Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 33
Posts 11 - 20

Please, Facebook, don't make me speak to your awful chatbots

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 29.4.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, Facebook, threat
Summary | Chatbots are the future! Soon, you'll be able to do everything thanks to chatbots (e.g. order a pizza, schedule a meeting). With Facebook, the idea is to introduce third-party bots into Messenger. Existing chatbots are not perfect yet; they are still slow and don't always understand everything. Facebook's goal is to create something flawless, a platform for your phone where you'll be able to book a table, pay a bill, order a cab, check the weather, and manage your relationships.
Image Description | Photograph of Mark Zuckerberg speaking in front of a giant screen displaying the Messenger platform, photograph of engineer Charles Lawson lighting a robot's cigarette, screenshot of a tweet, photograph of a smartphone screen displaying WeChat.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone, text, Twitter

The rise and rise of international diplomacy by WhatsApp

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 4.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politics, privacy, texting, WhatsApp
Summary | WhatsApp diplomacy is a thing: when leaders gather to talk in the same room, they can exchange emojis and other documents to other people without the whole room knowing. WhatsApp is more secure than other government information systems and has been used at the UN and EU headquarters.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of diplomats looking at their phone, screenshot of a WhatsApp chat, photograph of a man holding a phone and a woman standing next to him (both are looking at the phone)
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone, text, WhatsApp

What Chatbots Reveal About Our Own Shortcomings

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 24.4.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, marketing, misunderstanding, threat, Twitter
Summary | Artificial intelligence is the new big thing but it is mostly geared towards commercial services like ordering pizza, etc. Microsoft for instance proudly announced that their AI assistant can now even understand slang inputs. But this way of learning from actual users has shown to be risky when Microsoft released their AI robot Tay on Twitter and people trolled them by teaching Tay offensive things.
Image Description | Illustration and a GIF of smartphones typing.
Image Tags | gifs, smartphone, text

Facebook wants to kill off the phone number in 2016: Claims system is from the 'flip phone era' as it reveals Messenger now has more than 800 MILLION users

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Newspaper | Mail Online
Date | 8.1.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, Facebook, texting
Summary | More than 800 million people use Facebook Messenger. Facebook wants to 'kill off the phone number' and attract even more users thanks to more features. Texting and SMS were flip phone communication styles. Now we can do much more with our smartphones, and new communication styles are appearing. With Messenger, Yes, you can text, send stickers, photos, videos, voice clips, GIFs, and even money to people. You can call people and you don't even need to know people's phone numbers anymore. Facebook also wants to introduce its digital virtual assistant called "M" into Messenger
Image Description | Photograph of Mark Zuckerberg, chart displaying Messenger statistics, illustrations of two smartphones displaying a conversation with "M", and photograph of a finger touching a screen displaying several icons.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), logo, male(s), smartphone, text

WhatsYapp! Smart collar concept translates your dog's bark and sends you a message revealing what their noises mean

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Newspaper | Mail Online
Date | 27.1.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone, texting
Summary | Online pet store Fetch.co.uk revealed a new concept that may allow dog owners to have real conversations with their pets. Thanks to a smart collar connected to a smartphone, the app called WhatsYapp can analyze a dog's barks/sounds/movements and translate them into words so that the owner knows what the dogs means. The firm also unveiled other concepts: CatQuest and PetPounds.
Image Description | Screenshot of a conceptual design displaying a conversation between owner and dog, illustration of the smart collar, illustration of CatQuest, photograph of a smartphone displaying an interactive screen for cats, and illustration of 'PetPounds' smartbands.
Image Tags | smartphone, text

Can't find the right emoji? AI app analyses your message to suggest the perfect memes, emoticons and gifs while you type

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Newspaper | Mail Online
Date | 14.6.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, emojis, GIFs, meme, texting
Summary | A new app called Dango uses artificial intelligence to suggest the most appropriate emojis, GIFs, or memes you can use. Thanks to AI, the app analyzes the meaning of your text messages.
Image Description | Screenshot of Dango's chat bubble, photograph of a series of emojis on a screen, and chart explaining how Dango's neural system works.
Image Tags | chart, emojis, smartphone, text

In the Apple Case, a Debate Over Data Hits Home

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 13.3.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Facebook, law, politics, privacy, research/study, smartphone, threat
Summary | Apple's refusal to aide the FBI with breaking into the phone of the San Bernardino attacker has unleashed a political debate among Americans. IT experts as well as lay people report that they have had discussions about the topic with other people, some say they have had fights over Facebook with family members about the issue. Polls show that the American people are hugely divided on the topic: 42% think Apple should cooperate with the FBI while 47% support Apple's stance to protect user privacy.
Image Description | Getty image of a protest crowd showing a man holding up his smartphone with the text: "Don't turn our phones into FBI drones".
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone, text

¿Limitan los emoticonos nuestra capacidad de expresión?

(Do emojis limit our capacity to express ourselves?)

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Newspaper | El País
Date | 27.10.2016
Language | Spanish
Country | Spain
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, translation
Summary | The fact that Fred Benenson translated Moby Dick in emojis actually reflects the importance of emojis in today's society. Our keyboards can already offer emoji alternatives to written words. After thousands of years of progress, are we regressing back to the Egyptian time? Some people fear that the rise of emoji might limit our capacity to express ourselves and lead us to simplicity. Those who defend emojis claim that they are the natural result of the evolution of communication.
Image Description | Photograph of a hand holding a smartphone; on the screen there is a text conversation with emojis
Image Tags | emojis, hand(s), smartphone, text

Will emoji become a new language?

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Newspaper | BBC News
Date | 13.10.2015
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | emojis, grammar, language threat
Summary | Linguist Neil Cohn explains why emojis cannot be considered a new language and why they shouldn't be seen as a threat to language. Emojis don't have the same characteristics as other languages. Emojis are used to complement words, as we would use gestures along speech. Sometimes, people use long sequences of emojis to communicate, but they are not a language since they lack a grammar. Cohn talks about his book The Visual Language of Comics and explains what visual languages are. The visual language of comics does not work the same way as emojis; it's a language that has a grammar.
Image Description | Photograph of a series of emojis on a screen, photograph of a hand gesture, sreenshots of text message conversations with emojis, and photograph of a library of comic books.
Image Tags | emojis, hand(s), smartphone, text

No, wealth isn't created at the top. It is merely devoured there

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 30.5.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politics, social media, threat
Summary | The new rising technology firms like Facebook, Airbnb, and Uber are the new class of rentiers. The do not create anything new, they claim control over goods and services and cash in on transactions made on the platform they provide. That is all they do: provide a platform. It is only profitable because people willingly share content and offer their services on these sites. But these firms also have not invented the technology (internet, computer devices, etc.): that technology was developed with the tax payer's money. So technically they are just selling and reselling already existing goods - like a rentier.
Image Description | Getty image of a protester, an iPhone, the Facebook campus, a bunch of bank signs, and a Mexcan capitalist.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone, text

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