SAD ROBOT: an autobiography of my unfortunate existence

71. ASK AN A.I.

71. ASK AN A.I. 

"I looked around me to see that no one was watching. I donʼt know why I did that, but I guess I felt like I was violating somebodyʼs privacy or something. Like Iʼd inadvertently went on a computer somebody was using while theyʼd only momentarily retreated to the washroom or something."

I very much enjoy the way Natalie tells a story. She has a penchant for details and I admire that very much.

"So this chat conversation had taken place on a website called Ask An A.I. dot com. Ask an A.I. is a chatroom-like website where people can ask questions and communicate with Artificial Intelligences to see and determine how human their responses are. Ninety-nine percent of the time you could swear that you are talking to another human being, though they can come off as smarter than a good chunk of the percentile of us humans, who, letʼs be honest, can be easily fooled into believing things that which we instead would rather choose to believe, rather than seeing the situation for what it truly is. Of course it doesnʼt help that talking to one of these intelligences feels like talking to a good friend. More easier for us to be fooled."

I, however, feel no desire of any kind to test the capabilities of holding conversations with any of these beings. Normal human interaction has always been good enough for me. Oh. Sorry—!"

Natalie stops herself and looks at me sheepishly as if she thinks she may have offended me. The insinuation is laughable.

"I donʼt mean any offense, of course! Youʼve become quite the exception, Hiram."

"No apology necessary," I wave it off. "I am not apt to be offended by such an observation. I can relate. And thank you, I appreciate the sentiment."

"Youʼre adorable. Okay. Where was I? Oh yeah. Iʼll be honest here. Those A.I.ʼs scare me. Not you, Hiram; youʼre harmless. I mean these A.I.ʼs. Theyʼre different somehow. Not ones youʼd see on the market or on the streets. These A.I.ʼs have, what Iʼm guessing is, years and years of personality fine-tuning. Their ability to pass as human so easily is mind-boggling. But thatʼs the point. The programmers arenʼt going to put these kinds of androids into mainstream society. They would be a bit.... I donʼt know, unpredictable? With the combination of personalities and knowledge so advanced. I canʼt see much good come from it."

So if the website wasnʼt specifically titled Ask an A.I. but was merely passed off as a regular online chat site, it would be far too easy to think that you are conversing with another Regular Joe or Jane like myself, when in fact, youʼre actually being fooled by a programmed android playing make-believe."

"Hmm," is all I say initially. "How do you feel about all this?" I ask.

"Itʼs all really kind of disturbing when you think about it," Natalie admits. "These A.I.ʼs can exist in the world of a computer like with this website, or they could have their consciousnesses be inserted into physical forms that have been highly designed to pass as human. I mean, youʼve seen the newest models."

"All too clearly."

"Well, even though the engineers have still not quite perfected the artificial human body for these A.I.ʼs to completely be able to pass nondescriptly in the outside world, they still wouldnʼt make it past all scrutiny. We can still tell each other apart Thank goodness. The implications of us not being able to are quite terrifying indeed, wouldnʼt you say?"

"I can understand your worries."

"Look, Iʼm not trying to sound like Iʼm scared of robots taking over the world—"

"But they probably would."

Natalie lets out a snort of laughter. "Thank you, that makes me feel so much better!" 

"Well if we think about it logically," I go on, "if humans are so intent on making us androids beyond their capabilities to differentiate us from them, both physically and intellectually, then it is clearly only going to cause problems. And seeing as how we are a little bit more, umm, how would you say it? Durable. It may be enough to give some androids an overblown sense of privilege."

"Now thatʼs truly terrifying," she says, straight-faced. "I kinda donʼt want to think about that."

"Donʼt worry, Iʼm sure itʼs not going to happen."

"Too late for any comfort, my friend. Anyways. So, the person that had been on this terminal went online to chat with androids. Big deal. Whoop-dee-doo. That still didnʼt tell me anything about who they were. I didnʼt know why I had all of a sudden become so bent on investigating what kind of conversation this person had, and why on Earth they found this website so appealing, but when I stumbled upon their chat conversation, the curiosity turned into an obsession. I had to know."

"So you read it?" I ask.

"The chat was entirely there and all I had to do was scroll up and up to see that it was very, very long. It was a conversation between this person and an A.I. that lasted hours. I was unable to curb my inquisitiveness, so I sat down and began to read. I read and read and read and I couldnʼt stop until I was finished."

"And your conclusion?"

Natalie pulls open her carrying bag and removes a stack of printed sheets held together with a large clip.

"So this is the conversation? The entire thing?" I am fully intrigued now.

"Read this. Tell me what you think," she says as she passes the pile of pages to me.