The next time someone throws you shade for pulling out a steamy romance novel on the train or bus, just tell them that it’s okay, because Google’s doing it, too. For the past few months, Google has been feeding 2,865 romance novels into an artificial intelligence engine to help loosen it up — linguistically at least, BuzzFeed reports.
The goal is to make the Google app — known for its stiff, factual style — more conversational. “It would be much more satisfying to ask Google questions if it really understood the nuances of what you were asking for, and could reply in a more natural and familiar way,” Andrew Dai, the Google engineer running the project, wrote in an email to The Verge. “It’s like how you’d rather ask a friend about what do to in a vacation spot instead of calling their visitor center…”
I – Word Understanding
Throw shade – to criticize publicly
Stiff – very formal
Nuances – very small differences in meaning, feeling, color, etc.
II – Have Your Say
1. What are your reading preferences?
2. What do think about reading romance novels?
3. Do you have any suggestions how to make AI a good conversation tool?
4. Why do we need AI for conversation?
5. Conversation has long been celebrated as a social art. But today it’s increasingly being replaced by self-promotional electronic posts and superficial digital chatter. Is it ok to replace the art of conversation with digital connections?
494 Google’s AI engine is reading 2,865 romance novels to be more conversational
