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
===========================================================
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
Stefan: I had no dog in this fight when I first looked into it, listened to the likes of Monckton/Plimer. I have followed many of the skeptics points though and many lead to dead ends ( cosmic rays. stopped warming in 98 etc) then many more seemingly random and contradictory points were sent my way like ( not warming, warming is good, changes all the time, Urban Heat Island but sure Mars is warming etc ) the only common thread was it’s anything but us burning fossil fuels.
I don’t find those to be “dead ends” nor “contradictory”. They are all potential pieces of the puzzle. In a complex system with multiple processes interacting, what do you expect? Our knowledge is partial, incomplete, and open-ended. Nobody has proved it is cosmic rays, but then nobody has proved it is fossil fuels. It is like trying to work out if a certain food is healthy, unhealthy, can cause disease, or protect from disease. I gather they are still trying to work out if being overweight is worse than underweight, given all the different things that each one is associated with. It is called complexity. Maybe burning fossil fuels does have a detrimental effect, but the effect and the causality is so tenuous that you may as well stay interested in cosmic rays. Given how weak the evidence is for CO2 induced AGW, (and masses of weak evidence adds up to a totality of… weak evidence), you may as well keep an open mind about other ideas. What you are calling “dead ends” are merely avenues that are still being researched, or should be. But nobody is claiming that cosmic rays’ influence on climate are a certainty, and yet people claim CO2 AGW is a certainty, “irrefutable”. So start by asking why they are so certain, and examine what’s underneath that. See if you find dead ends, in the form of lack of solid evidence. Ask yourself, in which ways might they be wrong? And then ask, how did they check to make sure that they aren’t wrong? That’s where you can find your dead ends.
Just what we need — twitter spam-wars.
Nigel,
You seem to have a fondness for strawmen and over-simplification, but nothing you have stated has any facts behind it. Nor logic. It is not our job to disapprove, it is the CAGW side to present proof which should be reproducible in order to check it. They haven’t done it. And the only common thread to CAGW reports (climategate, glaciergate, amazongate, watergate, etc) is ‘more money please’.
We are still waiting for the facts. And, yes, to find them you need to hit a lot of dead ends. The problem has been that the CAGW people keep trying to sell us those dead ends as proof. Skeptics refine their beliefs as facts begin to fill in the huge blank spaces of ignorance. And discard the deadends. CAGW people cling to their mistakes (Wang, Jones 1990, Mann et al Hockey Stick, etc) which is why they have to keep changing their header: global warming, climate change, climate disruption. What a waste of energy.
The CAGW scientists are not stupid men. Just think what advancements might have been made if that money had been dedicated to: a) establishing standards of releasing all code and raw data and archiving it b) extensive study of clouds c) bringing up to a high standard our SST sites in the US and encouraging/aiding the rest of the world to do the same c) money spent in “convincing kids” spent on clean water in Africa. Think of all the idiotic projects (Caitlin survey, Copenhagen et al) that wouldn’t have been funded. Think of all the incredible conventional projects that could have been funded.
Can you say that you are better off now than ten years ago with the BILLIONS that have been spent on climate science and educational and political selling of it?? Not by anyone’s standards. It is one of my greatest frustrations is that we have wasted so much money with such little result. The little information we can rely on is still not even close to establishing ANYTHING we should be staking our money and our futures on.
IAN H said:
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.
————————————————————-
Already being worked on, sort of. Remember, don’t trust either robot:
“They are here to protect us”.
Regards…
@Roy
Hear Hear!
Conservation not Consternation!
As a Christian I couldn’t care less about the beliefs of others, we all choose whatever belief system supports our emotional architecture. Faith, however, is a different kettle of fish and I really don’t want to pursue that topic here since spirituality operates outside of and parallel to intellectual processes. Nothing to do with the thread.
What I do care about in the context of this ongoing ‘debate’ is the quality of scientifically robust evidence used to justify political policies which are already adversely affecting the global population.
I have been a conservationist for a very long time now and remain unimpressed by the tactics and effects of Greenpeace, WWF and many others and equally underwhelmed by the case presented for CO2drivenAGW.
The fact that bots can be designed to ‘respond’ to given phrases and keywords does not advance the debate, does not strengthen any evidence by repetition and certainly doesn’t enrich the global culture towards which we could all be working.
I feel that what we are witnessing is a slow crumbling of a corrupted concept designed solely to grab power and maintain that power by fear.
Hopefully, the events in the USA this week will turn the tide and we’ll see some rationality come back into global politics and perhaps some real and radical help for those people groups genuinely threatened by Natural Climate Change.
eadler says:
November 4, 2010 at 6:26 pm
I think that Leck’s Bot is a great idea. The same sorts of arguments against AGW are constantly being made, despite the fact that they have been debunked. The people making them are not really thinking clearly, and the fact that a Bot can provide a reply that is to the point and backed with scientific literature is great.
If Anthony could show that the Bot is producing wrong or inappropriate, or misleading answers, he would have a case against this idea. Simply claiming that Skeptical Science is no good won’t pass. It does quote recent scientific literature as a counter to the GW skeptic’s claims.
So far, all I have seen as the case against Leck’s Bot amounts to cheerleading by GW skeptics for their side.
All I can say (and this may sound familiar to you eadler) is that the same sorts of arguments against natural climate change (NCC) are constantly being made, despite the fact that they have been debunked. The people making them are not really thinking clearly. The fact that a bot can provide a reply that can’t be distinguished from one prepared by a human is proof that AGW/CC/CD alarmists are just reading from the list of authorized responses. Not thinking for yourself reduces energy demand and lowers your carbon footprint… good strategy. You have been replaced, made redundant, by a bot.
Maybe you are a bot, how would we know?
Nigel Leck says:
November 4, 2010 at 11:14 pm
No sky daddy huh. Well good for you. Obviouly you don’t believe in the precautionary principle. Again good for you.
However, being that you are someone as you say that has looked into this matter can you help with something. I am having difficulty with the First Law of Thermodynamics and the Big Bang Theory. You know the part about energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Any help will do.
Dave from the “Hot” North East of Scotland says:
November 5, 2010 at 6:44 am
“Hopefully, the events in the USA this week will turn the tide and we’ll see some rationality come back into global politics and perhaps some real and radical help for those people groups genuinely threatened by Natural Climate Change.”
____
Nice thoughts but quite unlikely. There will not be rationality in either U.S. nor global politics any time soon, and certainly nothing that has happening in the U.S. is going to change that. As far a people threatened by “Natural” climate change, why is it my responsibility to “help” them? When the climate changes you move or adapt…that’s the “natural” thing to do as it is what species have done for millions of years.
Scientism is where people believe that science is the answer to every truth, without qualification. So, is there a god? becomes a scientific question. If science can find no evidence for God then there is none.
There is also no evidence for love, by the way. None whatsoever that can be measured with an instrument. Did you do something kind for your grandma by sending her her favourite flowers on her dead husband’s anniversary? Scientifically, there is nothing about that which can be objectively quantified as “love”. Nothing whatsoever. To the purely objective gaze, there is no love. Not anywhere.
Science does incredibly important stuff — but there’s also incredibly important stuff that science can’t do and never will. It can’t interpret the meaning of your feelings. It can’s make moral judgements.
If scientifically you can demonstrate than a course of action will lead to the death of thousands, a dictator may be very happy with that and judge it to be a “good” course of action. Nothing in science can argue with moral judgements. They are not objectively studied.
So, whilst many people are techy atheists who think rational people by defininition don’t believe in God, well, that’s a narrow point of view. It is a bit blinkered. We don’t go through life operating purely by reason. Much of life is moral intuitive cultural subjective feelings and judgements. What makes a great work of art? What makes a noble person? What is love?
OK, now there’s a bit of a problem when people who wish to be ultra rational and objective are faced with climate change. See, climate change is mostly the work of scientists, and in the “science is rational and objective” techy camp, this means that if you are going to listen to anybody, you damn well listen to scientists. THEY are the arbiters of truth. They are the authority. They have data and reason. So THEY are to be believed.
But culturally and morally we know that this is not a good idea. What if we believed the police? They say the find no evidence of institutional racism. And they are meant to be upholders of the law, with checks and balances. So there can be no racism. Likewise the medical profession, or any other profession.
No, it is a myth that scientists are 100% objective. Cultural and moral judgements, which are NOT objective, are also made by scientists. Whom to fund, whom to favour, whom to promote, whom to listen to, who is getting the attention, where is the hot interest going? These are not 100% objective questions. There is no such thing as an entirely objective culture. But some people believe scientists so unquestioningly that this is in effect what they believe; scientists are all operating 100% objectively.
Try asking scientists whether that is true.
R. Gates says:
November 5, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Dave from the “Hot” North East of Scotland says:
November 5, 2010 at 6:44 am
“Hopefully, the events in the USA this week will turn the tide and we’ll see some rationality come back into global politics and perhaps some real and radical help for those people groups genuinely threatened by Natural Climate Change.”
____
Nice thoughts but quite unlikely.
—–
Have to agree with you there, R. I was somewhat euphoric until I read the link posted recently in Tips and Notes about how the states were spending 215% more than their tax take with Obama regime happily financing the spending orgy with funny money (that runs out in June ’11). I knew we were headed towards bailouts for states. But, it hadn’t set in that Obama had already started it and the scope of it was already massive.
Those repubs swept into power at the state level, this week, are just in time to preside over the impending collapse of state finances, as O’s script plays out…
My bot answers all queries infallibly. It calls any AGW doubter a denialist and demands that they apologise for the holocaust, the crusades, the MWP, etc. So if you disagree you are a jerk – and we know you’re a jerk because you disagree. That shuts them up! My wondrous bot blames AGW for warming, cooling and stasis. It is correct in predicting that rainfall is higher, lower and unchanged. It proves that all dissent is due to oil companies and Big Cigarette. It uses El Nino warmings as proof of CAGW and ignores La Nina cooling. It has an interactive computer simulation of the climate so that visitors to the website can experience for themselves the thrill of fiddling with parameters until the desired result is obtained. It also has a section where God answers questions, like His answers to Job out of the whirlwind. The answers are always right because it only answers questions on past events. Questions about future events are programmed to cue emission of the words ‘consensus’, ‘may’, ‘might’, ‘could’, ‘up to’, ‘scientists say’ and debates on whether the Number Of The Beast is a backwards satanic version of George W. Bush’s tax file number.
You should not have expected to find a consistent message amongst the skeptics.
It would be reasonable to expect any single skeptic to have and defend a consistent point of view, and indeed I’d be glad to defend my own beliefs on this subject, but it is not reasonable to expect that of skeptics as a whole. What makes us skeptics is not that we all believe the same thing, it is rather that we disbelieve the same thing – often for very different reasons.
The green movement is full of idealistic young things with bright shining eyes out to save the world. Yes they are foolish young idiots, but you cannot fault their idealism or commitment. It is merely wisdom that they are lacking but the young have always lacked in that department. It must be great to find yourself a part of that exciting movement surrounded by all those admirable beautiful people marching off to save the world.
The skeptic camp by comparison is quite disparate. While there are many skeptics that I admire – our esteemed host for example who has demonstrated tremendous personal integrity under extremely trying circumstances – other skeptics are people who I quite frankly detest; the right-wing Obama-haters who keep trying to make everything into a US political issue (you know who you are); or people like EnginEar who are religious bigots and seem to think CAGW is an atheist/communist conspiracy to create a world government. One of the unfortunate aspects of being a skeptic can be having to rub shoulders with people like these.
However you must follow the truth wherever it is to be found. Yes it would be convenient to believe in CAGW and join all those beautiful young people as part of their `movement to save the world’. I see the attraction in it to be sure. But having looked at the evidence I simply can’t do that. I am a skeptic for the same reason I am an atheist – my beliefs are not for sale. And so I find myself hanging out here in the skeptic camp … with EnginEar.
Stefan “proven” is an interesting word, your usage is more like how we use it in mathematical terms. There are very few things in life we can “prove” and indeed you would not wait before speeding up when walking across the road until we are certain the car will hit you.
Ian H: the bot is not aimed at genuine areas of debate. It’s aimed at phrases like “no warming since 1998” which I’m sorry is just wrong or when someone raises “temperature record is invalid due to the urban heat effect” that instantly leads to the question “how does that explain the satellite records?”
John Nicklin says:
November 5, 2010 at 8:36 am
“eadler says:
November 4, 2010 at 6:26 pm
I think that Leck’s Bot is a great idea. The same sorts of arguments against AGW are constantly being made, despite the fact that they have been debunked. The people making them are not really thinking clearly, and the fact that a Bot can provide a reply that is to the point and backed with scientific literature is great.
If Anthony could show that the Bot is producing wrong or inappropriate, or misleading answers, he would have a case against this idea. Simply claiming that Skeptical Science is no good won’t pass. It does quote recent scientific literature as a counter to the GW skeptic’s claims.
So far, all I have seen as the case against Leck’s Bot amounts to cheerleading by GW skeptics for their side.
All I can say (and this may sound familiar to you eadler) is that the same sorts of arguments against natural climate change (NCC) are constantly being made, despite the fact that they have been debunked. The people making them are not really thinking clearly. The fact that a bot can provide a reply that can’t be distinguished from one prepared by a human is proof that AGW/CC/CD alarmists are just reading from the list of authorized responses. Not thinking for yourself reduces energy demand and lowers your carbon footprint… good strategy. You have been replaced, made redundant, by a bot.
Maybe you are a bot, how would we know?”
Sorry, but there are no arguments against natural climate change. Prior to the industrial there was only climate change and there are still natural factors that are causing climate change. What has been added to the mix is human caused climate change. This was first described by Arrhenius in 1896 who made the first attempt to compute the effect of doubling CO2 concentration on global temperature.
James Hansen, the pioneering scientist one the founders of climatology certainly accepts the reality of naturally caused climate change. Check out the section on the lessons of history in the following essay by Hansen:
naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns_jeh2.html
Whether I am a bot is immaterial. Your premise that AGW proponents are denying that natural climate change exists is nonsense.
The argument being made is that the warming due to GHG emissions will overwhelm the natural forces over the long run, if we continue on the current course.
Stefan: can I say I didn’t start the conversation about god, if you look back you’ll see it says something like “Leck is also an atheist”, so ok, if you want to talk about evidence and reason then ok, lets have
eadler: if any of the canned answers are wrong or misleading I will correct. See answer for sun/solar below:-
SUN_01 last 35yrs the ☀ has shown a slight cooling trend & yet global warming continues http://is.gd/cMpSh
SUN_02 “The ☀ is waking ↑ from a deep slumber” ~ NASA scientist. May boost GW ㏌ next decade http://is.gd/cMwp0
SOLAR_ACTIVITY_SUNSPOTS_GLOBAL_WARMING Sun’s output has barely changed since 1970 & is irrelevant to recent global warming http://is.gd/dDRjC
GLOBAL_WARMING_OTHER_PLANETS_SOLAR_SYSTEM Mars & Jupiter are not warming & anyway sun has recently been cooling slightly http://is.gd/dDRfx
SOLAR_CYCLE_LENGTH Sun has not warmed since 1970 & so cannot be driving global warming http://is.gd/dDRmY
ACRIM_PMOD_SUN_GETTING_HOTTER Sun’s output has just oscillated since 1970 with a slight cooling trend http://is.gd/dDRoD
SOLAR_CYCLES_GLOBAL_WARMING Over recent decades,sun has been slightly cooling & is irrelevant to recent global warming http://is.gd/dDU2y
SUNSPOTS_AND_WATER_LEVELS This detail is irrelevant to observation of global warming caused by humans http://is.gd/dDRp7
SUN_SPOT_MINIMUM_2010 Sun spot activity is at record lows in 2010, yet globally on track to be the hottest year recorded http://is.gd/dUwP2
The satellite records? They show some warming, but not nearly of the same extent as the land temperature records. Sea surface temperature readings show even less warming, or in some cases cooling, and seem dominated in any case by natural cycles. Both satellite and SST records are much more reliable measures of overall global temperature than extrapolations from land based records. It is the land based record that is the odd one out, and given the documented problems with that record it is reasonable to ask why so much reliance is placed on it.
Nigel – you seem like a reasonable guy. Would you be amenable to extending the coverage of your bot so that it similarly responds to invalid stuff mentioned by the other side. In other words phrases like “accelerating rises in sea level”, or “1998 … the hottest year on record” or “glaciers melted by 2035” or “catastrophic release of methane” or “increased drought” would generate appropriate references to the literature which debunks those claims. I have no objections to a bot acting as a neutral referee and calling foul on anyone who oversteps the facts. However it appears you have programmed your bot to only lend support to one side of the argument.
Ian H: This is what I have for the error in the IPCC report about the Himalayan glacier by 2035. That was an error, it was admitted and corrects are made. That’s how science works. It is untrue to infer that glaciers are not melting
IPCC_HIMALAYAN_GLACIER_2035_PREDICTIONGlaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide,despite 1 error in 1 paragraph in a 1000 page IPCC report http://is.gd/dDU4UIan H: The world “catastrophic” is so inaccurate I mean what it means to you could be completely different to me.
mkelly: If you believe I should invoke the “precautionary principle” in relation to god why don’t you invoke the same principle in relation to climate change ?
John Nicklin: could you give an example of “same sorts of arguments against natural climate change (NCC)” that have really been debunked as in well supported by peer reviewed research ?
Nigel Leck: Also it seems that many of the arguments are contradictory “it’s cosmic rays”…
Cosmic rays probably do have some effect on cloud cover. The mechanism is known, and demonstrable. Building a cosmic ray detector at home is as simple as making a cloud chamber. See for yourself:
http://cosmic.lbl.gov/
… “it’s not warming”, “warming is good”, …
(a) “The Holocene Climate Optimum was a warm period…” – wikipedia
(b) “During the Climatic Optimum, many of the Earth’s great ancient civilizations began and flourished.” – PhysicalGeography.net
(c) optimum
1. the best or most favorable point, degree, amount, etc., as of temperature, light, and moisture for the growth or reproduction of an organism.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/optimum
…“co2 lags temp”, “co2 plant food”…
6 x CO2 + 6 x H2O react, in a complex series of light driven steps to produce 1 x C6H12O6 plus 6 x O2.
Is that clear?
…“leftest plot”…
Maggie Thatcher, Royal Society Speech to the Royal Society, 1988. Look it up. Read it.
… “climate won’t change”, “climate always changes”, …
Climate always changes. The record shows that. The only people trying to establish a modern myth of static historic temperatures are from your side of the debate.
“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.
Strawmen and appeal to ridcule are categorized as logical fallacies. You pack a lot of them into a single paragraph.
coniston: I agree the best thing to come out of this process is the releasing of the code & data to support the claims. I also agree that the burden of proof is always on those making the claim. It always comes down to a balance of probabilities, unless of course we just wait around until 2050 and find out what the climate is then but as most climate scientists would say it’ll be too late to do anything about it if we wait for the worst effects to be felt.