
How Algorithms discern our mood from what we write online - sinapticasblog
https://sinapticas.com/2020/09/17/how-algorithms-discern-our-mood-from-what-we-write-online/
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Transcription of zoom calls and other "recorded for quality assurance" support
calls are already being fed into sentiment analysis to determine customer
satisfaction.

Employees are evaluated based on positive caller sentiment.

Cheer pressure is now endemic and enforced by machine.

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anonzzz
Another data point to be sold, bought, and resold?

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Rumudiez
Just another point on ad performance marketing: it's only for those foolish
enough to believe it without putting in any critical thought.

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ddingus
_You might think the first step in sentiment analysis would be teaching the
computer to understand what humans are saying. But that’s one thing that
computer scientists cannot do; understanding language is one of the most
notoriously difficult problems in artificial intelligence. Yet there are
abundant clues to the emotions behind a written text, which computers can
recognize even without understanding the meaning of the words._

Without parsing meaning, the best case seems to be fairly shallow sentiments
based on equally shallow norms and trends.

I am not saying this has no value. In a "is good or bad" sense, sure.

The piece goes on to talk about gauging mental health...

That scares me more than a little. When ones scope of common expression lies
solid in the bell curve, maybe work of this kind can get us some basic
sentiments.

What happens when ones expression lies outside that curve some?

Nothing good.

A while back I had written, "go ahead, cut your nose off to spite your face"
in response to a Twitter discussion gone south, as so many do.

The humans in the discussion picked up on it, and we stepped back and picked
the thread up from a better place and carried onto an even better place.

A couple humans did not get it and some computer somewhere decided I was
advocating self harm.

In my appeal, I cited the phrase as colloquial speech, and dropped a Wiki link
that spoke to all that.

Took about 10 minutes for another human to assess things and undo the
moderation action.

Comics often talk about how a fairly significant percentage of people simply
do not understand satire. "The Colbert Report" stands as an exemplary example
of that dynamic in play. In my own circles, I know people who absolutely did
not grok the show was poking fun at them politically. It was profound to me.

Moderating various communities has been telling too. Some of us are adept at
inferring possible meaning from the written word. Most that are skilled, are
also shockingly unaware that is not _the_ meaning! Just a plausible one.

How many times have you been told, "no, this is what you meant" by someone
else absolutely sure they are a superior authority regarding your own intent?

Me? Too many times to the point where I will assert myself as the final
authority on my intent before something like that gets out of hand. That
should go without saying. A given.

That it must be?

No way will software get anywhere healthy on sentiments, and seems a
fantastically bad mental health idea. (However well intended it may be)

People have real trouble, frankly.

