Unbelievable ChatNannies 2

There's an interesting exchange going on at Waxy.org about the
ChatNannies technology, and author Jim Wightman is getting pretty angry and defensive. Of my earlier analysis he says:

...and I haven't been given the opportunity to talk about the AI, i've just been getting shit from you guys! No, I don't take criticism well, I'm not ashamed of that either, I'm a programmer not a public debator!! So cut me some slack! Just take a second to put yourself in my position - if you were attacked like this you wouldn't exactly be overjoyed to be releasing details either, would you? Oh and as for that Michael Williams piece - that dude is so out of touch with current technology its untrue.
posted by Jim Wightman on March 24, 2004 12:12 PM

....and his math skills stink! (see his calculation of how many chat hours have been performed in testing)
posted by Jim Wightman on March 24, 2004 12:19 PM

JW: You're the one getting hysterical here. You've made some incredible claims, and I don't see why you're angry that people are skeptical. All of my objections are quite reasonable. If you actually have accomplished what you claim to have accomplished, then you're right: I am out of touch with current technology.

In other forums you've compared yourself to the Wright brothers and other inventors who were doubted, but Thomas Edison and the Wrights were building on well-known principles. There's absolutely no precedence for what you claim to have done. If your claims are true, you've made a quantum leap into a future I doubt will ever be realized.

As for my math skills, I didn't make any comments about how many "chat hours have been performed in testing". I said that your two claims to have 100,000 bots and only 2,000 successful conversations don't reconcile, or at least not in a direction favorable to your position.

I've got plenty of patience. In fact, I'm eager to take the rest of the week off from work and analyze any source code you send me. I will not believe the results of any demonstration you or -- really -- anyone else provides until I see the source code.

If Matt Drudge posted a story claiming the moon is really made of cheese, I'd doubt it even if every other news source agreed. Why? Not because I particularly distrust the media, but because I know about astronomy and cosmology. I trust that the earth is round, despite never having seen it from space myself, because it makes sense. That the moon is made of cheese doesn't make sense, and neither do your claims.

posted by Michael Williams on March 24, 2004 12:48 PM

Repost of update to earlier post:
Via Apothecary's Drawer and Waxy.org I see that a grad student at MIT named Cameron Marlow managed to secure an exclusive interview with one of the NannieBots. From the transcipt he's posted it's virtually certain he was talking to a human posing as a robot.

The secret to a good scam is knowing how far you can go before you cross the line into absurdity. Jim Wightman doesn't have a clue.