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This week's [article|column] comes to you fresh from our latest in automated journalism, The RegAIster. We hope [you|they] enjoy [it|them]. Thanks to [innovative|disruptive|fictional] technologies, it is now possible to template [news|features|columns] with tagged fields to present the [reader|commenter|aggregator] with [ …

  1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    If they did, they'd never hit [deadline|pub].

    Just helping things along.

    1. stiine Silver badge

      That's what Vodka & orange juice are for

      You've obviously never read any of alcoholic Lewis Grizzard's books, specifically the one describing his early life covering sports for a newspaper (remember those?).

    2. mr-slappy

      Surely [deadline&pub] ?

  2. Anonymous Custard
    Pint

    So how about we leave the robo-journalists to write stuff for the robo-commentards and content aggregators to vents their robo-spleens over, whilst the rest of us meatsacks just retire down the pub for a swift pint or six?

    Who says there's no positives in progress?

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      This however leads inevitably to the Electric Monk. Which we get to believe all the things we should be believing, but are too busy. But what disaster could befall if said Electric Monk were to go wrong, and start believing everything it saw on the internet?

      1. Roger Kynaston
        Happy

        Electric Monk

        Would said monk shoot off at some software mogul? Will this be the Zucks end?

        +1 for the Holistic reference.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "if said Electric Monk were to go wrong, and start believing everything it saw on the internet?"

        How do Electric Monks handle schizophrenia?

        1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
          Pint

          Badly one presumes.

        2. stiine Silver badge

          The later models had the ability to hold several conflcting opitions without experiencing memory errors.

      3. JulieM Silver badge

        Let's just say that its cooling system would be thoroughly tested.

    2. cosmogoblin

      This reminds me of a short story I never got round to writing.

      An MI6 spy attends a Bond-style gala event (dickie bow, Ferrero Rocher etc) to spy on the Russian diplomat. The diplomat turns out to be a spy themselves, spying on the French ambassador - who turns out ... long story short, the entire event was set up by spies to gather intel from real people, but due to paranoia-fueled coincidence, every single attendee is a spy and doesn't have the knowledge they're gunning for anyway.

      Last scene: an exasperated spy shouts "Is anybody here NOT a spy?" When they realise the truth, they all get pissed together and invent ridiculous secrets to tell their superiors.

      Copyright notice: Please write this, as I'll never get round to it, and I want to read it!

      1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

        Precedent

        Have you seen anything of "The Man Who Was Thursday"?

        I think it also appeared in a Private Eye cartoon and possibly real life - the subversive group whose members were ALL policemen assigned to investigate the subversive group.

        1. STOP_FORTH
          Stop

          Re: Precedent

          Don't write this, just go and read "Indecent Exposure" by Tom Sharpe (follow up to "Riotous Assembly" - also very good.) The entire anarchist group is composed of secret policemen spying on each other and blowing up all of the town infrastructure.

          The story is much more complicated than I have described, and very funny. I still smile about the exploding ostriches. Which brings me neatly back to my first ever post on this forum!

      2. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      3. Daedalus

        As seen in the movie "The President's Analyst" where James Coburn stages a scene to draw out the spy at an event and finds everybody pulling out a gun/blowpipe/poison dart.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dabbs has been told right

    Most people do just speak in a mixture of idioms and clichés. That's why, in order to get artificial intelligence, you must first get artificial stupidity.

    1. Anonymous Custard
      Trollface

      Re: Dabbs has been told right

      Why do we need artificial stupidity when there's such an excess of real stupidity around?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dabbs has been told right

        Because we are trying to get artificial intelligence, and real stupidity won't get us there.

        1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

          Re: Are you sure real stupidity get us there

          Alan Turing thought it would be difficult to make a machine that could pass a Turing test but ELIZA did just fine in the '60s because the vast majority of testers did not know how to exploit AIs' weaknesses. The key to making money from AI is not faster computers or better software but a steady supply of rich and powerful idiots. Truly we are entering the golden age of AI.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Are you sure real stupidity get us there

            Jerry Pournelle said it didn't do well with real-world problems such as losing your luggage at the airport.

          2. veti Silver badge

            Re: Are you sure real stupidity get us there

            Unfortunately, a failure to resist the blandishments of AI is a trait that will select strongly and quickly against both the characteristics "rich" and "powerful".

            Each scam, aimed at such people, will only work once. If you want to go on milking it repeatedly, you have to target the only-mildly-rich and hardly-at-all powerful. See Bitcoin, for example.

          3. jake Silver badge

            Re: Are you sure real stupidity get us there

            Just to be sure nobody gets the wrong idea, ELIZA did not "pass the Turing test" (whatever that means). Rather, ELIZA was one of the first programs supposedly capable of taking the Turing test.

            If you have a copy of EMACS handy and would like to see ELIZA in action (in her DOCTOR persona), fire up EMACS and type M-x doctor ...

            1. Mage Silver badge

              Re: ELIZA did not "pass the Turing test"

              Eliza did for untrained people. Lots of people thought it was real.

              Anyway, the "Turing test" isn't at all a measure of AI and I'm not convinced Alan Turing thought it was. It was the idea that a well designed chat program might fool people into thinking the other teletype had a human at the keyboard.

              1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

                Re: ELIZA did not "pass the Turing test"

                the "Turing test" isn't at all a measure of AI and I'm not convinced Alan Turing thought it was

                The Turing Test, aka Imitation Game, is a philosophical thought experiment which Turing presented as an argument for a pragmatic - as opposed to logical-positivist, essentialist, metaphysical, etc - philosophy of mind, and in particular as a pragmatic argument for the possibility of a mechanical mind.

                So, no, it wasn't intended to serve as an actual test procedure. For one thing, it's too methodologically vague (how long does the test last? how many human judges are involved? what are their competences? are they instructed about the nature of the test?). Robert French and others have explained at some length why Turing-test exercises, while they might be interesting for other reasons, don't say anything useful about strong artificial intelligence, the possibility of machine cognition, and so on.

          4. Mage Silver badge
            Big Brother

            Re: Are you sure real stupidity get us there

            I'm not sure that the Touring test idea wasn't a suggestion that AI could be eventually "faked" even if it wasn't possible. I think inspired by a parlour game?

            "The Diamond Age" attempts to show that there can be faked AI, but not real AI.

            I'll believe there is real AI when a spelling check and grammar check of a novel actually works without:

            1) Having to reject many of the suggest corrections.

            2) Doesn't leave hundreds of simple mistakes easily spotted by a human proofreader.

            I'm not even talking about "real" grammar correction, rewriting such as reversing clauses of a sentence to remove a comma or conjunction etc and improve readability.

            We have gone backwards with the adoption of brute force "Rosetta stone" type solutions and so called training with sample data (which may be selected with a bias) instead of actually trying to translate our understanding to algorithms. It might be impossible as many animals can have a large vocabulary (Parrots, crows, sign language and calls in primates, dolphins etc) but don't seem to have language (the ability to communicate entirely new ideas using the existing vocabulary).

            The latest chatbots only better Eliza by having a bigger vocabulary and some more rules. They are still useless.

            I envisaged a chatbot able to clarify what you want to search the internet for by engaging in conversation to better define the search. It seems impossible. Siri, Cortana, Ok Google and Alexa are basically simple speech matching (not real recognition) creating a text search. They are a pathetic waste of time compared to a keyboard. Apart from the privacy issues.

    2. Semtex451

      Re: Dabbs has been told right

      I thought that's what sports hacks were doing all along, albeit in English, now I discover its the templates.

      To extend the theory we just need to put together some templates in any chosen language and we can both sound like a local, and get international work as sports hacks to pay for the trips.

    3. Franco

      Re: Dabbs has been told right

      First we need to teach computers (and indeed people) that the difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits.

      Popularly credited to Einstein, but more probably first written by Alexandre Dumas (son of the one who wrote The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo) according to Quote Investigator.

      https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/28/genius/

      1. DJV Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Dabbs has been told right

        And genius probably(?) knows the difference between "it's" and "its".

        1. Franco

          Re: Dabbs has been told right

          If you want to be a proper grammar pedant don't start a sentence with a conjunction.

          1. JassMan
            Trollface

            Re: Dabbs has been told right

            Can't have faux grammar pedants giving the real ones a bad name!

          2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

            "don't start a sentence with a conjunction"

            Indeed, that is something up with which we shall not put !

            1. matthewdjb

              Re: "don't start a sentence with a conjunction"

              That's ending a sentence with a preposition

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Dabbs has been told right

            I once worked with a guy who had a double First in English from Cambridge and was a successful author of detective novels under more that one pseudonym. His father had been head of a major Public school.

            He couldn't spell, when he wrote he more or less just drew the shape of words. And he would tell anybody interested that English doesn't have grammar in the Latin sense, just usage.

            "Not starting sentences with a conjunction" is pure Latin teacher bullshit. If it was good enough for the translators of the Bible, it should be good enough for us.

          4. cosmogoblin
            Joke

            Re: Dabbs has been told right

            But its good enough for the bible!!!11

        2. jake Silver badge

          Re: Dabbs has been told right

          A true geniu's probably wouldnt care about extra or missing apostrophe's, as long as the point being communicated was obviou's.

          1. STOP_FORTH

            Re: Dabbs has been told right

            That's why greengrocers are so clever!

            1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
              Coat

              Re: Dabbs has been told right

              Or tobacconists, for that matter: "I will not buy this record, it is scratched!"

              I had better be going

              1. STOP_FORTH
                Happy

                Re: Dabbs has been told right

                Fabulous clip, pretty sure I watched this when originally shown. How few cars there were in London in the early Seventies!

                1. jake Silver badge

                  Re: Dabbs has been told right

                  London? That's nearly in Acton!

        3. John Presland

          Re: Dabbs has been told right

          Predictive text doesn't.

    4. Chris G

      Re: Dabbs has been told right

      There are languages with vocabularies of less than 500 words which seems to be the general direction of English in some quarters; that would make 'AI' journalism a doddle.

      Aside from that did anyone else read "Nigerian probate lawyers" as Nigerian prostate lawyers?

      I know lawyers like to specialise but......

      1. Andytug
        Joke

        Re: Dabbs has been told right

        Apparently they're really good at asking probing questions......

        1. Ken Shabby
          Alert

          Re: Dabbs has been told right

          and making your eyes water.

      2. Olivier2553

        Re: Dabbs has been told right

        Speaking of prostate, heard this morning on a French radio: What hurts the most in colonoscopy is the clap board.

    5. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Dabbs has been told right

      It's a big ask.

      1. STOP_FORTH
        Thumb Up

        Re: Dabbs has been told right

        Es regnet immer in England, nein?

    6. Crisp

      Re: Most people do just speak in a mixture of idioms and clichés.

      There's no closing that can of worms after the horse has bolted.

      1. A. Coatsworth Silver badge

        Re: Most people do just speak in a mixture of idioms and clichés.

        A bird in hand is worth any amount of beating about the bush, and the proof of the pudding is in breaking the eggs, so Dabbsy will have to try his theory live, and see how it goes...

        1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          Re: Most people do just speak in a mixture of idioms and clichés.

          Dabbsy will have to try his theory live

          And run it up the bargepole to see which of the ducks salutes?

          Sounds like a forwardly-progressive set to expected optimum outcomes to me.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Most people do just speak in a mixture of idioms and clichés.

          He's been trying it out on Register Readers for years......

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Most people do just speak in a mixture of idioms and clichés.

            I always did think that the illustrious Steve Bong had commissioned an AI to write his columns for him...

      2. jake Silver badge

        Re: Most people do just speak in a mixture of idioms and clichés.

        Herding the cats back into the worm can thru' the newly locked stable door is cost prohibitive, true.

  4. Unbelievable!

    TOO REAL - YouTube Link broken Mr Dabbs

    The link at the end of the article is broken. it just reads "Unavailable" when the play icon is clicked.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: TOO REAL - YouTube Link broken Mr Dabbs

      Fixed! Thanks.

    2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: TOO REAL - YouTube Link broken Mr Dabbs

      If only the Dabbmeisters[1] powers extended to breaking YooToobe..

      (Although it has to be said, Mrs COCM seems to find it useful for new sock-knitting techniques. And similer outre craft-type explorations.). What a wild and exciting life we lead.

      [1] I still cringe when listening to late 80's Pendragon (but not for the reasons you think) when Nick calls the then-drummer[2] "drum-miester-general". Still, we were all young and foolish once. Some of us are no longer young.

      [2] Who, in a singularly unfortunate choice of name, was called Fudge Smith. At least according to Pikiwedia - so maybe a 50% chance of being correct. And no, my memory of those days isn't as clear as it might be..

    3. matthewdjb

      Re: TOO REAL - YouTube Link broken Mr Dabbs

      But not available where I live.

      1. John Presland

        Re: TOO REAL - YouTube Link broken Mr Dabbs

        WOT!? No VPN!?

  5. Alister
    Thumb Up

    Lush:- purveyor of shopping mall smells.

    Excellent summation, Mr Dabbs.

    1. Warm Braw

      Does anyone know a location where Lush is next to Subway? Do they cancel each other out?

      1. David 18

        Unfortunately the smell from Lush in my local shopping centre does nothing to blot out the revolting stench from Yo Sushi which permeates the whole centre.

    2. Alistair
      Windows

      Lush:- purveyor of shopping mall smells sneezing fits.

      FTFY

    3. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Lush:- purveyor of shopping mall smells

      Or (at least to me): purveyor of 'bronchial-spasm inducing smells". One of those places that I have to hold my breath when walking past (much like the perfume counter in places like Boots or the customer services team here at 9am - before the clashing perfumes/aftershaves have had time to mellow..)

      1. CountCadaver Silver badge

        Ditto, I avoid Debenhams, because for some reason some muppet decided the best place for menswear is right next to the perfume counter where they spend all day spraying vast quantities of strong scents....

        Can;t use my dentists waiting room as they insist on having several spraying air freshners set to the most frequent spray interval in a room with no ventilation and no bigger than my kitchen (which barely bypasses "broom closet" - they get miffed when I tell them I can't use their waiting room - But we need to keep it smelling "fresh" - open a fooking window then.....not like the room doesn't have a massive one

        1. STOP_FORTH
          Joke

          @CountCadaver, they probably only use the spray when you are in there.

    4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      I thank you commentards for reinforcing my avoidance of shopping malls. It's better to learn from other's mistakes.

  6. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    Funny thing...

    only the other day I received a robot spam which contained all the [thing|stuff|other stuff] metadata, it obviously having made a bid for freedom before going through the final pick-one chooser.

    1) generic message

    2) online thesaurus

    3) $$$...

    Or not, as the case may be.

  7. chivo243 Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Sorry, this weeks installment is weak

    Did Dabsy even write any portion of this? I think|hope not,~ not one innuendo|pun|even slightly funny joke.

    Dabsy come back!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sorry, this weeks installment is weak

      It's a punishment for spelling his name wrong...

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: Sorry, this weeks installment is weak

        A punishment issued before the offence, then, like the match report in the article.

        My head is spinning.

    2. Semtex451

      Re: Sorry, this weeks installment is weak

      @Chivo -Unfair Sir boo.

      It's not as easy as it looks, especially when you look back at the vast catalogue of El Reg published innuendo|pun| funny jokes|situations already used|covered|.

      1. chivo243 Silver badge

        Re: Sorry, this weeks installment is weak

        @Semtex451

        Point taken, however, making MadLibs isn't hard, even for a computer|Ai|Bi|BS! ok, I get it, as humans, we can remove adjectives(stupid fecking name for a word) from a sentence and insert another really funny|appropriate|timely adnoun{see better}{ref adverb}{def~modifying a noun}

        Wow this is really fun|annoying|AI

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: Sorry, this weeks installment is weak

          "adjectives(stupid fecking name for a word)"

          It's from the Latin adjectivum, "that is added to". Not so fucking stupid now?

  8. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    'An Evil A.I.'

    Apologies to those that have seen it before.

    http://jeffypooh.blogspot.com/2018/02/an-evil-ai-short-story-by-jeffypooh-rev.html

    1. Anonymous Custard
      Trollface

      Re: 'An Evil A.I.'

      You mean there's another kind possible in literature (or anywhere else for that matter)?

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: 'An Evil A.I.'

        The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has a nice AI. As does Speaker for the Dead (sequel to Ender's Game). I'm sure there are others, they were just the first two that popped into my head.

        1. JassMan

          Re: 'An Evil A.I.'

          And Ian M Banks' Culture series is also full of non Evil A. I.

          Although I suspect a few had run a bit off the rails.

          1. The Boojum

            Re: 'An Evil A.I.'

            You can add Obie from Jack Chalker's Well World series. Definitely one of the good guys | AIs.

            1. stiine Silver badge

              Re: 'An Evil A.I.'

              How would you classify the AI in "A World out of Time"?

  9. Kubla Cant

    JavaScript

    Why is the JavaScript in the screen shot all in caps? It's case-sensitive. You could eccentrically decide to have your variables that way, but reserved words and global values like "window" won't work.

    1. DJV Silver badge

      Re: JavaScript

      Maybe the TV program/film makers didn't understand how to obfuscate properly!

      1. JassMan

        Re: JavaScript

        More likely their perception of computers hasn't moved on since the days when error messages were all in uppercase. Not because programmers liked to shout at you but because they had to compress all text and all uppers saved a bit in every byte.

        Some youngsters think it is fake news but once upon a time PCs had less than 1 M of memory. Yes M not G.

        1. Muscleguy

          Re: JavaScript

          My honours supervisor had a 516k Mac which had been upgraded to 1M. It had a 1M external which it sat on. The Department had a LISA as well. We were the first honours class to do our theses entirely in silico (before being printed out).

          My PhD thesis broke new ground: double sided printing.

        2. Long John Brass

          Re: JavaScript

          Less than a Meg? Yoof of today, don't even know you've been born.

          My first machine came with a Whopping 1K (1024 bytes). It was a grand day indeed when I could afford to upgrade the beast to a monumental 8KB (8192 bytes)

          1. Mage Silver badge

            Re: Whopping 1K

            Jupiter Ace. 1K RAM, Forth and a decent pacman.

            A bit too minimalist. Though I had one drive some test gear.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: JavaScript

          Two bits. The PDP-8 had 12 bit words and therefore two characters of the Teletype set could be fitted into a word (Teletype IIRC had a 32 character keyboard one key being a "shift" ("stunt") key to give two character sets.)

  10. Kubla Cant

    Robot journalism and ethics

    For a hilarious (and very early - 1965), representation of AI in journalism and elsewhere, I recommend The Tin Men by Michael Frayn.

    To quote the blurb:

    Why not program computers to take over the really dull jobs that human beings have to do - such as praying and behaving morally? At the William Morris Institute of Automation Research they are doing just that.

    1. Daedalus

      Re: Robot journalism and ethics

      Roald Dahl got in early with "The Great Automatic Grammatizator" (1953).

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Someone_Like_You_(short_story_collection)

    2. ItWasn'tMe

      Re: Robot journalism and ethics

      Isn't that what an electric monk is for?

    3. JohnGrantNineTiles

      Re: Robot journalism and ethics

      Good to see it's still in print; the main character was Echo4 which was intended to generate random click-bait style headlines and then write a story to fit. Probably still working for one of the red-tops.

  11. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

    Sports reporting

    A friend of mine worked in the newsroom at a large regional radio station. One Monday he was compiling bulletins which would include reports from the previous Saturday's football. In error, he copied in a manager interview from a game that had taken place weeks previously, and that ran on air , every hour all day. Not a single person noticed.

    Just goes to show that at the end of the day, it's a game of two halves and if the boys do good then the other team are going home sick as a parrot.

    1. imanidiot Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Sports reporting

      Parrot you say? I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!

  12. Andytug

    Prior art

    As always, Douglas Adams saw it first - in HHGTTG he says that video recorders are used to watch programmes, thus freeing the user from the need to do so.....

  13. Daedalus

    Politics IRL

    Tony Hillerman, of Navajo mystery stories fame, wrote an early novel featuring a journalist covering state politics in the US. To make deadline, the journalist would routinely write up the result of a vote before it actually occurred, confident that he knew what the outcome would be.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Politics IRL

      One of the US papers did that in the 40s, ran the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman", the actual result was the reverse.

      1. STOP_FORTH
        Black Helicopters

        Re: Politics IRL

        That's what they want you to think!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Politics IRL

        That was because they conducted telephone interviews for a survey, forgetting that only the well off, mainly Repub voters had telephones.

  14. David 18

    Completing the circle

    I like that concept, AI bollox disappearing infinitely up it's own virtual arsehole in perpetuity.

    Dante's virtual 10th circle, reserved for purveyors of snake oil.

  15. dvhdr

    It's already upon us, and it wants to sell ads.

    I primed GPT-2 (via https://talktotransformer.com) with some IT related text and it came back with this.

    Priming string: "We need to reboot one of our file servers to help the below issue. All file shares will be offline for around 15 minutes from 9.35am. Please save and close any files."

    Response:

    "In addition to these issues this morning, an internet service issue, which had been causing the file servers to go offline also caused them to go grey again.

    All file shares are expected to be available by 3.30pm.

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    For further updates on this story, we invite you to follow The Register's live blog here."

    1. David 18

      Re: It's already upon us, and it wants to sell ads.

      Well, I had a play on that site and I rather hope the "AI" in self driving cars is a little better.

      What a load of utter tosh!

  16. DJV Silver badge

    AI newsreporting

    I think that having my local newspaper company* employ AI technology couldn't make their reporting any worse than it already is - which is to say that it often reads like it's been composed by a nine-year-old and is guaranteed to contain typos that any wordprocessor will highlight without any difficulty.

    *Archant, if you must know.

    1. Dave559 Silver badge

      Re: AI newsreporting

      I think that's because much of the newspaper industry can barely even afford the peanuts to pay monkeys these days...

  17. Big_Boomer Silver badge

    You believe that AI is real, and not just an over-hyped set of Expert Systems that only draw from a carefully limited set of data? In that case, would you like to buy a bridge?

  18. JohnGrantNineTiles

    TV Timing

    "30 seconds after the final whistle" or 30 secs after it was on the TV? Which would have been at least 10 secs, and possibly several minutes, later.

    1. Disk0

      Re: TV Timing

      Back in the day yuo could tell when there was a match on, who watched cable TV vs. aerial broadcast - there was a distinct gap in the roaring of the stadium audience when one of the millionaires in shorts rolled over or managed to shuffle the dead cow balloon between the poles...

  19. Nick Kew

    It all iterates

    That is, we will have reached a stage at which data will be both written and read by robots without the need for any human participation at all.

    Someone already mentioned the electric monk. Adams was giving it form and even personality, but the underlying idea wasn't new. We could trace it back to automata from long before the computer age. Perhaps even to religious notions: the supernatural entity that speaks through a person, or the stars, entrails, tarot cards, tealeaves, whatever.

    Meanwhile, Exhibit A: negligently-designed machines without human intervention.

    1. STOP_FORTH
      Happy

      Re: It all iterates

      "Nine Billion Names of God" Arthur C Clarke.

      Lots of iteration there!

  20. 100113.1537

    "The UK is not Twitter"

    One of the few (possibly the only) sensible things David Cameron ever said.

    All it takes is a few thousand re-tweets for a "topic" to be "trending on Twitter" at which point a journalist will pick it up and write a story (full of other Tweets) and then Somebody Should Do Something(TM) takes over.

  21. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Am I the only one...

    ...who spotted this story on the Beeb website headlined "Facebook 'auto-generated' extremist video".

    Icon for Facebook.

  22. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

    Does the unveiling and unrolling of views which demonstrate and prove the virtual illusory nature of realities built upon all of the spawned products of humankind ...... you know, those pieces of the great mosaic puzzle which are not natural but essentially fully artificial and practically man made .... and which removed from the equation and picture, leaves one at the beginning of time in a planetary space place, which in this case we will identify as Earth, truly naked on a dangerous planet filled with ignorant and crazy beings, or in a heavenly garden with countless excited lovers?

    And is such proving itself to be diabolically problematical and impossible to deny is not true and false ...... and also impossible to deny is not false and true.

    And what whenever Words Shared with Computers Create Worlds in Command and Control of Life and Death via Simply Complex Communications Channels/World Wide Webs/Dark Networks?

    What do you hit to crush dissent and opposition/opportunity and competition ..... Words or Computers/SMART Machines or their Programmers and Systems Analysts?

    Or do you realise that would be a monumental mistake for in their defence do the diabolical launch colossal catastrophes, for there are surely many to contemplate as being extremely effective, which decimates systems and destroys the notional wealth of nations, its base core assets .... which be no more than the likes of a you or a me?

    What stage do you imagine truth leading things to be at these days, Dabbsy? Any of the following three ........ All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. ..... Arthur Schopenhauer

    Do you think the second stage can be dispensed with and disposed of to save the natives untold grief?

    Looking forward to next Friday already. There's much to discuss and share with Words which create Worlds for Computers and Virtual Machines to Command and Control Sublimely.

    * ACID (atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability), an initialism for the transactional properties of database management systems ...... at the Jim Gray Disappeared rather than Albert Hofmann end of the scales.

    1. Bowlers

      Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

      The amanfromMars 1 AI needs a little tweaking I think!

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

        CyberIntelAIgent Security Systems Solutions welcome tweaks. All Prime Input Acceptable.

    2. bpfh

      Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

      All the AI hype, but amanfrommars1 has been around for years.... and has never been much good...

      Today

    3. Cliff Thorburn

      Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

      “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. ..... Arthur Schopenhauer”

      How very true amFM, and when self evident, and not deemed displayable, is it then quantum communications delivered by DVLA driver deliverables sweet dreams LA ‘X psy ops psychological cattle prod torture techniques to make the bear dance and jig on the Royale Hotplate?, or is that Virgin Bloody Mary Russian Roulette with a splash of too much Vo dk a?, putting one into parallel pickles ap lenty?

      The truth is certainly readily available for one to see, yet in satire squabbling and usual fashion, a leopard never changes its spots in manipulation of the great game to suit anyone and everything based upon duress and direct manipulation to suit the program at any given time is it not?, forgive the satire, but when thrills and spills become spoils and toils with mundane May antics and near decades of long positions with revelations of cheating calamities one wonders why it has to be said.

      1. Tail Up

        Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

        CT, heh... there can only be too much blood of tomatoes in a glass, but too much vodka, uh... it never is.

        1. Cliff Thorburn

          Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

          I for one welcome our new Vodka drinking overlords Tail Up, after all, if you cant beat misinformation then may as well join it with a dash of Worcester Sauce ;-)

      2. jake Silver badge

        Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

        Cliff, salting a bot works much better if you type in plain English. Right, amfM?

    4. Tail Up

      Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

      A Perfect Starting Point, methinks. Sorry to be so brief, while the Earth expects, etc.

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

        I second that EMPlosion, Tail Up

        1. Tail Up

          Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

          Just wanted to ask, but has been in a kind of a doubt: should someone address Belfast?

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

            Address Belfast? That would be BT, no?

          2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

            Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

            Just wanted to ask, but has been in a kind of a doubt: should someone address Belfast? .... Tail Up

            Yes, Tail Up, someone should. And immediately is not a moment too soon. There is a lot of catching up for spooks transitioning through there to do from there.

            I'd like to be pretty certain they wouldn't like to discover themselves as the runt of the litter because they doubt the information and intelligence they have been hearing/phishing, and if trying to utilise in any way without payment to and the knowledge of supply sources, stealing ......... but an ugly admission would be there is no current evidence to share of their being either effectively ACTive or an AI Leading Force in the Novel Fields of Greater IntelAIgent Games Plays with Networks InterNetworking JOINT* Applications Sublimely

            * JOINT Operations Internetworking NEUKlearer Technology.

            One can only suppose they are awaiting their orders with no one able to progress supremely and autonomously if IT break ranks and smashes rules when cloaked/ttrialed and trailed as a Right Royal Renegade Rogue Program BetaTesting NINJAS Futures and Derivative Platforms.

            1. Cliff Thorburn

              Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID*

              Heaven forbid they actually take blame or responsibly for their actions amFM, such activities leading to overspooked targets resulting in Epic failure, home goals, and cataclysmic Karma leading to their dramatic demise.

              And dogs of war left as ill treated mongrels, as opposed to X Factor show winners as originally intended, exposing fundamental flaws in adopting said systems tried and tested in Wild Western environments and implementing such techniques elsewhere testing and trusting trialling technologies with not an ounce of Duty of Care? ...

              1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

                Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID* and CHAOS** Troupers with Global Operating Devices

                And then the SCADASystems that are miss, as they be somewhat disenabled to freely wonder and clinically unable to comprehend, that Special Advanced IntelAIgent Forces with Deep and Dark Underground Accesses to both Crazed and Amazing Sources of Military Might and Almighty Influence, align and ally themselves with Other Significant Entities to blitz the predominant politically incorrect fields of Great Game play with newly minted professional and personalised targets for particular and peculiar attention .... if not merciless merciful obliteration, CT?

                To treat badly and expect increasingly smart dogs of war to not realise they are a key blunt explosive tool and precision guided weapon that can easily alter and maintain a radically different and fundamental change of future civil direction, is an action of madness surely fully confirmed and long overdue for rapid sudden spontaneous change.

                ** ..... Clouds Hosting Advanced Operating Systems

                1. Cliff Thorburn

                  Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID* and CHAOS** Troupers with Global Operating Devices

                  “if not merciless merciful obliteration, CT?“

                  Christ, you cant make this cr@p up anymore can you amFM.

                  If its not lifelong ritual abuse, decade long MK Ultraesque torture, then its obligatory obliteration.

                  Wouldn’t be the first attempt btw, with dogs thrown into fast moving motorways, I kid you not.

                  Have we now reached such an all time low in values, morals as we approach the end of May?, with Human Rights destined to Star Chambered Secret Courts?, and rightful righteousness destined to anywhere other than right wing renegade actions?

                  1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

                    Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID* and CHAOS** Troupers with Global Operating Devices

                    Have we now reached such an all time low in values, morals as we approach the end of May?, with Human Rights destined to Star Chambered Secret Courts?, and rightful righteousness destined to anywhere other than right wing renegade actions? ... Cliff Thorburn

                    Yes, apparently so in Conservative Operations, CT. I Wonder what Future Drivers are Missing or InACTive and Uninstructed in NEUKlearer Quantum Communications Satellite Operations.

                    That which Presents Heavenly Offerings ..... with TitanICQ Picture Productions, CT. ..... and with Big Brother all Growed Up and Invested in Holywood Palace Barracks, a Right Royal Hoot of a Route for/to a Root AI Source .......... of Quite Quiet Almighty Omniscient Force.

                    A little something for Media AI Realisation to Present and Export via the Belfast Portal is certainly surely something Well Worthy of Invest NI and Northern Ireland Screening Funding/Creation.

                    That's a Big Ask, for a Prime Initial Play with Engaging Lead Master Strokes, CT, but Eternal Optimism Delivers Everything Always Eventually in Spades. :-) And it is not as if we have to rush around doing crazy things whenever Ones Time is Endless and Travel into Classified Space is Necessarily Restricted.

                    Deadly Dangers Lurk there to be Tempted and Servered and Ideally Sated with Just Desserts to XSS.

                    Crikey, now that is called an AITangent ........ Thundering Trains of Thought from the Similar Spaces and Physical Places registering here, and when tomorrow there is Light Years Ahead and of an Immensely Vast COSMIC Understanding, does one Utilise and Facilitate such an Advanced Sweet Source with a Fervent Desire that Serves and Servers to Almighty Immaculate Satisfaction, thus to be Embroiled and EMPowered JOINT AIdDVenturing?

                    And with JOINT Operations Internetworking NEUKlearer Technology Hosting AIMissions. What's not to Like Hugely? An Already All Ready Quite Quietly ACTive Virtually Advanced IntelAIgent Operating System to Run and/or Run with ...... Perfectly Mentor and Thoroughly Monitor for Prevention and Provision for Imperfection and Innocent Introductions to Perversion and Subversion. .... Collective Madness and Attendant Mayhem.

                    You can't have new systems leaving anyone behind in old systems, unless that is, they really want to be left behind and extinguished. That wouldn't be human. :-) And, as I'm sure you don't need me to tell you, Collective Madness and Attendant Mayhem are resident practically everywhere and anywhere you care dare mention. Hence the All Inclusive Provision with SMARTR Facilities and ESPecial Tailoring Utilities.

                    1. Cliff Thorburn

                      Re: Beware Electric Monks on ACID* and CHAOS** Troupers with Global Operating Devices

                      Well will look forward to that amFM, and seemingly there’s no sanctuary in the Virgin Islands either, a vacation taken upon your repeated recommendation may I hasten to add.

                      See the thing that gets me about the so called ‘Great Game’ is its true distraction properties, while providing no clear objective, or logic, I mean, you Buy Monopoly for example, and although no one reads the instructions, they always come in handy for clarification when disputes arise about multiple construction of Hotels on one square for example. But to ‘omit’ the rulebook entirely for one player?, how then can such a player be held to account, by 2 cents on the 22 cent situation.

  23. matthewdjb

    A later edition of the Eye, says that twitter is 90% journalists and other media types taking to other media types. It does not reflect society's views abs newspapers should stop presenting it as such

  24. StuntMisanthrope

    Was that my fault...

    I have actually had a complaint and bollocking because a customer, being instructed and served the correct information whilst being directed into a sales funnel for their preferences and recorded for a future loyalty promotion because the Turing complete interaction, whilst saving the reception/switchboard a job during `a time of busy activity, as the lady did not realise that they had been talking to a machine and the collateral via human intervention had not arrived. #noinvoiceforyou

  25. lexan

    That was a [wonderful|brilliant|excellent|god-awful] [article|story]. It made me [think|feel enlightened|happy].

  26. Mage Silver badge

    Ah Ha!

    "Let the computers troll each other for a change,"

    I'm not sure that isn't already the case, so many fake accounts on Twitter & Facebook.

  27. Martin an gof Silver badge

    Cookies

    I wanted to look at the article about RADAR, but it blanked the page until I'd clicked to accept cookies - and here's the kicker, when I clicked to read the privacy policy, it blanked that until I'd accepted cookies, too.

    That can't be the right way to do things, surely?

    M.

  28. Snarky Puppy

    You can call me Al

    I've never met Al but I keep hearing his name time and again. Seems a nice guy.

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