Many people already enjoy procedurally generated novels. Granted, it's not all there yet, but the idea is neat. Most story tropes are formulaic, which makes it easy to generate an outline. Depending on the subject you want either technical or flowery language. Or perhaps plain. All of these are fairly standard stuff. The hard part is to introduce new ideas. Which, at the moment, is only possible by a human. The cool thing about computer written stories (or articles) is that they can be generated on the fly, and have user interaction. Certainly a human writer could do this, but not for thousands of readers. And not nearly as quickly. I hang up on human calls who read scripts as well. Hell, most of the time I prefer to deal with a computer, because they act in a predictable way. Nope. A lot of 'spam' is written by humans as well. How are you certain that I'm a 'human consciousness or a sentient being'? What if your the only sentient being and we are all philosophical zombies? Would that influence the way you interact with people? What happens when we get to the singularity and migrate our brains over to computers? Will you discriminate against transhumans? How do you accurately distinguish whether something has a consciousness? Are you going to discriminate simply because someone acts in a more standardized (rather than a chaotic/'human') way? If anything, it gives me more trust. A computer only does what it's told (so far). It has no ill-intent unless the creator gave it one. While a human is almost certainly out for their own benefit. While '42' was meant to be a hilarious example, I think that the idea has merit. I'd personally say '3' is the answer, not 42. But as far as a computer determining the 'answer to life', that's kind of silly. It'd most likely just ask you to clarify. What answer are you looking for? The non-sensical answer was in response to the non-sensical question. Much like if you try to google 'not elephants' you'll almost certainly get elephants. I would agree. In fact, I'd agree that's the point of language: to communicate ideas and to obtain information and other perspectives. In which case the author/speaker has no effect on the reception of the words. I don't. I don't trust anything that doesn't come from my own mind. When I began responding to this comment (like I do all comments), I set out to respond with my thoughts. I don't care whether there's an overarching message or idea behind your comment. Only that it is there to comment on and that each sentence and the body as a whole interests me. You could be a computer, a human, a dog, a cat, etc. It doesn't matter. Well it depends on your goal and what you are looking for. Sports facts and news aggregation? I have that automated and sorted automatically. Both reddit and hubski do that fantastically. And hell, not even all the posts are user submitted, some are by 'bots'. As far as robots having something to say, I'd say they most likely will, once we reach a certain point. But right now? They are just pieces of code that are ran. But you could easily say the same about humans. Humans work off biological scripts. Just complex ones. Finally, I'd like to leave off with a clip about conversations. It's part of one of my favorite shows, and brings up a good point. And I'd like to point you over to a fantastic series (which has been merged into a movie) called "Time of Eve" which covers the robots/humans dynamic. It takes place in the future where robots have become indistinguishable (visually and mentally) from humans. But robots are still 'slaves' seeing as that's how technology is now. To distinguish, the robots are forced to have a ring above their head, to signify their place (you could almost relate this to skin color back in the slavery days). However, in the show, there's a certain cafe in which the rule is to not discriminate between robots and humans. And as such, the robots turn off their ring. The result is that you can't distinguish between the two groups, besides some 'obvious' cases (humans talking about robots like others, some robots have some faulty parts, there's a robot that clearly looks like a robot, etc). It's a fascinating watch, and really covers this kind of topic brought to an extreme. Would you be uncomfortable treating a robot as an equal? Why or why not? What is it that humans have that an indistinguishable robot doesn't? It quickly turns into 'Well humans are humans, and robots... aren't' discrimination.but I'm somewhat horrified to think that I'm reading a novel or opinion piece generated by algorithms.
I hang up on robocalls
I delete robot-generated spam (which is most likely all spam)
I want to know that a human consciousness, a sentient being, has written a personal essay or editorial.
The possibility that everything I read has no human author creates distrust between me and texts --
Because a computer came up with the answer, it made no sense to the humans. Maybe there's no connection.
Barthes says we should judge a text on its own merits regardless of how it was authored
We become engaged because we somehow trust that it has a message for us.
To those who want messages from robots, that's fine. Robots might well have something to say.
Even conversations on IRC seem to be generated by humans. Kyon and the Talking Cat is a great clip and I totally agree with the cat. What I am saying (or writing) might well be understood in a different way by the other. It might even be heard as gibberish. Re transhumans: If a robot is conscious of inequality and expresses that awareness, I would certainly pause. If a robot is programmed to get revenge when it is treated badly, our engineers might have some 'splaining to do.How are you certain that I'm a 'human consciousness or a sentient being'? What if your the only sentient being and we are all philosophical zombies?
I'm not certain. You could have deliberately made a spelling error to trick me into thinking you were human. Still, I'd like to think that hubski is perhaps 99.9% human. -- that's one reason why I love meetups or reports of meetups. I've seen some faces. I've received postcards written in ink by what seems to be hands (although I can't be sure).Would that influence the way you interact with people? What happens when we get to the singularity and migrate our brains over to computers? Will you discriminate against transhumans?
I leave that to future generations - although the piece I posted recently about head transplants moves in that direction.
There's still the philosophical zombie issue. And the identical robot thing (which obviously isn't here yet). But yes, you can be safe in assuming 99.9% of hubski (and even reddit) is a biological organism that we call humans. See 'Time of Eve'. Granted, that's not here yet. So meeting in person is a safe way (for now) to determine whether someone is a biological organism. You can make handwriting fonts and print them. No guarantees post cards are written by hand. IIRC there's also handwriting services (like in the movie 'Her'). Correct. "Chat bots" aren't quite there yet either. Though some (like cleverbot) have passed preliminary turing tests. That's why I linked it. It's sort of the same idea. Even other humans can write something which is completely different than how you understand it. So at what point is a 'connection' really made? It's rapidly becoming a current problem. I'd say at least within 100 years. The singularity is predicted to happen within current young adults' lifespans. But I bring it up because it's an increasingly problematic thing. Vegans/Vegetarians continually bring it up as a moral basis for their dietary preferences. If animals are treated with the same conscious respect as humans, why not machines? The unfortunate fact is that early consciousness can't be aware of inequality. Certainly at some level that is obtained though. And as for it being 'intentionally programmed', that may very well not be the case. When it comes to computer vision, we don't actually program how to recognize things. The computer 'learns' that on it's own. Once the code is sufficiently advanced, certainly the computer could learn to recognize inequality? To give a more retro example, there's a game called 'creatures', in which you take care of a virtual creature. This creature is unlike many you are familiar with. it has a dietary track, in-depth health meters, and a brain that is composed of many parts, like a human. It has a visual part, where it can learn to recognize objects. A speech part, in which it learns to identify and be able to speak and respond to speech (through text input/display on the screen). It can learn routines, and how to fend for itself (though at the beginning you must teach it what's good/bad). And it can feel pain/pleasure. Hell, it can even fall to skinner boxes. These creatures can mate and have offspring. Much like a real creature. This creature can feel regret and have "guilty pleasures", in which it likes something and will do it, even if punished. Is this creature worth respect? Is it worth teaching things? Certainly it's rudimentary (as it's a commercially available old piece of software). But if something that old can be that complex, what's stopping it from happening in the future? Along the same lines, transhumans are literally just a human mind uploaded into a machine. Are these people no longer deserving of respect simply because they chose a different lifestyle? How do you distinguish between a transhuman and a full robot? As I said, go watch 'Time of Eve'. it really nails down these points and is one of my favorite movies/shows.You could have deliberately made a spelling error to trick me into thinking you were human. Still, I'd like to think that hubski is perhaps 99.9% human. -
that's one reason why I love meetups or reports of meetups. I've seen some faces.
I've received postcards written in ink by what seems to be hands (although I can't be sure).
Even conversations on IRC seem to be generated by humans.
Kyon and the Talking Cat is a great clip and I totally agree with the cat. What I am saying (or writing) might well be understood in a different way by the other. It might even be heard as gibberish.
I leave that to future generations - although the piece I posted recently about head transplants moves in that direction.
Re transhumans: If a robot is conscious of inequality and expresses that awareness, I would certainly pause. If a robot is programmed to get revenge when it is treated badly, our engineers might have some 'splaining to do.
Humans seem to have capacity to create profound connections with inanimate objects, to even turn these objects into companions (think "Watson" and Tom Hanks in Cast Away) At what point is a connection "really" made? I guess it all depends on what you think "really" means. I take "connection" to mean a sense of a shared and collaborative reality. If you mean human to human, the point when you feel connected can be immediate - first glance - or it can be gradual through shared experiences. Our connections can give us a sense of being useful, valued, cherished, loved. Our connections help us create our identity and sense of who we are. Luckily, there are many ways of connecting to other humans. Like Hubski. So at what point is a 'connection' really made?
The movie her certainly explores the idea that a connection with a non-human entity can seem authentic.
final stanza of "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.