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Too Much Free Time

by Mike Masnick

Fri, May 21st 2010 4:02am




Filed Under:
sarcasm, sarcasm detector


Who Needs A SarcMark When Your Computer Can Just Tell You When Someone's Being Sarcastic?

from the technology-to-the-rescue dept

Technology: the cause and the solution to all our problems. We've previously covered the attempt to create a proprietary fee-required sarcasm punctuation mark called the SarcMarc (which appears to just be a Hebrew letter), as well as its more sarcastic and open competition called the Open Sarcasm project. Clearly, the world is begging for better notification for when sarcasm occurs.

Apparently, some feel that the answer is to throw technology at the problem, rather than requiring explicit punctuation or markup. Some researchers in Israel (perhaps trying to take back the Hebrew letter the SarcMarc folks copied) have created a system that can automatically (mostly) recognize when someone's Twitter message is meant to be sarcastic (some of the time). So, go ahead and rejoice. We may soon reach the day when you will never again be fooled by missed sarcasm.

24 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    So what now?

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 21st, 2010 @ 4:26am

    Amazing. So Jews again prove their place in the world, and again it seems they can't cure cancer.

    But why did they close the California Pizzza Kitchen? I'm still waiting for an answer there.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 21st, 2010 @ 5:11am

    Any sarcastic comment on a forum is also followed by a couple more from people who just didn't get it. How is a computer program supposed to be able to accurately determine sarcasm when the general populous cannot?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    icon
    Sneeje (profile), May 21st, 2010 @ 5:15am

    Mike, I don't think this was created for the purpose of using tech to recognize sarcasm, so much as it was created for the purpose of seeing if it was possible (I don't know, just speculating). The fields of cognitive science and artificial intelligence are mostly driven forward by small steps like this. It seems like a nice, well-bounded problem to tackle with an experiment.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re:

    identicon
    Mike, May 21st, 2010 @ 5:35am

    Is your argument that computers cant do anything better or more accurately than a human? Hmmm... yes... please excuse me as I modify a word document in my mind :)

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Re:

    identicon
    froyo, May 21st, 2010 @ 5:36am

    Were you being sarcastic?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  

    Re:

    icon
    Peet McKimmie (profile), May 21st, 2010 @ 5:54am

    AFAIK it is intended for use when aggregating "Customer reviews" on sites such as Amazon, where a clearly sarcastic comment will often show up as a 5-star review to a search spider.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 21st, 2010 @ 6:48am

    "... as well as it's more sarcastic and open competition called the Open Sarcasm project."
    Extra apostrophe!

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  8.  

    Re: Re:

    icon
    Sneeje (profile), May 21st, 2010 @ 6:59am

    @froyo, no, and perhaps I'm being too generous. I explored those fields in college and this was exactly the sort of thing that would be tried, simply to test out the ability of algorithms to identify linguistic complexity.

    But as Peet says, none of that could be true, this could have been someone's application of technology for its own sake, not for any academic reason.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  9.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 21st, 2010 @ 7:16am

    i never heard of these idiots until they were on techdirt. mike, are you part owner of this stuff? you of all people should know the effects of discussing them at all.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  10.  
    identicon
    Pixelation, May 21st, 2010 @ 7:22am

    I guess I will have to develop undetectable sarcasm to escape the notice of our digital overlords.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  11.  

    Re:

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 21st, 2010 @ 8:30am

    I never heard of ^this^ idiot until he was on Techdirt.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  12.  

    hmmm . .

    identicon
    GrokIt, May 21st, 2010 @ 8:32am

    This is an important development.




    (if you can't tell when someone is being sarcastic then you have a real problem)

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  13.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 21st, 2010 @ 8:42am

    I bet someone is gonna patent this. You know, to promote innovation and all that.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  14.  

    Over-engineering the solution...

    identicon
    David T, May 21st, 2010 @ 9:54am

    At the end of a sarcastic remark, the person making the comment can type, "/sarcasm" (or /s, to make it short).

    Problem solved.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  15.  
    identicon
    Misterease, May 21st, 2010 @ 10:19am

    A sarcasm detector, that's a real useful invention.
    (Sarcasm detector explodes)

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  16.  

    Captain No Pants IN SPAAAACE

    identicon
    #captainobvious, May 21st, 2010 @ 11:36am

    I thought this was about

    "ICWSM – A Great Catchy Name: Semi-Supervised Recognition of Sarcastic Sentences in Online Product Reviews"

    If you don't know what it is, Google it.

    I'm glad Mike writes articles about the Twitterscape.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  17.  

    Re:

    icon
    Mike Masnick (profile), May 21st, 2010 @ 12:38pm

    Mike, I don't think this was created for the purpose of using tech to recognize sarcasm, so much as it was created for the purpose of seeing if it was possible

    I know... I was just joking. Badly, apparently. :)

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  18.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 21st, 2010 @ 12:54pm

    Next up to solve: Poe's law! Good Luck!

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  19.  

    Proposed Sarcasm Markup

    identicon
    Lawrence D'Oliveiro, May 21st, 2010 @ 9:18pm

    >

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  20.  

    Re: Proposed Sarcasm Markup

    identicon
    Lawrence D'Oliveiro, May 21st, 2010 @ 9:19pm

    Your comment system screwed that up. It should have been

    <![SARCASM[ ... this is how you do it ... ]]>

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  21.  

    Re: Re:

    icon
    Sneeje (profile), May 22nd, 2010 @ 8:04am

    Sorry, I see now. I think that's on me, not you.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  22.  

    Re: Re:

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 23rd, 2010 @ 10:23pm

    So, would that computer program be able to detect your sarcasm?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  23.  

    Re: Re: Proposed Sarcasm Markup

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 23rd, 2010 @ 10:28pm

    how the heck did you manage a greater and less sign on techdirt. I've tried, even with the Html exception rules, and failed. Let me see the source

    < >

    Testing

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  24.  

    Re: Re: Re: Proposed Sarcasm Markup

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 23rd, 2010 @ 10:28pm

    Wow, I actually got it to work. Cool, thanks.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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