
Google praises 86-year-old for polite internet searches - Princeofpersia
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/16/grandmother-nan-google-praises-search-thank-you-manners-polite
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subzidion
My initial thought was that Google had been tracking all of its users for
politeness as some sort of experiment.

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komali2
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/](https://cloud.google.com/prediction/)

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

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BorgHunter
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.

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FussyZeus
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

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delinka
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.

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FussyZeus
I once got very frustrated with Siri until I realized I had left my earbuds
plugged in and the bell mic was hanging under my countertop.

Classic ID-10-T error.

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grkvlt
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL)

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stirner
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."

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droithomme
> "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.

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

Though they had Google dealing with their usual searches.

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edko
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.

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gnicholas
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...](https://medium.com/@nicklum/siri-shes-no-miss-
manners-600206840d9c#.ilzvue9tc)

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danso
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...](http://translation.babylon-
software.com/english/Mcmxcvii+\(roman+numerals\)/)

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...](http://foenix.com/BP/is-118/90-good-blood-pressure-or-
high-blood-pressure.html)

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derekp7
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.

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

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overcast
Grandmas are the best.

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5xman
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.

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dysan819
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.

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justinsaccount
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.

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

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switch007
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

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

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allemagne
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

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musesum
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.

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davidf18
"Open the pod bay doors please, Hal." "Open the pod bay doors please, Hal."
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIKBliboIo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIKBliboIo)

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

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jjp
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.

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

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

