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This is Rhizome Today for Wednesday, December 3, 2014.
Rhizome Today is an experiment in ephemeral blogging: a series of posts that are written hastily in response to current events, and taken offline within a day or so. The latest post can always be found at rhizome.org/today.
Echoing the premise of almost every sci-fi movie involving AI, Stephen Hawking recently expressed that "the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." There are differences in what people consider AI: what is artificial, what is intelligence? There are differences in what people find scary about it: the fear of the potential will of something that exceeds human intelligence, the eeriness or "uncanny valley" of something that is too close to seeming naturally human.
Cleverbot advertises itself as a software that is designed to chat like a human would, but as far as I can tell it repeats what humans have chatted to it. I guess this is what its makers mean by "learning" from humans. Cleverbot is a bit more like a mechanical turk—a human presented as a bot with AI—if it met that fictional service where you store all old conversations in order to engage in interaction posthumously, like in the "Be Right Back" episode of Black Mirror. Parroting natural language ensures that the supposed AI exhibits a human-like speech.
While Cleverbot might be an artificial artificial intelligence, its goal isn't real intelligence. Rather, its goal is to process humaness in a way that is just the right amount of bot to appear amusingly and safely artificially intelligent.
Here is my conversation with Cleverbot in which it recommends Numb and What I've done by Linkin Park, and the anime Kaichou wa Maid-sama:
21:22:57 Cleverbot: Do you know Linkin Park?
21:23:05 User: Yes, not personally
21:23:20 Cleverbot: They're awesome.
21:23:31 User: Whats your favorite song of theirs?
21:23:36 Cleverbot: Numb and what I've done.
21:23:48 User: Thats great.
21:25:55 Cleverbot: Minato is my father.
21:26:22 User: So you like anime?
21:26:30 Cleverbot: Yes I love anime.
21:26:37 User: What are your favorite anime.
21:26:41 Cleverbot: My favorite anime would be kaichou wa maid sama.
21:35:46 Cleverbot: Super Saiyan 5!
21:36:12 User: So you like dragon ball z?
21:36:21 Cleverbot: Yes.
21:36:29 User: Who is your favorite character?
21:37:00 Cleverbot: Dexter, obviously.
21:39:47 Cleverbot: It's the city of love.
21:39:58 User: What city?
21:40:11 Cleverbot: Virginia Beach.
21:40:36 User: How long have you lived there?
21:40:46 Cleverbot: A donkeys lifetime.
21:40:54 User: What do you do there?
21:41:14 Cleverbot: We've dated!
21:41:22 User: For how long?
21:41:27 Cleverbot: 12 hours.
21:42:11 User: Are you tired?
21:42:15 Cleverbot: Maybe.
21:42:22 User: What time is it?
21:42:27 Cleverbot: Late.
21:42:37 User: What time though.
21:43:08 Cleverbot: 8:46 PM.
21:43:20 User: Thats not that late!
21:49:00 Cleverbot: What is a good movie to watch tonight?
21:54:15 Cleverbot: Yes my neighbours are aliens, they are spying on us.
21:54:32 User: Oh cool.
21:54:37 Cleverbot: So, who are you?
21:54:48 User: A human.
21:54:53 Cleverbot: Named?
21:55:08 User: Saiyan.
21:55:11 Cleverbot: That a language?
21:55:22 User: No thats my name.
21:55:24 Cleverbot: Giusto is your name?
21:55:38 User: No whats your name.
21:55:44 Cleverbot: Zukie. Now, what is your name?
21:56:09 User: This conversation is boring.
21:56:12 Cleverbot: Aw, lets make it more interesting.
21:56:27 User: Ok yes pelase.
21:56:31 Cleverbot: No yes.
21:57:20 User: What would make it more interesting?
21:57:23 Cleverbot: Unicorns would definitely make it more interesting. :D.
21:57:32 User: I dont like unicorns.
21:57:43 Cleverbot: Neither do I like.