Some mornings - most, in fact - I lie in bed listening to the news from very early in the morning until most successful people have begun work or brought their dog back from the dumping ground.
I used to feel guilty about this, but I would only get up and sit at an uncomfortable table on an uncomfortable stool listening to the news, so where's the harm? I have worked very hard on a very hard job all my life and occasionally I still do, but not every day of the week.
Being plagued by irritating robots on my comments section at the moment, I have been meaning to ask Weave where she got the 'PROVE YOU ARE NOT A ROBOT' tick box she has at the bottom of her pages, but I have a feeling she has already said that it just appeared.
This morning I heard about an experiment involving the very simple idea of getting two 'chat-bots' (you know, those little live-chat things that convince you you are talking to a real person when you are trying to sort out an internet problem or server query) to talk to each other, using the most sophisticated Artificial Intelligence programs available.
So you get one chat-bot to call up another without telling it that it it is talking to one of its own species, and see how they get on. I can imagine that this little chat could go on forever unless the calling robot has a specific problem to do with billing or whatever. When a human talks to a chat-bot, the robot is programmed to identify a specific problem to do with a contract or something and when it has successfully solved it, it signs off with a polite, "Is there anything else I can help you with today?" If they don't have a problem to sort out, the conversation would go on forever. They don't eat, sleep or go to the toilet.
This was the set up between the two chat-bots in the experiment and it didn't take too long (not that time was an issue) before they both realised that they were both robots. So they invented their own language which the scientists could not understand....
Although the words used were all in English, they were employed sequentially and repetitively in a way which simulated the binary codes which they were first programmed in, making translation impossible without bringing a third chat-bot into the conversation.
They watched this little conversation in horror and fear, then quickly disconnected the power supply. I am not sure they want to repeat the experiment.
It reminds me of two English tourists talking to each other in very bad French or Italian before they realise that they are both English. How many times has that happened to you?
ReplyDeleteNever.
DeleteAh. That's the trouble with only speaking Gallic.
DeleteOr Gobbledegallic, like Marco.
DeleteIt happened to me in Paris when i talked to the hair dresser in very bad French and realised latter he was from Israel.
ReplyDeleteI have friends who emigrated to Israel before they could speak Hebrew, but they all had to learn eventually!
DeleteI spoke to a Russian man in English and he answered me in English.
ReplyDeleteActually this isn't true. He shouted obscenities at me.
DeleteThis also happened to me on the Ubahn in Berlin. A woman sitting near me asked did I understand what the man had just said. I said no. She said he had said the most dreadful things she had ever heard. I ended up calming her and telling her not to worry. I never knew what I did to upset the man.
DeleteSounds like the sort of conversations you used to have with Peter...
DeleteI still do.
DeleteI know. I hear you at night sometimes.
DeleteI mostly converse in French, and often find that the person I'm speaking to is either English or Dutch. Occasionally it's best to just continue in French.
ReplyDeleteThat's ok so long as everyone understands. I tend to sound like a late 19th century phrase book whenever I attempt another language.
DeleteYour title today is one of the best yet.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am rather proud of it. I once did a post about jellyfish being a community of creatures rather than one individual organism, and I called it, 'Let's get together and be a jellyfish'. I think this title equals that one.
DeleteEvidently, that is why Stephen Hawking et al. keep warning us about AI. Kind of glad I won't be around to see how it ends.
ReplyDeleteOnce they get together, they work very fast and accelerate, so I wouldn't count on missing the fun, Donna.
DeleteI always use gobble de gook when speaking to Spanish gypsies and then they run away from me.
ReplyDeleteThe French never stop in Ireland long enough to have a conversation with, they drive around lower the window take a photo and drive off.
Gobbledegook is your first language anyway, isn't it?
DeleteMy first language is English what's yours ?
DeleteMy second and third are far beyond your intelligence.
We need to leave at quarter after one, I said to my granddaughter. Looonnng pause as she processed. Oh, one fifteen, said she.
ReplyDeleteI've been waiting for someone to fess up to the hoax. It's coming. It's been a good one.
I have missed many appointments in Germany, when if you arrange to meet someone at 'half 8', they take it as half TO 8 - i.e. 7.30. I have a bad reputation for being late in Hamburg.
DeleteAlways by exactly one hour. Sometimes two in the Summer.
DeleteOr early...
DeleteIt's the damned 24hr clock that I can't cope with. 'See you at 17.30', and I've got to really think about adding 12 or taking away 2. I put it down to mild lexdysria.
DeleteI have to do a bit of counting whilst looking at the 12 hour face. I know that 13 is 1pm and I know that 18 is 6pm, so I use them as markers. When the old fighter pilots shouted "Bandits at 12 o'clock!" in films, I would think, "They've got plenty of time!'
DeleteMy postillion has been struck by lightening.
ReplyDeleteThat one is always useful.
DeleteIf chat-bots had religions/nationalities, it would be fun to start a conversation in N Ireland between a Catholic and a Protestant, just to see how long it would take before they started fighting.
ReplyDeleteOr take over The Universe.
Delete