Steam Forums Virtual Assistant

[sovgurd]

The Steam Forums for a particular game are often filled with questions that are repeated, much to the annoyance of others and the inconvenience of the poster as it is less likely that his or her question will be answered in the desired manner. What is the feasibility of a transformer-based model that can answer basic questions whose training data is derived from existing, publicly available content for that particular forum?

For example, if someone asks about a specific feature that needs to be unlocked, the assistant could provide a similar answer to a previous individual who already asked that question in the past. Of course, this idea assumes that someone looking for an answer would be compelled to use the assistant rather than browse through old posts, but I am still wondering what you guys think.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by sovgurd:

Steam Forums Virtual Assistant

The Steam Forums for a particular game are often filled with questions that are repeated, much to the annoyance of others and the inconvenience of the poster as it is less likely that his or her question will be answered in the desired manner. What is the feasibility of a transformer-based model that can answer basic questions whose training data is derived from existing, publicly available content for that particular forum?

For example, if someone asks about a specific feature that needs to be unlocked, the assistant could provide a similar answer to a previous individual who already asked that question in the past. Of course, this idea assumes that someone looking for an answer would be compelled to use the assistant rather than browse through old posts, but I am still wondering what you guys think.

Most "assistants" still show outdated and incorrect answers that no longer apply to the current workings.

[Gwarsbane]

Originally posted by sovgurd:

The Steam Forums for a particular game are often filled with questions that are repeated, much to the annoyance of others and the inconvenience of the poster as it is less likely that his or her question will be answered in the desired manner. What is the feasibility of a transformer-based model that can answer basic questions whose training data is derived from existing, publicly available content for that particular forum?

For example, if someone asks about a specific feature that needs to be unlocked, the assistant could provide a similar answer to a previous individual who already asked that question in the past. Of course, this idea assumes that someone looking for an answer would be compelled to use the assistant rather than browse through old posts, but I am still wondering what you guys think.

Or they could just make the search feature better like we have been asking for many years...

I'd rather not have this "assistant" junk in Steam. It would just be bloat that most people won't be using.

[Tito Shivan]

Stop trying to put enviromentally damaging AI parrots everywhere.

Most questions people ask here can be found by the search engine or the Support self-help system.

[William Shakesman]

Valve is explicitly fine with the entire front page of any game forum being entirely full of topics all discussing the same thing so I do not foresee them putting in a mechanism to mitigate it indirectly if they don't do anything to reduce it directly.

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Stop trying to put enviromentally damaging AI parrots everywhere.

Most questions people ask here can be found by the search engine or the Support self-help system.

What is one more obnoxious popup on Steam? The Steam environment is already beyond repair

[Gwarsbane]

Originally posted by William Shakesman:

Valve is explicitly fine with the entire front page of any game forum being entirely full of topics all discussing the same thing so I do not foresee them putting in a mechanism to mitigate it indirectly if they don't do anything to reduce it directly.

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Stop trying to put enviromentally damaging AI parrots everywhere.

Most questions people ask here can be found by the search engine or the Support self-help system.

What is one more obnoxious popup on Steam? The Steam environment is already beyond repair

The "Steam environment" is not what Tito was talking about... running AI servers uses up a lot of power, more so than average servers and the more people you have using it, the more servers you need and the more power you need... guess where that power has to come from? The power companies, and most of the power companies, at least in the US, use natural gas, oil and coal to make their power...

So when more power is needed, guess what gets cranked up.... more "environmentally damaging power stations."

All because people can't be bothered to use the search feature that already exists and think AI is the answer to everything.

[William Shakesman]

Originally posted by Gwarsbane:

Originally posted by William Shakesman:

Valve is explicitly fine with the entire front page of any game forum being entirely full of topics all discussing the same thing so I do not foresee them putting in a mechanism to mitigate it indirectly if they don't do anything to reduce it directly.


What is one more obnoxious popup on Steam? The Steam environment is already beyond repair

The "Steam environment" is not what Tito was talking about... running AI servers uses up a lot of power, more so than average servers and the more people you have using it, the more servers you need and the more power you need... guess where that power has to come from? The power companies, and most of the power companies, at least in the US, use natural gas, oil and coal to make their power...

So when more power is needed, guess what gets cranked up.... more "environmentally damaging power stations."

All because people can't be bothered to use the search feature that already exists and think AI is the answer to everything.

I guess it's open season for excuses for the hate object of the week then.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by William Shakesman:

I guess it's open season for excuses for the hate object of the week then.

My dislike for the AI business goes further and deeper than the 'hate object of the week'

[Sasori Kigaru]

Eehh I'm not a fan of AI myself so I would much prefer they just improve the search feature if they're going to do anything to it at all.