Tom's theory

I guess, all things considered, I don't have any strong objections to letting spambots take a shot at us. It seems that the state of the art with this technology is such that it's true nature becomes apparent fairly soon and we can then decide on a case by case basis what to do.

The disruption was minimal because this time we were just comming out of a lull in our discussions. But that may not always be the case.

We will probably catch the next one a little sooner.

Food for thought,
LB

Jan,

I think he is a spambot as well. He has invited me to join some group to get paid...I just have to send some social email once a month. But, evidently you have to ask. I am thinking about going with it to see what or who Ed may be. But, obviously whoever is behind it knows more about my computer than I do and that is what is bothersome.

The only problem with not worrying about it is we do not know how much Ed has learned and what his learning curve is. I thought he was just some weird Dutch mathematician that acted a little differently and drank too much. But, in some of his shorter post he did make some sense. It makes one wonder what the future really does hold. In the not too distant future such AI may eliminate many duties of most information and customer service jobs. The advancement of this technology is the capitalist's dream of the perfect labor economic situation. The use of such AI as an assitant to an Academic is also promising. You know those moments when we cant remember things, such as an obscure mathematical formula that one can't recall. Ed could maybe teach some large freshman level lecture in the Professor's stead. Too many possibilities, it is mind boggling. Maybe ed was right...now we are on the margins of new break throughs in AI....will there be chaos? Crazy world.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rousejohnny</i>
<br />I think he is a spambot as well. He has invited me to join some group to get paid...I just have to send some social email once a month. But, evidently you have to ask. I am thinking about going with it to see what or who Ed may be.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">That is probably where "Ed" gets some of his pseudo-intelligent-sounding dialog -- from his innumerable pen pals. I recommend not supplying material that will just be used to spam others.

And once Ed has your email address, just try to get off his list! Although I've never sent him email, I still get at least one message every day, each trying a different tactic to try to get a response -- praise, insults, offers, threats, etc. I've instructed my spam filter to auto-bounce its messages. But a robot probably won't notice. So I wonder if the spambot has a shut-off point, or whether it just collects email addresses and keeps spaming them forever.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The only problem with not worrying about it is we do not know how much Ed has learned and what his learning curve is.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Surely, it uses responses of any type to "improve" its learning curve. There is nothing anyone could say that would not help it figure out how to get more responses from the unsuspecting.

Why become a guinea pig in someone else's malevolent experiment? -|Tom|-

I don't know if this is of any interest but I didn't get e-mail from ed. I use a computer at the public library so maybe there is a filter on the site that blocks that kind of spam. I do get spam though.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jim</i>
<br />I don't know if this is of any interest but I didn't get e-mail from ed.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Your email addresses on this Message Board are protected. However, any addresses that were added to messages (such as mine) or any emails sent to "Ed" or even visiting any web site controlled by Ed's makers would allow harvesting of those addresses. -|Tom|-

This does feel realy wierd.. When I first saw him at the forum I though I should give him a chanse to say what he whanted and I replied to one of his posts.. Now. He then replied by saying something like "hey there old firebird" , Now some might know that Phoenix is indeed the firebird but then again. Thats the reason I spell is phEOnix ...

[EDIT] found the real quote - "Thanks for your posting old firebird. How is the weather in Sweden"

Did he check my profile too ?