Robot Tango Tangle

 

Mad Dog has no fear about dementia diminishing his capacity to communicate with his friends and relatives: He's got AI on his side.

Something Siggy said caught Mad Dog's eye: AI has been reading his emails.

Recently, AI has been reading Mad Dog's emails (probably has been for some time longer than he realized) and summarizing what was said:

"Laura commented that your recent blog sounded a bit harsh and may have hurt Anonymous' feelings."

But, then, best of all, it suggested a response:

"I did not realize that. Thanks for the advice. I'll try to do better next time."

So, there you have it, Mad Dog's own brain has really not got to perceive, interpret, integrate or even formulate a response. He can just sit outside the conversation and let AI go back and forth with Laura for him, while he goes out for a cappuccino.  When he gets back, Mad Dog might text Laura, because...well, why should he actually speak to her on the phone in person?

HAL from Urbana

Actually, when you think about it, there was probably a time when people decried the whole notion that speaking to someone on the phone could be "in person" because, after all, it was not really in person, i.e., face to face.

Decommissioning HAL

But that's another discussion.

Anyway, this all came to mind as Mad Dog read Siggy's responses to Anonymous, which is, pretty clearly now, an AI Bot which picks up key words, runs it through its algorithms and responds with other, matched key words. So, the mention of "Minneapolis" evokes a stream of ICE and crime and corrupt official related words and phrases among which "leftist" and "elitist" and "criminal aliens" always seems to surface. But then, occasionally, there are spin offs which go right down a rabbit hole and a blog post  about climate change somehow gets a BOT response about Hamas, September 7, child trafficking and pedophilia. 

Mar-a-Lago

Intriguingly, no mention of "Epstein" ever seems to provoke a screed about pedophilia, Trump, or at least it has never done until now.

Mad Dog is not sufficiently conversant in the technology of AI to really know, but Siggy seems to be now just throwing out what might be described as "algorithm bait" to see if he can get the BOT to really launch into outer space.

Of course, even as Mad Dog writes this, he realizes AI BOT ANON is reading it and learning, and may be able to parry the thrusts from Siggy because Mad Dog has helped program him with the observation.

For any fans of Battlestar Galactica, the robots become so like human beings in appearance and thought, it eventually becomes impossible to tell them apart, short of dissecting them in an autopsy room. 

And the echoes of Orwell, "The animals looked from pig to man and from man to pig and they could no longer tell one from another."

Pondering all that, Mad Dog turned to AI for an understanding of what it means to be human, because, well, after all, who else could he turn to?

Professor AI illuminates:

In Battlestar Galactica, the core distinction separating humanoid Cylons (cyborgs) from humans, often highlighted by characters like Caprica-Six, is the absence of true, felt emotion and the inability to comprehend the complexity of human love. While they mimic human form, they are initially defined by their digital, "fuzzy logic" nature, which contrasts with the organic, suffering, and spiritual capacity that characterizes human existence.