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Turd Fergusen

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A North Carolina family is sounding the alarm about a creepy “Santa” app that reportedly sent an inappropriate message to their young daughter.

The app, called Santa Call & Text You, features images of the bearded gift-giver and apparently allows users to receive a phone call or text message from Santa Claus.

After Ashley Adams’ 8-year-old daughter said “Hi” via the iPhone app, it responded by asking, “What are you wearing?”

“I was just in complete shock,” Adams told Fox & Friends on Monday. “It made me sick to my stomach.”

The child’s father took the phone from the young girl and asked several heated questions.

Full Story:
https://nypost.com/2019/07/22/family-says-santa-app-sent-inappropriate-text-to-young-girl/
 
I think someone is just looking for a payout, and the father is clearly an idiot that has no concept of A.I., he is so damn convinced that the machine sending those texts knew his daughter was 8!! Don't let that stop ya Adams, before you know it you will be on the run like Snowden (No pun Intended) for uncovering the NSA Mole operative!
 
I think someone is just looking for a payout, and the father is clearly an idiot that has no concept of A.I., he is so damn convinced that the machine sending those texts knew his daughter was 8!! Don't let that stop ya Adams, before you know it you will be on the run like Snowden (No pun Intended) for uncovering the NSA Mole operative!

Given that it's a Santa app, it's safe to assume that the developers absolutely do know that the majority of users are around 8 years old. The AI should have been designed accordingly and the developers completely fucked up (assuming this one sided story is accurate). You can't really give them a break because the "AI didn't know better"... it's the developers that didn't plan better.

If it's as he claimed, the developer REALLY should know how much people fuck around with AI if the bot is gathering information from people. Microsoft very publicly learned this lesson already with Tay.


If this is true there is no way it should stay on the market for another minute.
 
Given that it's a Santa app, it's safe to assume that the developers absolutely do know that the majority of users are around 8 years old. The AI should have been designed accordingly and the developers completely fucked up (assuming this one sided story is accurate). You can't really give them a break because the "AI didn't know better"... it's the developers that didn't plan better.

If it's as he claimed, the developer REALLY should know how much people fuck around with AI if the bot is gathering information from people. Microsoft very publicly learned this lesson already with Tay.


If this is true there is no way it should stay on the market for another minute.
AI isnt throwing it a bunch of canned questions to ask. Thats just a computer program. AI is designed to learn from stimuli and it will respond accordingly.

Long ago I used to mess around on IRC making egg drop bots. They are AI bots that learn from what they see and can have very realistic conversations because of it. I had another friend who was also making them. One day I decided to fuck his bot up while he was at work. Took me about two hours of spamming inappropriate things to completely ruin the bot to the point he deleted it and started over vs reteaching it.

More than likely "Santa" has been asked dozens of times what hes wearing...
 
AI isnt throwing it a bunch of canned questions to ask. Thats just a computer program. AI is designed to learn from stimuli and it will respond accordingly.

Long ago I used to mess around on IRC making egg drop bots. They are AI bots that learn from what they see and can have very realistic conversations because of it. I had another friend who was also making them. One day I decided to fuck his bot up while he was at work. Took me about two hours of spamming inappropriate things to completely ruin the bot to the point he deleted it and started over vs reteaching it.

More than likely "Santa" has been asked dozens of times what hes wearing...

Right, I completely understand how it works, but that's why the developers need to add in certain protections and plenty of oversight. They need to know that this kind of stuff would happen, and plan for it.

If they can't figure out a way to plan to block the creepy shit from a children's app, they don't have a viable business idea and should be dropped. And if they simply did not plan for it, it's their ignorance. I just don't see how having poorly designed AI that's horribly inappropriate for children is being treated like it was unpreventable here.
 
Right, I completely understand how it works, but that's why the developers need to add in certain protections and plenty of oversight. They need to know that this kind of stuff would happen, and plan for it.

If they can't figure out a way to plan to block the creepy shit from a children's app, they don't have a viable business idea and should be dropped. And if they simply did not plan for it, it's their ignorance. I just don't see how having poorly designed AI that's horribly inappropriate for children is being treated like it was unpreventable here.
My point was that as a developer you cant really add that in. What are you wearing is a very common question for those apps. Its not sexual in the context. Most of them reply back with cutesy things that are appropriate for children. Look at what the app replies with when the dad asks whats its wearing. Its not like you can just ban mundane things because a portion of the population chooses to sexualize everything they come across. Its not a bad word that can go on a block list. Its a sentence formed from multiple words that are used in all kinds of context that are perfectly appropriate for children.

How many girls on here remember asking a girlfriend in highschool what she was wearing while on the phone? Was it sexual? Or was it just a question formed from interest?

Why do we need to throw a fit over the most retarded things. AI on a kids app asking what a kid is wearing is the least of a parents online worries. Wait until you see the shit kids are doing on tik tok and other platforms. Small children at that. There are kids in my 10 yr olds class that are on snapchat because all the stupid filters are geared towards children while the app itself is geared towards very adult things. Maybe its not the developers or the AI that needs fixing. Maybe its the society that chooses to make everything about sex all while making it something taboo and shameful?

The AI used is a standard, fairly common version that is freely available. You have to remember that not all app makers are even developers. You can make an app just like this and know almost nothing of coding. All apps arent safe either. As a parent its up to you to make sure your kids are viewing appropriate stuff. I dont report every video my kid watches on youtube that says "fuck" despite being tagged as childrens content. I talk to my kids about why they cant watch that stuff and they comply or lose their computers/devices. Period. You cant shelter kids the way you want on the internet. Its just not possible, all you can do is make sure that they know the risks and are as safe as possible when using it.
 
@Sudonim I don’t believe that unfettered access to the internet and being able to trust an iPhone app specifically made for kids is the same issue at all. Apple touts itself as a company that provides safeguards for parents so kids can freely use a list of pre-approved apps with password protection for certain uses. Apple is a governing body over their platform, unlike the entirety of the Internet which has no watchdog and there’s no reason to keep this app on their market since it’s just not suitable for its target demographic. Many parents trust the Apple store to provide clean entertainment for their kids without needing to install a key logger or something ridiculous like that. So you’re talking about sheltering kids on the entire internet, where I’m talking about sheltering kids, as they advertise as possible, on Apple’s closed platform which they can easily do.

There is no way the “what are you wearing?” question was innocent. None. Probably a decade ago, that’s how sleazy dudes tried to get kids into sexy talk. Happened a lot, a LOT when I was a kid in chat rooms and it always turned to sex talk without fail. I think now the pervs just bust out dick pics instead, but this isn’t just an innocent teenage girl chat. Children who believe in Santa aren’t the types to chat about fashion anyway. I’m completely sure it was planted there for the purpose of sounding creepy, since I bet the developers did try to block racist terms and profanity. If they pretend it’s going to be safe for kids, someone needs to monitor what the A.I. is learning before it communicates with little kids.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the father should get anything from his complaint. I just think Apple needs to drop that shit ASAP if they haven’t already and refund any paying customers. A.I. is nowhere near ready for a kids app and I don’t know why anyone thought differently.
 
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