Humour

Driving Ms Moody

T A Balasubramanian writes about a new software agent called Ms Moody, which recognizes and eradicates abusive comments

Once again, we return to visit the Techno Over-exposition of Geeks and Gizmos for Lazy Enterprises (TOGGLE), an IT trade convention. You, Papyrus Bytewala, CIO of Baffle Corporation, are accompanied by Danny DeVito, your CTO and associate—who happens to be a biped walking humanoid.

“Well, well, well, so we meet again,’’ says a familiar voice. It is none other than Gene Hackman, the exuberant CEO of Virus Busters.

“Ah, Gene, you seem to be living here,’’ chuckles DeVito, looking happy to connect with his old Hollywood buddy. “And what new devil of technology are you unleashing upon us now?’’

“Hmm, since we are talking of devils, we have on hand here a very special tool that should make life easier for jittery CTOs,’’ says Hackman, with a crooked grin. “But before I start bombarding you with my sales pitch, did you know that social psychologists have found that if you are using technology that reduces your sense of your own identity-a process called de-individualization-you are less likely to stick to social norms?’’

“Hey!’’ says DeVito, with a blank look. “Do you mind using plain English? I know we CTOs are prone to use jargon, but this is way out of my league.’’

“Oh, sure, Danny,’’ laughs Hackman. “My friend Nicholas Monitor says that with online communication such as email, chat forums or blogs, we become psychologically ‘distant’ from the person we are talking to-and less focused on our own identity. As a result we are more prone to aggressive behavior.’’

“Now that is something we can follow, eh, Papyrus?’’ says DeVito, looking at you.

“We can both relate to that,’’ you chip in. “Recently there has been a sharp increase in the volume of abusive language on the Baffle website. Not because our visitors have become degenerates, I presume. It is likely due to our new commenting facility on all articles, giving people the chance to share their thoughts and opinions across the site.’’

“Ah, precisely what I was saying,” sighs Hackman, with a pleased look. “At Virus Busters, I am particularly conscious of this trend. As the moderator, I keep an eye on all comments and I am required to remove any that break our House Rules. This means I read a lot of comments—I read about 550 last week. While most of them are perfectly polite, there's a stubborn minority that are rude, intentionally provocative, or just plain abusive. It seems people will say things online that they would never say face-to-face.’’

“You know, Gene—I have a theory about why people behave so rudely when they get online,’’ you say. “Maybe invited commenting is treated, by most people, like a casual bar-side conversation. The bar-side argument is an enjoyable game. No strong views or deeply held convictions are necessary to engage in a lively dispute. Bar regulars will often start an argument about anything, just for the fun of it.’’

“Quite so. They don't necessarily expect to be taken seriously and the social rules are fairly relaxed. And Monitor observes that since comments appear in cold text-without important cues like friendly body language-they can easily seem to be more offensive than if they were to be spoken in person.’’

“Which brings me back to your devil, Gene,’’ says DeVito.

“Ah, yes-we have a new software agent. We call her Ms Moody, just to get our customers feeling more comfortable. She is based on a learning algorithm that has been trained to recognize abusive comments. She can take down or quarantine comments that cross a predetermined abuse threshold. And she can be set to roam every corner of your Intranet-or even the Web—to interpret the emotional content of what someone has written.’’

“And Ms Moody works?’’

“Of course, Danny. As a test case, we tried her out on the random Tweets-those comments that appear on the micro-blogging site, Twitter-that greeted the announcement of our latest Virus Buster update program. Ms Moody determined that most of the 2400 messages she analyzed were 'neutral', while 7% were 'positive' and 4% 'negative'.’’

“So you are saying that Ms Moody can ferret out the stinkers and the riff-raff who send reckless comments on our website?’’

“Exactly. You know how moderating those blog discussions can be a time-consuming job, needing much judgment to spot when a heated exchange crosses over into abuse. Work is underway to expand Ms Moody's comprehension abilities-for example, to decide whether text is intelligent, sarcastic, or political in tone. Now imagine if Ms Moody was there helping you spot those rude comments-and siphoning them out into a safe space.’’

“Wow! You seem to have an over-zealous Emily Post in the works, Gene,’’ laughs DeVito.

“Well, Danny, over-zealous is what we think you would love. We rely on spelling and grammar checkers to pull us up on poorly worded emails and documents. Maybe in the next stage you will also rely on agents like Ms Moody to warn you that you have hit the wrong note in an email complaining about an undelivered purchase, or that a comment does not make you sound intelligent enough.’’

“She mines your language to make you mind your language?’’

“Ha, ha. Just think of the help you could use. Chief executives trying to send the right message to shareholders, or to the media. Salespeople looking for a perfect pitch that optimizes their emails to best engage potential customers.’’

“Ms Moody seems to be what the doctor ordered for Baffle, Gene.’’