Should we name this the gniruT test?
It just goes to show how vapid and superficial is TwitterLife!
Soon we’ll see the whole system swamped by VariBots all debating with each other.
Any suggestions on when Twitter will be replaced?
Every five minutes, it searches twitter for several hundred set phrases…
Looking at this from 30,000 feet, as it were, I can see where this is yet another exploit of yet another popular and sometimes useful Internet feature. Twitter is used by many, so I guess eventually there will be many bots sending many canned responses about anything to unsuspecting users. Kind of a “search engine poisoning” style exploit in tweet form. It pays to know your twitter followers!
I can see how that might come in handy… I bet it got old answering “but it snowed a lot this year”, “its been cooling since 1998” or “its good for plants” argument year after year…. hehe…
I love this website… its so entertaining…
Q. How do you tell the difference between a Climate Bot and an AGW believer?
A. The Bot won’t think a picture of a polar bear constitutes an argument (unless it’s really badly written).
B. The Bot doesn’t suffer from a persecution complex and won’t accuse you of being in the pay of Big Oil because it has run out of arguments.
C. The Bot doesn’t have to be embarassed about it’s huge carbon footprint.
D. The Bot won’t turn up at your front door.
E. You’ve got the better chance of getting the Bot to see reason.
Jeez, it’s not like you have to run a Turing test on this thing. The fact that it’s not responding in all capitals with misspelled ad hominem attacks should be a hint that you’re not arguing with a warmist.
Doesn’t this just make the point that the alarmists are unthinking automotons who are impervious to logic and reason since they can be easily emulated by a program that simply repeats the same pabulum over and over? It also seems to illustrate the fact that they believe simple repetition is actually a form of logical argumentation. 🙂
Applause for the effort and idea, pretty funny really.
Based on Muhandis’ post above, I’d say the programmer needs to slow the response, or perhaps randomize the response times.
Got to laugh thinking about someone pounding on their keyboard after getting responses in milliseconds in an Internet flame war.
Anyway, nice effort. And Clippy sure is a lot of fun at the office…