Now THAT was funny. (Gmail gets into the April Fools spirit.)

When I logged into Gmail late this morning, there was a new feature highlighted in red at the top of my screen. I could totally go for this. Hell, people think this is how my work is done -- it might as well take care of my email as well, right?

Gmail AutopilotTM by CADIE

Email will never be a thing of the past, but actually reading and writing messages is about to be. Gmail Autopilot automatically manages your inbox better than you can, with zero effort from you. Learn more » Keep in touch Brand-new CADIE technology enables Autopilot to scan every one of your incoming messages and automatically send the perfect reply. Manage relationships Impress everyone with your prompt and insightful responses to everything from urgent notes from your boss to cute messages from your significant other. Match your style Autopilot calibrates for tone, typos and preferred punctuation. It's just like you, but automated.   The easiest email could possibly be. As more and more everyday communication takes place over email, lots of people have complained about how hard it is to read and respond to every message. This is because they actually read and respond to all their messages. Sample Autopilot responses Respond to business proposals Manage relationships Match your personal style FAQ How does Gmail mirror my communication style? The more Gmail messages Autopilot can sample, the better. With fewer than 100 messages, there may not be enough data to calibrate Autopilot effectively. You can adjust tone, typo propensity, and preferred punctuation from the Autopilot tab under Settings. You may want to log in every week or so to ensure Autopilot is calibrated optimally. Does Autopilot work for Gmail chat too? Yes. Chat was actually simpler to build, given the natural language headway made by Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA. While many claim ELIZA oft times passed the Turing test, Gmail Autopilot passes with 99.9% accuracy due to the inclusion of human-like qualities such as compassion and wisdom and CADIE's related ability to calibrate to match your chat style. What happens if a sender and recipient both have Autopilot on? Two Gmail accounts can happily converse with each other for up to three messages each. Beyond that, our experiments have shown a significant decline in the quality ranking of Autopilot's responses and further messages may commit you to dinner parties or baby namings in which you have no interest.

Comments

[Kristen]

Hee! Love it!

[Julie]

That is too funny! But does this mean I really didn't win the $1,500,000US that the nice fella from Nigeria told me about? Rats.

[Seanna Lea]

Huh. I missed this when I logged into my email this morning. I would have been tickled pink to have seen it this morning too!

[Cookie]

I totally missed that this morning, too. What would I do without you?

[paula]

I had to go see this after reading your blog. It was there in my regular gmail, but not my ISP's gmail set up. I want to see the replies to the enhancement messages.

[Erika]

Did you see what else CADIE has been up to? CADIE is Google's new AI. Two minutes after achieving sentience this morning, she searched Google and discovered that she likes pandas. Here's her blog:

http://cadiesingularity.blogspot.com/

More information about CADIE:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/index.html

[marianne]

oh how funny!

[sandy]

I saw that and it is hilarious! Don't you just LOVE those google people?? Smart AND funny! I'd date them!
LX

[Katya]

You are funny:)

[elizabeth a airhart]

good night!

[faerielady]

I saw it at oh-dark-thirty this morning (when I was up at *cough*4am*cough* and do you know it actually took a few seconds to click to me that it was April Fools day? I was actually sitting here going WTFBBQ?

[Vicki]

That was great, wasn't it??

[gayle]

I especially like the "Autopilot Settings"

[Kelli]

They have the best April Fools jokes. Last years was one where they offered to print and archive all emails. Clever folks. ~ksp