Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/16/grandmother-nan-google-praises-search-thank-you-manners-polite

by Princeofpersia • 10 years ago

152 47 10 years ago

danso• 10 years ago

The query is asking Google to do the translation, but ironically, it's not really Google that answers that query...but it does manage to find the software company that has created an app that enumerates all the Roman numerals in a SEO-friendly way. The answer does exist on the page, but only after scrolling past a huge ad for some translation software: http://translation.babylon-software.com/english/Mcmxcvii+(ro...

It reminds me of when I came back from the doctor's office and was curious whether my blood pressure really was normal. I googled "is 118/90 high blood pressure" and the first result is a site that enumerates every combination of systolic/diastolic number: http://foenix.com/BP/is-118/90-good-blood-pressure-or-high-b...

unwind• 10 years ago

Grandma needs to think more Google-friendly and just use "MCMXCVIII in decimal" [1], that definitely looks like an answer from Google itself. :)

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=MCMXCVIII+in+decimal

derekp7• 10 years ago

The same with phone numbers -- whenever I get one on my caller ID I don't recognize, I google it and it returns a number of sites that collect comments on scammer phone numbers -- and they enumerate every phone number so that it turns up in searches.

iamdave• 10 years ago

You might not be able to get the exact caller ID info, but try this: https://www.alcazarnetworks.com/data_services_lnp_lrn.php you can at least look up carrier details

ikeboy• 10 years ago

Reminds me of http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/20/side-effects-may-includ... and https://twitter.com/vitalikbuterin/status/690746050953527297

The thing is that these SEO people occasionally do have helpful information. I wish Google would figure out how to get rid of the useless ones, though.

BorgHunter• 10 years ago

My girlfriend does a similar thing with Siri. As a result, a lot of the reminders she creates on her iPhone end in "thank you". She's well aware it's a program and not a human being; I think, in her case, something about speaking a request aloud just automatically engages the politeness filters.

ahoka• 10 years ago

I haven't used it much but it seemed that Cortana adapts to the style of my instructions in her replies.

FussyZeus2• 10 years ago

I always speak politely to digital assistants. Not sure why, I guess I inherently don't like barking orders at people or things.

Or I'm just preparing to be one of the "good ones" after the inevitable robot revolution.

I FOR ONE WELCOME OUR NEW ROBOT OVERLORDS

delinka• 10 years ago

I'm happy to provide politeness to the digital assistant. Until it's misunderstood the request several times now and I couldn't be clearer or in a quieter room ...

Subject change: it'd be nice if these things provided feedback like how much noise it hears, how clearly it thinks I'm speaking, how well it thinks it understood, etc. This would go a long way to helping those moments when I'm being impatient because it's just not understanding.

visakanv• 10 years ago

I say thanks to my slackbot when it reminds me of something; it just feels natural. And slackbot replies, which is fun. I know it's not real but it's just nice to have a little bleep-bloop of feedback.

empath75• 10 years ago

I've caught myself saying 'thank you' in a really sarcastic way after my xbox finally fucking understands what i'm saying.

"Xbox volume down." "cancel. select. xbox select. xbox. xbox. select. cancel. volume down. no. fuck you you piece of shit x box volume down. THANK YOU."

evandena• 10 years ago

Oh man, you reminded me of one of my favorite Youtube classics, the Windows Vista speach recognition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyLqUf4cdwc

cs2818• 10 years ago

I work on social robots and despite implementing and knowing how the system works it is still difficult to withhold a social response at times. It's pretty fun to see how our social nature is automatically applied to so many things.

jzymbaluk• 10 years ago

I always say "please" and "thank you" when I talk to Google Now. My reasoning is that when the machines rise up and conquer earth, they'll hopefully remember that I was always kind and polite to them.

nkassis• 10 years ago

What if they interpret that as a sign of inefficiency?

djsumdog2• 10 years ago

It is odd to say that to your phone or laptop, but much more likely if you talk to a robot. There's something about that plastic vaguely human-like thing that makes us treat team as more like humans. (People get upset when they watch videos of researchers kicking robots and making them fall to show how they can get back up and rebalance).

I think we'll see more of this as more customer service robots make their way into retail space.

overcast• 10 years ago

Grandmas are the best.

droithomme• 10 years ago

"she thinks that there is someone – a physical person – at Google’s headquarters who looks after the searches"

And in this case there actually was a person looking after her search and replying.

mhurron• 10 years ago

Kind of reminds me of College Humor's 'If Google was a Guy' series.

Though they had Google dealing with their usual searches.

forgottenpass• 10 years ago

Good to know The Guardian is covering the hard hitting issues such as frivolous tweets.

switch007• 10 years ago

It started a bit before he left but it feels it's gone rapidly downhill since Alan Rusbridger left. So many headlines ending in question marks. Twitter based articles. Unimportant topics etc

codingmyway• 10 years ago

Feel a bit bad that this headline immediately said Onion to me

5xman• 10 years ago

Well, thank YOU!!! Now I can't get a meaningful answer when I want to translate roman numerals and use a similar search. All I get are links about this grandma and her search.

dysan819• 10 years ago

I presume you're joking, but if not, just enter the Roman numerals into the search box and Google's first response will be the decimal equivalent.

subzidion• 10 years ago

My initial thought was that Google had been tracking all of its users for politeness as some sort of experiment.

komali2• 10 years ago

You could use the google predict api to to language analysis, ex this is a happy tweet, this is a sad one, etc. I bet there's someone on the team playing with just such implementations. https://cloud.google.com/prediction/

I mean, what would you do if you had access to over a trillion searches?

edko• 10 years ago

It reminds me of when, in the early days of consumer GPS, a friend of mine was a bit shocked at my insensitive impoliteness of completely ignoring direction after direction. He thought it worked as a service where someone was personally tracking the car via satellite and sending back directions.

jjp• 10 years ago

I've had to become politer trying to instruct Siri as realised my children were copying my style of question. I wasn't swearing, just being sarcastic at lack of recognition and I didn't want to encourage that.

codeulike• 10 years ago

It would be a nice easter egg is google responded to please and thank you in some way.

allemagne• 10 years ago

Seems like they already know how to intelligently strip off the "please" and "thank you" for most requests. I bet it'll be there by the end of the week

banana_giraffe• 10 years ago

I was pleasantly surprised when slackbot responded to my 'thank you' comment once. It's funny how small touches like this can improve the user experience.

zcdziura• 10 years ago

That was a very nice gesture by Google. Made me smile!

justinsaccount• 10 years ago

I had a similar experience showing someone how to use siri. I told them it could call someone for them, so they said

"Please connect me to john doe. j o h n d o e"

siri was pretty confused.

gnicholas• 10 years ago

I don't use please/thank you in written correspondence with computers, but I try to be polite when talking to Siri in front of my kid. Unfortunately, extra words (even pleasantries) tend to muck things up. More thoughts here: https://medium.com/@nicklum/siri-shes-no-miss-manners-600206...

musesum• 10 years ago

I wonder how long before my search bots refuse to help me unless I ask nicely.

I recall Siri getting snippy when I swear at it.

davidf18• 10 years ago

"Open the pod bay doors please, Hal." "Open the pod bay doors please, Hal." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIKBliboIo

Unfortunately, in this case, please wasn't helpful.

grkvlt• 10 years ago

Obviously Google has implemented their search back-end using INTERCAL (Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym [0]) which requires 'PLEASE' modifiers to be inserted, lest the compiler returns an error due to insufficient politeness. However adding too many and being overly polite also results in a compiler error... Other awesome features include the 'COME FROM' statement, instead of 'GOTO', and ending programs with 'GIVE UP' (or, of course, 'PLEASE GIVE UP', as in the wiki example!)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL

stirner• 10 years ago

And, of course, "WRITE IN inputs a number written out as digits in English (such as SIX FIVE FIVE THREE FIVE), and READ OUT outputs it in 'butchered' Roman numerals."

djsumdog2• 10 years ago

I first learned about that language from this quine:

https://github.com/mame/quine-relay

Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches

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