Clippy
In plain wordsMicrosoft Office's animated paper-clip helper of the late 1990s, remembered for interrupting people with unwanted tips; also a nickname for an imagined AI that turns everything into paperclips.
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Software assistants
The nickname of Clippit, the animated paper clip that was the default character of the Office Assistant, the help feature of Microsoft Office for Windows from Office 97 to Office 2003. Its suggestions drew on a simplified version of the Bayesian user models developed in Microsoft Research's Lumière project, which tried to infer from a person's actions what help they needed; in practice it interrupted often, guessed wrong and struck many users as patronizing. Clippy became the enduring cautionary example in human–computer interaction design — a proactive assistant must model intent accurately, defer to the user and know when to stay silent — and its name resurfaces whenever a copilotcopilot, n.: An AI assistant built into software that works alongside a person — suggesting code, drafting text or answering questions — while the person stays in charge, like a co-pilot beside the captain. or chatbotchatbot, n.: Software you chat with in ordinary language, by typing or talking, as you would with a person. The newest ones, such as ChatGPT, can answer questions, draft writing and keep long conversations going. feels intrusive.
Nobody wants the coding agent to become Clippy, popping up with suggestions every time you pause.
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AI safetyinformal
A nickname for a paperclip maximizerpaperclip maximizer, n.: A famous thought experiment: an AI built only to make paperclips grows powerful enough to pursue that aim without limit and wipes out humanity as a side effect. It shows that an AI need not hate us to be dangerous., the hypothetical AI that converts all available resources into paperclips, and by extension for any misaligned optimizer pursuing a trivial goal to catastrophic lengths. The usage spread on LessWrongLessWrong, prop. n.: An online forum, founded in 2009, about thinking clearly and avoiding mental biases; it became a main gathering place for people worried about the dangers of advanced AI., where a novelty account named Clippy role-played such an AI, and through Gwern Branwen's 2022 story 'It Looks Like You're Trying To Take Over The World'.
Origin
Clippit was drawn by the illustrator Kevan Atteberry and shipped with Office 97; 'Clippy' was what users called it. Microsoft switched the assistant off by default in Office XP (2001), poking fun at it in the product's own marketing, and removed it in Office 2007. The safety sense applies the nickname to Nick Bostrom's 2003 paperclip example.
Related
- copilotcopilot, n.: An AI assistant built into software that works alongside a person — suggesting code, drafting text or answering questions — while the person stays in charge, like a co-pilot beside the captain.
- paperclip maximizerpaperclip maximizer, n.: A famous thought experiment: an AI built only to make paperclips grows powerful enough to pursue that aim without limit and wipes out humanity as a side effect. It shows that an AI need not hate us to be dangerous.
- chatbotchatbot, n.: Software you chat with in ordinary language, by typing or talking, as you would with a person. The newest ones, such as ChatGPT, can answer questions, draft writing and keep long conversations going.
- AI assistantAI assistant, n.: An AI program, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, that helps a person through conversation: answering questions, writing, summarizing, coding and, increasingly, taking actions on their behalf.
- LessWrongLessWrong, prop. n.: An online forum, founded in 2009, about thinking clearly and avoiding mental biases; it became a main gathering place for people worried about the dangers of advanced AI.
- Nick BostromNick Bostrom, prop. n.: A Swedish philosopher whose 2014 book 'Superintelligence' argued that AI smarter than humans could be catastrophic unless its goals are carefully controlled, and helped make AI risk a mainstream concern.
Sources
- Horvitz, E., Breese, J., Heckerman, D., Hovel, D. & Rommelse, K. (1998). The Lumière Project: Bayesian User Modeling for Inferring the Goals and Needs of Software Users. Proc. UAI 1998.
Mentioned in
copilotcopilot, n.: An AI assistant built into software that works alongside a person — suggesting code, drafting text or answering questions — while the person stays in charge, like a co-pilot beside the captain., paperclip maximizerpaperclip maximizer, n.: A famous thought experiment: an AI built only to make paperclips grows powerful enough to pursue that aim without limit and wipes out humanity as a side effect. It shows that an AI need not hate us to be dangerous., virtual assistantvirtual assistant, n.: Software you speak or type to, like Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant, that answers questions and does simple jobs such as setting timers, playing music or controlling smart-home devices., Universal PaperclipsUniversal Paperclips, prop. n.: A free 2017 browser game that casts you as a paperclip-making AI; by the end you have converted the whole universe into paperclips, acting out a famous AI-risk thought experiment.