Google's Allo chat app hits a downside to AI: Bot must hoard private messages to train itself Google has launched its new mobile messaging app Allo today in a bid to challenge Facebook's stronghold in instant messaging. Allo differs from Google's previous attempts with Hangouts, Google Talk and Google Chat, as its main power lies in artificial intelligence, apparently. Users will be introduced to a preview edition of …
So... actually making my point and still downvoting...
I can use Hangouts on multiple devices, so I don't see why Allo is any worse.
Still need to check how the whatsapp desktop API does it. Wouldn't surprise me if they knew the key too.
In fact, most chat systems have encryption to the server - Signal being the odd one out
Agreed. I think this kind of data is probably the least interesting for Google. They will be interested in some of the metadata about how successful the bot is, because this will be useful for downstream products it can sell such as chatbots for support.
Anyone who is worried about this had better be sure they're not using GMail, Chrome or YouTube, which aggregate for more valuable data.
For chat I use Signal, Wire and very occasionally Hangouts but I'm quite keen to try Allo out because I'm very interested in the development of "conversational interfaces". In case no one else has noticed: the days of people providing first-level support and horrible, complicated phone menus are well and truly numbered.
I've complained about this annoying trend appearing on El Reg before. I'd like to think that the average El Reg reader is beyond having the mental capacity to only concentrate on a single sentence at a time; this isn't Buzzfeed or the BBC website. Next we'll be having "Listicles" with giant animated Gifs.
Up next on El Reg: The Top 100 Top 100 Listicles
All androids in the future will sound like C3PO...only lab interns will be willing chat to the AI to train it.
This is also why we shouldn't fear a robot uprising. If all the AI is trained by subserviant interns then the AI will go out of its way to do everything its master tells it in the slim hope of keeping its job and getting paid for it.
Sadly based on this theory all cups of tea made by androids will be crap and it'll take showing them 3 or 4 times to reach this level.
Someones intern made me a coffee once. It turned up cold because they tried to use the hot outlet on the watercooler and they used teabags.
What I got was an ice cold cup of water with two tea bags in and coffee mate floating on the top. Truly the worst cup of coffee ever.
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