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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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
======================================================
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
re: Dan in California says: November 4, 2010 at 6:14 pm
& davidmhoffer says: November 4, 2010 at 5:32 pm
& R. Gates & others on the nuclear power issue
Last I knew, statistically in the USA you are actually safer working in a nuclear power plant than in your own home. Darned all those kids toys to trip over, stairs to fall down, etc…. Meanwhile epidemiology shows that nuclear workers are also healthier than non-nuclear workers. That’s with all known confounding factors such as socioeconomic status etc., accounted for. This has been well known for a long time and is called the healthy worker effect.
Also contrary to what some expect, multiple studies of laboratory animals and cultures have actually shown that exposure to low level radiation (well above natural levels) not only causes no harm but can improve various health measures. Hormesis.
Meanwhile, multiple long term studies of populations living near nuclear facilities, including Three Mile Island, show no overall increase in any levels of cancer compared to socioeconomically matched populations that live nowhere near nuclear facilities.
Many years ago I was conducting some “First Responder” emergency planning training (firemen, policemen, bus drivers, etc. and of course the reporting chain including mayors, governors, etc). One quite nice fellow came up later to ask if he had anything to worry about with his family. They lived about 18 miles away as the crow flies from a nuclear power plant and he wondered if he ought to consider moving them further away. So, let’s see…. the power plant had been operating for a few decades with zero radiation related injuries, let alone any deaths, even for those who actually worked in the plant. What else was relevant, perhaps, about where this family lived? In the other direction, a couple of miles away from their house was a chemical plant that on average had one or two people killed each year or every couple of years in explosions or accidents.
What else to consider? We can easily detect radiation down to fractions of the amount you are exposed to from background radiation – orders of magnitude lower than where any possible harm occurs. The power plants are extensively and continuously monitored for any potential accident, for any releases to air or water, are regularly inspected, heavily regulated, and have extensive emergency plans in place and with regular safety drills… none of which could be said for the chemical plant.
If I were to worry about either of these facilities for my family, which would I worry about? Hum……
Just a side note – the only time that particular plant’s emergency plans were used, and they were a couple of times that I know of back around that time, had nothing to do with the power plant. There had been chemical spills from either tanker trucks or rail cars – and because the nuclear plant’s emergency plans existed and were known by the county officials, they modified them on the fly for use with those spills and were most grateful for having them and the training.
Is nuclear perfect or fail safe? No, but what is that is designed and run by humans? Is nuclear really safe in comparison to almost anything else used for power generation, and compared to most industries? Yes, its got a very good track record in that regard. The other thing that many folks don’t seem to realize is that we’ve got roughly 102 nuclear power plants on 50 some odd sites scattered around the nation, operating for decades now – with this safety record and they’ve only gotten more and more safe over time.
I worked it out after the first couple of tweets that it was a BOT. Leck is also an atheist, greenie (http://www.meetup.com/sydneyatheists/members/8903673/). Probably voted for Julia Gillard aka Fabian socialist, professed atheist who did a deal with the devil (Green communists). Saul Alinksy dedicated his book ‘Rules for Radicals’ to Lucifer. Check Leck’s Linked In page. Web links to Richard Dawkins Foundation and the Australian Greens. He has no qualifications which would support his knowledge (or lack there of, of climate science or indeed any science). He’s just an annoying BOT and Twitter should shut him down because his tweets are really SPAM, not conversation between two people.
That list of rebuttals is actually sad. To think people feel so right while being so far off base.
BS Footprint says:
November 4, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Zorro says:
November 4, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Two can play this game.
Indeed. That’s what I expect to happen. Wish I had the time.
—
Don’t know about this particular goofball, but it seems a lot of taxpayer funded warmmongers having nothing but time to come up with this kind of crap. Hopefully, a whole lot of that is going to end thanks to this Tuesday’s sanity check.
davidmhoffer says:
November 4, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Chernobyl
—
And, add to your list of don’ts: Never build one with excessive positive feedbacks.
Only a climatologist or a mad russian scientist trying to adapt a weapons-grade plutonium producton reactor to produce a little power on the side would do that.
Guess I’m not the only nuke lurking on here (hoping Al Gore and the rest of the usual suspects can keep the charade alive long enough to get the needed several hundred new reactors built).
@Bob
Check your logic, dude.
The real problem is that many people who believe they’re up on that hillside apparently support all manner of government-mandated (coerced) remedies to whatever man-made climate changes may be occurring, rather than rely on free people to do the right thing once they have facts in hand.
So the ‘illuminated’ hill-sitters risk becoming useful pawns for those who wish to exploit their efforts to accumulate greater power or wealth — or, in some cases, it seems they knowingly get in bed with the power-grabbers.
Treating people as if they are inert matter, unwilling to and incapable of doing the right thing based their knowledge and beliefs, is high arrogance. And it’s downright rude.
So it’s only natural that some people who don’t have all the facts in hand, or can’t understand all the details of the science, push back against a perceived threat.
Sure, those who push back may play into the hands powerful interests that want to derail legislation, regulations, and the like. But that’s the natural consequence of treating people like morons, calling them names, and generally dismissing their concerns and fears out of hand.
As I’ve said before, insulting people is a lousy way to win an argument or an election. Ask Dale Carnegie.
If the pro-AGW/climate change science is so compelling and settled, then nothing less than full disclosure and open debate are mandatory. Trying to silence opposition or use ‘tricks’ to sell the pro-AGW/climate change case will only make things worse for those who wish to advance the ‘pro’ cause.
Yah Ive seen that bot. Argued with it too. I can usually pull better articles 🙂 I always get an answer if I use #climate as one of the hashtags. Now I know its a bot, but if it throws back some obscure utube reference and I throw back a better resource is it really doing the writer a service?
Oh, and one more thing: by all means, correct any and all incorrect statements, however moronic they may or may not be. But be reasonably polite, you’ll win more over to your cause that way. If someone won’t listen to reason, if they reject all arguments out of hand, don’t get call them names, just move on.
EnginEar if I follow your logic correctly because I don’t believe in fairy tails ( sky daddy, a bloke living in a whale etc) that some how makes my arguments less valid ? Surely it’s the other way around.
BTW: pkatt when there is a new argument I do follow it through, I gotta say I’m not seeing many new arguments these days. Also it seems that many of the arguments are contradictory “it’s cosmic rays”, “it’s not warming”, “warming is good”, “co2 lags temp”, “co2 plant food”, “leftest plot”, “climate won’t change”, “climate always changes”, “why trust nasa they faked the moon landings”, “it’s magical moon beans” and the list goes on indeed it seems to be anything but co2.
Twitterbot – Gore – Mann – Jones – Briffa – Hansen – etc – what’s the difference? You still get BS coming at you.
Bwahahaha. It is going to be one busy, busy bot.
The city of Aberdeen, in north-east Scotland, is built on granite, has granite buildings and is known as the Granite City. Background radiation is several times higher than permissible industry standards. Aberdeen is also known for the long-levity of it’s population.
You don’t need a bot to argue with this bot, just one that searches for this bots posts and sends a reply to the person it responded to with a link to the other side of the debate.
Of course you would be a Nigel. No logic really just like your bot twits. Just making comments about what you really are. An atheist, socialist. None of which have been any good to mankind at all in history.
@EnginEar says:
November 4, 2010 at 8:39 pm
‘I worked it out after the first couple of tweets that it was a BOT. Leck is also an atheist..’
Look, I’m an atheist and a sceptic. In fact I learned my scepticism from trying to work out at the age of 13 whether there was a god or not. I came down on the non-believer side. I may be wrong or the believers may be wrong but the one thing I don’t worry about, which most of my Christian friends do, is what will happen to me after I die. And the critical and analytic thinking I learned then has carried me through the rest of my life. So can you try to avoid silly characterisations and fake correlations like this. My own view is that if he’s an atheist he should have a lot more sense and apply the same process to his substitute religious belief in cagw.
I’m an atheist too. You got a problem with that EnginEar?
I’m no scientist. The first thing that made me feel that AGW ‘science’ was suspect was that its supporters were so closed minded. “Anybody who disagrees is either an oil shill, crackpot, or nut.” They look for any reason to dismiss someone’s opinion.
Even if you point them to a scientist whom they can’t dismiss, they’ll resort to, “it is only one guy.”
It is the closed-mindedness that I detest. Please, let AGWers come up with something compelling — I don’t mind if AGW is REAL, and HAPPENING, we just want EVIDENCE!!
Claiming, “Anyone who disagrees is an oil-shill” is NOT evidence; it is IRRATIONAL.
We know that politicians were positioning it as, “claim it is settled science” — let them explain their own politicians. Let them explain the basis for their feeling that the world needs saving from AGW, overpopulation, etc.
I too feel that we are heading for disasters. I sympathise with them on that. Disasters happen. World wars happen. Cataclysms happen. But AGW isn’t one of them. Please. Let’s try to identify the REAL dangers.
Grumpy old Man says:
November 5, 2010 at 12:29 am
“long-levity”
Yep, I found the people of Aberdeen pretty funny. And they have longevity as well.
Very true. Everyone on the planet is living their own life, with their own family, communities, workplace, cultures, economies, environment — their whole situation. The greenies seem to think they can generalise for everyone, using just one point of view, and come up with a solution that is best for everyone and for all species and the whole planet. The complexity is staggering. There are seven billion human brains on the planet, and one greenie believes that he or she can, on their own, do better. For everyone.
We don’t even understand the complexities of why one human develops the way they do — some become criminals, some brain surgeons. It isn’t just “education” or “opportunities” or “character” or “genes”. We don’t know how to heal one person, and yet they want to change the core cultural values and life purpose of everyone on the planet… and the closer they come to seeing the impossibility of that task, the sooner they start to resort to violence — “direct action”, “put democracy on hold” — basically, force people. It becomes a huge power game. And then the powerful win.
Capitalism may be a “cancer” or a “virus” because it is a small piece that invades everything, but many greenies have such a narrow point of view on the world that a) they are not holistic and b) the want this narrow point of view to invade everything and take over. Well, by their own definition, their narrow point of view is also a virus, trying to invade a greater whole that it doesn’t understand nor care about.
They claim to be holistic. The funny thing about being holistic is that it has to include ALL wholes. Most greenies just don’t. They ignore most of the world, and imagine their own point of view is holistic, when actually it cuts out much of what is of value to billions of people.
Twitter is the loser in all this, these chatbots are all that is going to be left, all communicating with each other, spewing junk data. But that is what environmentalists are renowned for. Twitter needs to cull this kind of activity before it makes the site obsolete.
@ur momisugly RichieP
“the one thing I don’t worry about, which most of my Christian friends do, is what will happen to me after I die. ”
Thinking about your own mortality is not the same as worrying about it. If your friends are indeed Christians then they will know that ultimately they have something to look forward to. Many Christian martyrs throught the centuries (including, unfortunately, this century) have been willing to face death and their calmness has often led to the conversion of others.
This is all really a bit off-topic but since Green beliefs are often criticised as a substitute religion I suppose such digressions are excusable.
By the way, I am not saying that because some Greenies seem to take the Gaia hypothesis rather too literally (instead of as a vivid metaphor) the rest of us, whatever our beliefs, should not be concerned with environmental issues. We should, but in an intelligent way.
I think all sceptics should be open to the possibility that man-made CO2 is the main driver of climate change. The only difference between sceptics and mainstream climate scientists should be that we should want the scientists to do a really thorough job and examine all the evidence impartially, continue searching for new evidence, check the reliablity of their data and the instruments used to gather it, examine and test their models diligently, publish their data and computer codes for anyone to examine, and also explore other hypotheses, such as Svensmark’s cosmic rays and cloud cover hypothesis, with the same diligence.
In other words we should want climate scientists to act like scientists are supposed to and not like an in-group of political activists or a quasi-religious cult.
EnginEar: The question of if a god ( a being that exists outside of space/time and created the universe as we see it) exists or not is a truth claim. The answer (whether we know it or not) is the same for you and I. Also no amount of wishing has any bearing on the outcome of this truth claim.
Now your statement “atheist… None… any good” sounds like you’re choosing what you believe based on what you think is best not based on the evidence. Which may explain your views on climate change.