Really? A sarcasm detector? Wow. You shouldn't have
- Reference: 1716207312
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/05/20/sarcasm_detector/
- Source link:
Because clearly the world's biggest problem was not having computers capable of rolling their eyes and saying, "Yeah, right."
Xiyuan Gao, Shekhar Nayak, and Matt Coler are the masterminds behind [1]this innovation , which was presented in all its sardonic glory on May 16 at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa. This earth-shattering revelation is part of a joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the Canadian Acoustical Association. Try to contain your excitement.
[2]
The secret sauce behind this sarcasm-detecting marvel involves analyzing speech for pitch, speaking rate, and energy, then transcribing it into text for sentiment analysis. To top it off, they sprinkle in some emoticons to reflect the emotional content. Nothing screams cutting-edge technology like the inclusion of little yellow faces.
[3]
[4]
"By integrating these multimodal cues into a machine learning algorithm, our approach leverages the combined strengths of auditory and textual information along with emoticons for a comprehensive analysis," said Gao, presumably without a hint of irony.
While this is undoubtedly a crowning achievement in human innovation, the researchers are already dreaming bigger. Gao notes the pressing need to incorporate a wider range of human expressions and gestures into their project, ensuring that no sarcastic eyebrow raise or air quotes go undetected. They're also eyeing the inclusion of more languages and the latest sarcasm recognition techniques. Because if there's one thing the global community needs, it's multilingual sarcasm detection.
[5]Among AI infrastructure hopefuls, Qualcomm has become an unlikely ally
[6]Gentoo and NetBSD ban 'AI' code, but Debian doesn't – yet
[7]Reddit goes AI agnostic, signs data training deal with OpenAI
[8]CoreWeave debt deal with investment firms raises $7.5B for AI datacenter startup
But this breakthrough isn't just about recognizing dry wit. The researchers believe their technology could revolutionize sentiment analysis and emotion recognition across various fields. Yes, you heard that right – your AI healthcare assistant might soon be able to tell if you're being sarcastic about your symptoms.
"The development of sarcasm recognition technology can benefit other research domains using sentiment analysis and emotion recognition," said Gao, with a straight face, we assume. "Traditionally, sentiment analysis mainly focuses on text and is developed for applications such as online hate speech detection and customer opinion mining. Emotion recognition based on speech can be applied to AI-assisted healthcare. Sarcasm recognition technology that applies a multimodal approach is insightful to these research domains."
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In a world fraught with real challenges, it's heartwarming to see that sarcasm detection is finally getting the attention it deserves. Kudos to the team for addressing such a pressing issue. No, really. We're absolutely thrilled. ®
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://acoustics.org/building-a-better-sarcasm-detector-asa186/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zktzpqjzz7xYKXEm3JnuhAAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zktzpqjzz7xYKXEm3JnuhAAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zktzpqjzz7xYKXEm3JnuhAAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/19/ai_ampere_qualcomm/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/18/distros_ai_code/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/17/reddit_signs_ai_deal/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/17/coreweave_debt_deal_with_investment/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zktzpqjzz7xYKXEm3JnuhAAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Training data
Yeah, right.
"pitch, speaking rate, and energy"
Okay, pitch, no problem. That is purely mathematical and easy to determine.
Speaking rate, no problem there either.
Energy ? How is that qualified ? Someone screaming at the top of their lungs makes a lot of noise, to be sure, but someone looking you in the eye at less than a meter from you with a gun in their hand pointed towards you can softly say "DON'T. MOVE.", and there will be a heck of lot of energy in there that I don't see a computer detecting . . .
Re: "pitch, speaking rate, and energy"
It's going to struggle with English sarcasm on energy.
My American and Canadian friends generally you can tell the sarcasm because of pitch and energy, they want you to know they are being sarcastic.
They struggle with sarcasm from Brits, Aussies and so on because we prefer to just deliver it dry, there's been many a time in a bar they didn't pick up on a comment for a good few minutes.
Let's see...
Feed it [1]Peter Cook's summary of the Jeremy Thorpe case and see how it copes with what is probably the finest bit of satirical work ever presented. Delivered in measured tones and without emotion - just as good satire should be. Bet it fails to spot a single joke!
[1] https://youtu.be/RuR7ORai3-E
Re: Let's see...
Thank you for the video link. Golden!
Not only dassic Peter Cook but also I remember the case at the time as I was puzzled how sergeant Wilson (Dad's Army) became involved in that unholy mess. (A different le Mesurier.)
" a pink oboe* player " - does depravity know no depths below which it will not sink?
* The Pink Oboe was the title of a 1959 Goon Show S9E11
Re: Let's see...
The thing the BBC did a few years back with Hugh Grant as Thorpe and Ben Wishaw as his young friend was excellent as well.
So when you phone
customer support and speak to bot/automated system it will hang up on you if it thinks you are being sarcastic with it. Great.
Re: So when you phone
Did you say "Great"? If yes, press 1, if no, press 2, if you were being sarcatic, press 3.
"sarcasm detection is finally getting the attention it deserves."
This is going to work in England where notoriously the more flesh they intend to strip from their victim the more deadpan the delivery?
How on earth does this breakthrough hope to distinguish between irony and sarcasm?
Intonation varies between languages, dialects, and even different generations and various groups within a generation (to distinguish themselves from the others presumably) and even between genders (sexes.) The rising intonation at the end of a sentence which is not a question is now as prevalent as it is irritating. Purposely (or maliciously) placing stress in the middle of words heretofore have remained unstressed seems a more recent innovation. Moreover the misplaced stress appears to maximally disrupt the rhythm and flow of the sentence. I assume it is an linguistic attention seeking behaviour.
One mandatory training set would have to be sir Humphrey's dialogue from Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister .
Yes, I can see this technology being one of the great breakthroughs of the 21st century and a massive boon to humanity generally relieving future psychotherapists of the tedium their routine consultations to concentrate or more serious cases.
I really do! (Pig's arse.)
The University of Groanagain going to knock over humour next?
We will follow their future endeavours with great interest.
Re: "sarcasm detection is finally getting the attention it deserves."
It's not hard, if it detects an accent identifiable as some sort of British (misidentifying Australian as British is acceptable), then simply hardwire the sarcasm meter to eleven.
Re: "sarcasm detection is finally getting the attention it deserves."
misidentifying Australian as British is acceptable - Acceptable! Not bloody likely mate!
then simply hardwire the sarcasm meter to eleven. - Too bloody right! You wouldn't be nailing legs on to a dead horse there!
Re: "sarcasm detection is finally getting the attention it deserves."
Please don't sell to Europe or I'll be in trouble.
And o course it will deal with Poe's law.
Not exactly
Because clearly the world's biggest problem was not having computers capable of rolling their eyes and saying, "Yeah, right." Well, there's your problem right there. Obviously, you've been trying to make your car go by pushing the speedometer needle, haven't you? That's not how any of this works.
Detection......
Quote (Oscar Wilde): “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.”
Well.....I suppose that means that intelligence has just been detected for the first time.......
.....about time too........................
Ha!!!! Recursion......Sarcasm about Sarcasm......
......how deep can an AC go??????
Like Polygraphs vs. Lie detection
Methinks this is akin to equating polygraph tests with 'lie detection'. How will it detect the difference between someone who is demonstrably incorrect, but believes strongly in what they are saying (see, e.g., Liz Truss 'I was right, but brought down by the 'deep state' left wing establishment', Tony Blair: 'I still believe that invading Iraq was justified and the right thing to do', Nick Clegg 'I promise that we will not allow the coalition government to increase student fees')* and those who are genuinely taking the pi*s? (See former President George H Bush, who I strongly suspect was making a little jest when he said: "the French have no word for 'entrepreneur' ".)
A polygraph only records a few real-time changes in physical measurements, heart rate, sweating, etc., and these are/were interpreted as being distressed due to telling an untruth, because, well, everyone has a conscience, don't they? Sarcasm is all in the mind of the speaker and audiences
* Politically required to be balanced.
Re: Like Polygraphs vs. Lie detection
But, but,... Liz Truss, Tony Blair, Nick Clegg and all "good" politicians are sarcasm incorporated. Politicians have been trained to speak bullshit with a straight face. They are trained to sell you a lie without twitching. How can you tell politicians are lying? Words come out of their mouths.
Therefore, train the sarcasm detecting LLM on politicians' speak and you are sure to be right all the time!
The "entrepreneur" quote was attributed to W Bush, not H. And like many famous quotes, it is apocryphal.
Need a different detector
While detecting sarcasm is good, what we really need is a BS detector to track politician and other would-be leader types. Some spew so much so fast that it's impossible to keep up with.
Re: Need a different detector
// hardly worth the trouble of coding an AI:
if( person_type == politician ){
BS_status = true;
}
Training data
Did they use The Reg's articles on anything made by Apple as the training data?