Talk:2015: New Phone Thread

I feel the explanation could possibly give a sample text of what the person is actually trying to say 172.68.46.113 05:13, 4 July 2018 (UTC)Innertuber40

I have an alternate interpretation: The first thing I thought this comic was about is all the people who are typing on phones and the messages actually sent contain weird words any typos because of the phone's autocorrection feature (or swipe keyboards which are accurate most of the time but error prone nevertheless). So this particular phone actually is sending what the user is writing (or wants to write) and does not change the message. Examples: http://barabare.blogspot.com/2011/05/funny-phone-t9-typo-errors.html [edit:] I mean, this goes so far that occasionally on online forums you see people with the message "Writing from phone, message may contaion errors. Sorry" or something like that in their signature. So a phone that actually writes what you are typing (or what you thought you were typing) might actually be a good thing. Cueball is just astonished that his new phone does exactly that. [edit2:] But then again, some of the messages in the comic really indicate in the direction the current explanantion is going. So, nevermind :) Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 07:30, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

When I read it I also had that idea (being impressed by accurate typing) but it seemed too odd so I came to explain xkcd to look it up. I'm not convinced of either explanation at this point. For the current explanation (that the phone is autocorrecting to say spam) one would expect there to be a phone in the news doing something like that. This could be a hyperbole version of a phone is doing inserting product names like with BlackBerry expanding the acronym BB to their name on some phones. But I haven't heard of that anywhere and blackberry is not news. If someone knows of a current phone this behaviour is referencing please post a link? Thanks, rusl108.162.246.113 07:48, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Thought the same thing. Obscure subjects are of course a mainstay of xkcd.com, but in the past some Wikipedia research explains away the obscurity with certainty. Not this time.GODZILLA (talk) 11:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Putting the "artifice" into "artificial intelligence". I too didn't understand the strip at first... briefly considered reading it from bottom to top. Now I agree that the user's phone is censoring and rewriting everything, and we're seeing the censored version. Another real world reference: a forum where your posts are blocked without telling you; you see your posts in place but no one else does. I've used forums where some imbecile moderator blocked me that way from spite... of course THIS site's moderators wouldn't do that! (You don't like words in capital letters?? Uhoh.) Robert Carnegie [email protected] 162.158.154.121 11:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the “I’l never get a new phone” and “buy the new Mobile Pro 3” are completely inserted by the phone, not just modified user posts. They don’t seem to flow properly if we assume the user posted them, and we can see the surprise when the first of the two messages is posted; something that would fail to surprise the user to the degree he(?) is after already going through the rest of the messages. The “order now” message, in particular, seems a lot more like advertiser-speak than corrected user speak. Dyaomaster (talk) 21:15, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

“I’ll never get a new phone” sounds like it originally was "Forget it, i give up. I'll just get a new phone." which seems natural for the user to post. Probably the “buy the new Mobile Pro 3” was also a warning not to buy the phone, which was changed almost completely into an advertisement.172.68.62.16 00:08, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

There is a Doctor Who episode in which a Dalek speech module distorts statements in a similar, but much more spooky way. Fabian42 (talk) 07:09, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

possibly connected to just announced Google "Smart Replies"?

Google lately announced new function to their keyboard on Android: reading messages on others communicator (like Facebook Messanger) and suggesting several short replies to choose from. It might be connected. pm7 162.158.88.140 10:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I suspect that it's rather referencing the recent case of phones clandestinely sending random gallery images to ppl in the addressbook.141.101.96.196 11:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I think this happens to people who try to leak high-stakes information (or etc) without understanding what they are up against. I found this comic very validating to read. The point of the “order now” button is to make it clear that what we see was not written by the author. This happened to the author on Facebook, but once they tried to tell somebody it began happening on their messaging app too. Use a merkle tree messaging system that allows you to keep your private key offline if you’re saying something important. 108.162.219.142 15:39, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

OK, am I the only one here this has actually happened to? The Google keyboard often seems *very* reluctant to swipe-write insulting words, & it's especially frustrating when trying to write about the phone itself while it's doing things like changing "inaccurate" to "accurate" & "stupid" to "great". Note that the swipe action required to write the word "stupid" bears no resemblance to the swipe action for "great"; Sometimes the suggested words seem so obtuse it feels deliberate. (Note, it just did it to me again; I'm editing to correct "great" to "stupid") ProphetZarquon (talk) 20:11, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

EU copyright directive?

Might be related to contraversial article 13 of EU copyright directive which will be voted on today (5 July 2018) and which will in practice mandate automated censorship AI on all social networks and alike sites operating in EU. More info on https://saveyourinternet.eu/ (the same directive with dreaded "link tax" in art.11 --162.158.93.207 23:36, 4 July 2018 (UTC)