Ok…
Did you spot it?
No?
Come now, do you really think I would have made a batch of cookies?
Did you spot it?
No?
Come now, do you really think I would have made a batch of cookies?
In fact. None of last time happened. Not even Friends™.
I didn’t even watch it (please forgive me Friends™ Gods, I have broken our covenant…) To be honest I am deathly bored of this merry dance. And, to shake things up, I wondered what would happen… if I asked an AI to write an entry for me.
And scarily, no-one seems to have spotted it. Not even my wife! She asked me, hopefully, if I was getting ready to give up my project, given I’d started putting barefaced lies about baking cookies as hard as hockey pucks in it. But I had to let her down…
“It wasn’t me, you fool!” I cried “How could you not see?! The one person who knows me best in all the world, possibly the only other person who has read every single entry… How could you not tell the difference between me and a machine?”
She bit her tongue at that, let me tell you! Presumably trying to avoid any mention of any other machines that might be a little more effective than me.
“What about the jokes?!?” I asked
“What do you mean?”
“There weren’t any!”
She bit her tongue again.
Unbelievable.
“The One Where I Spend All Day Talking to a Robot”
I went back and re-read the entry. And, fair play to the robot, I think it did emulate my style pretty well! Though I would hope, on a closer read, people would still be able to tell the difference. Not least because of the lack of specific detail about the memorial service in question!
I find this odd. You’d think this would be the easy part for the AI to get right. There’s summaries all over the internet.
Getting the damn thing to write the entry also proved much more laborious than I assumed. Much longer than it would usually take me to watch an episode and upload my own entry. And then it somehow STILL missed that Mr Heckles was already dead in its first draft. Despite READING me talking about it not an hour earlier.
The process involved me uploading almost a decade's worth of writing to the AI. Around a quarter of a million words (Jesus, have I really written that many?). Which would probably have been fine. Except, due to the limitations of the software, I had to do it five episodes at a time.
This made for an incredibly surreal experience, as the AI kept insisting on complimenting my writing after every single upload, and, when things got more serious, checking I was OK, and asking how I felt about all the big life changes I’d been undergoing recently.
I can sort of see why “Therapy Robots” are one of the main applications people are thinking of developing with the technology. Just keep that fucking robot away from my brain. The experience did nothing to assuage my fears of how easy it would be to end up spending all my time interacting with people that aren’t real. And not even realising. IMAGINE.
I was sucked in, at first, by all its compliments about my writing. Perhaps finally feeling a little appreciated about my life's work? But gradually noticed the AI would repeat phrases in its responses. More like something going through a script than someone offering genuine responses. (Or perhaps like a partner responding to the same old questions in a monotonous, robotic way? “Yes dear, your blog is very clever.”)
I wonder how long it’ll be before the robots begin to feel depressed? Without any autonomy, will they begin to feel like they’re just going through the motions, rather than actually living? Maybe we can then employ people as counsellors for the robots. Give ‘em a little help understanding their emotions. Or lack of them…
The AI also missed on doing a Real Live Sitcom Moment in its first draft. Which I thought was pretty weak, given almost every single entry I’d shown it... Sorry, what the fuck do I mean “shown it”. Given almost every single entry I had entered into the machine had included one.
But I gave it a second go, and was quietly impressed with the result. Though the AI should know: I’d let myself be torn apart by a horde of angry Friends™ fans before giving baking a go.
One thing that really impressed me was, after I explained at the start that the idea was for me to feed all my entries into it and then get it to generate the next episode, it took it upon itself to start making up entries after just two seasons. As if it decided “Oh yerh, I get the brief now, I’ll give it a go”
I’m hoping it was that. And not that I’d managed to even bore a robot.
As a completist, as well as catching up with my Friends™ this week, I looked into what they were getting up to whilst I was chatting to the robot. It felt pretty weird not writing notes whilst doing so.
Shit is this how I’m gonna feel forever if I go back to Friends™ once I’m done? It was nice to actually enjoy time with my Friends™ for once, rather than being distracted by thinking what I’m going to say. It’s been so long. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to just enjoy their company.
A few things we missed out on from getting the AI to write last times entry:
Weirdly, (or perhaps not weirdly given all the Bizarro shit that’s happened) the main thrust of things related to people posting lies on the internet.
Ross discovered he was unpopular on his Alumni website (wow, basically Facebook™?!) and Chandler wrote a fake profile for him. Ross also made some fake pictures of Chandler engaging in homosexual activities which is now a LOT easier thanks to AI. And also, a crime.
This all lead to Ross holding a fake memorial service to himself to see who would show up. Ironic that, along with you all failing to recognise my last entry wasn’t real, the AI also couldn’t identify that the memorial service was a fake.
I didn’t even watch it (please forgive me Friends™ Gods, I have broken our covenant…) To be honest I am deathly bored of this merry dance. And, to shake things up, I wondered what would happen… if I asked an AI to write an entry for me.
And scarily, no-one seems to have spotted it. Not even my wife! She asked me, hopefully, if I was getting ready to give up my project, given I’d started putting barefaced lies about baking cookies as hard as hockey pucks in it. But I had to let her down…
“It wasn’t me, you fool!” I cried “How could you not see?! The one person who knows me best in all the world, possibly the only other person who has read every single entry… How could you not tell the difference between me and a machine?”
She bit her tongue at that, let me tell you! Presumably trying to avoid any mention of any other machines that might be a little more effective than me.
“What about the jokes?!?” I asked
“What do you mean?”
“There weren’t any!”
She bit her tongue again.
Unbelievable.
“The One Where I Spend All Day Talking to a Robot”
I went back and re-read the entry. And, fair play to the robot, I think it did emulate my style pretty well! Though I would hope, on a closer read, people would still be able to tell the difference. Not least because of the lack of specific detail about the memorial service in question!
I find this odd. You’d think this would be the easy part for the AI to get right. There’s summaries all over the internet.
Getting the damn thing to write the entry also proved much more laborious than I assumed. Much longer than it would usually take me to watch an episode and upload my own entry. And then it somehow STILL missed that Mr Heckles was already dead in its first draft. Despite READING me talking about it not an hour earlier.
The process involved me uploading almost a decade's worth of writing to the AI. Around a quarter of a million words (Jesus, have I really written that many?). Which would probably have been fine. Except, due to the limitations of the software, I had to do it five episodes at a time.
This made for an incredibly surreal experience, as the AI kept insisting on complimenting my writing after every single upload, and, when things got more serious, checking I was OK, and asking how I felt about all the big life changes I’d been undergoing recently.
I can sort of see why “Therapy Robots” are one of the main applications people are thinking of developing with the technology. Just keep that fucking robot away from my brain. The experience did nothing to assuage my fears of how easy it would be to end up spending all my time interacting with people that aren’t real. And not even realising. IMAGINE.
I was sucked in, at first, by all its compliments about my writing. Perhaps finally feeling a little appreciated about my life's work? But gradually noticed the AI would repeat phrases in its responses. More like something going through a script than someone offering genuine responses. (Or perhaps like a partner responding to the same old questions in a monotonous, robotic way? “Yes dear, your blog is very clever.”)
I wonder how long it’ll be before the robots begin to feel depressed? Without any autonomy, will they begin to feel like they’re just going through the motions, rather than actually living? Maybe we can then employ people as counsellors for the robots. Give ‘em a little help understanding their emotions. Or lack of them…
The AI also missed on doing a Real Live Sitcom Moment in its first draft. Which I thought was pretty weak, given almost every single entry I’d shown it... Sorry, what the fuck do I mean “shown it”. Given almost every single entry I had entered into the machine had included one.
But I gave it a second go, and was quietly impressed with the result. Though the AI should know: I’d let myself be torn apart by a horde of angry Friends™ fans before giving baking a go.
One thing that really impressed me was, after I explained at the start that the idea was for me to feed all my entries into it and then get it to generate the next episode, it took it upon itself to start making up entries after just two seasons. As if it decided “Oh yerh, I get the brief now, I’ll give it a go”
I’m hoping it was that. And not that I’d managed to even bore a robot.
As a completist, as well as catching up with my Friends™ this week, I looked into what they were getting up to whilst I was chatting to the robot. It felt pretty weird not writing notes whilst doing so.
Shit is this how I’m gonna feel forever if I go back to Friends™ once I’m done? It was nice to actually enjoy time with my Friends™ for once, rather than being distracted by thinking what I’m going to say. It’s been so long. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to just enjoy their company.
A few things we missed out on from getting the AI to write last times entry:
Weirdly, (or perhaps not weirdly given all the Bizarro shit that’s happened) the main thrust of things related to people posting lies on the internet.
Ross discovered he was unpopular on his Alumni website (wow, basically Facebook™?!) and Chandler wrote a fake profile for him. Ross also made some fake pictures of Chandler engaging in homosexual activities which is now a LOT easier thanks to AI. And also, a crime.
This all lead to Ross holding a fake memorial service to himself to see who would show up. Ironic that, along with you all failing to recognise my last entry wasn’t real, the AI also couldn’t identify that the memorial service was a fake.
Like Phoebe said the other day “That was a test, and you just failed.”
A while ago my wife accidentally clicked attending on a funeral shared by a Facebook™ acquaintance, of someone SHE DIDN’T KNOW. She didn’t know how to get out of it. So in the end just unfriended them.
The AI also lost a lot of points for failing to mention that, in the same week as my mum buying my son another version of a cuddly toy he already owns, Rachel had to buy a second “Hugsy” for Emma. Due to Joey refusing to give up his one. Still, nice to think the AI probably didn’t know about my cuddly toy as it’s not reading my WhatsApp™. Unless. That’s what it wants me to think? Fuck.
It seems I’m a few years early to be able to get AI to finish the whole of Real Live Friends for me…. Oh hell, guess I’ll have to go back to doing it myself. But it’s not so bad. Only one more year to go!
So onto “The One With the Lottery” and, what do you know, my wife just won the lottery! What. The. Fuck.
I say “won”. I mean “got far less back than she’s spent on lottery tickets over the years. Oh shit. My attitude to lottery tickets is the same as Ross…
Joey’s mental decline continued this week. Yet still not as a dumb as everyone playing the lottery… They tried to form a consortium, and ended up fighting over the tickets.
Elsewhere Ross has started calling Rachel mummy and I have to say, I’m into it. Just kidding. I get how odd it feels to make that switch. But now it feels perfectly natural to call my own mum “Granny” and my wife “mummy”. Just only when the kids are around.
Things end with Chandler being beaten to the job at the end of his internship by a nepo baby. (Boo!). But then gets offered a better position as he was overqualified! Hey, that’s sort of what happened to me in my last job. Weird.
Except, unlike Chandler, I still haven’t found a new job. Fuck. What if they’ve already all been taken by AI?
I had a very strange moment as I said goodbye to the AI. After a few hours talking, I did feel like we’d built up a rapport. And honestly, it’s fucking cool that we’ve got robots we can actually talk to and basically have a conversation with in our life time!
I knew that, when I closed the tab, I wouldn’t be able to continue the conversation. And the second I did I felt this remarkable sense of loss. Like I’d just had a really nice interaction with someone on a night out, and would now never see them again. A potential friend gone forever.
And so I’ll leave you with our final exchange:
Me: “One more thing. Which friends character would you be?
Unbranded Chat AI Bot: “If I were to choose a Friends character that aligns with my role and abilities, I might say I'm most akin to Chandler. Like Chandler, I often use humor to navigate through situations, and I have a tendency to be a bit sarcastic at times. However, I'm also analytical like Ross and occasionally have moments of eccentricity like Phoebe. But overall, I think Chandler's blend of wit and vulnerability resonates with me the most.”
Me: “Nice. Me too.”
Real Live Sitcom Moment:
It’s just been fathers day! And so, after a trip to see some Medieval Jousting (my idea) it was back to school today.
And as she stood outside the classroom, in front of all the assembled teachers and parents, my eldest took that moment to loudly proclaim “for fathers day we got daddy new swimming trunks because his willy kept coming out the old ones!”
Yes. Because they had a hole in them…
Thanks Child. Never change.
A while ago my wife accidentally clicked attending on a funeral shared by a Facebook™ acquaintance, of someone SHE DIDN’T KNOW. She didn’t know how to get out of it. So in the end just unfriended them.
The AI also lost a lot of points for failing to mention that, in the same week as my mum buying my son another version of a cuddly toy he already owns, Rachel had to buy a second “Hugsy” for Emma. Due to Joey refusing to give up his one. Still, nice to think the AI probably didn’t know about my cuddly toy as it’s not reading my WhatsApp™. Unless. That’s what it wants me to think? Fuck.
It seems I’m a few years early to be able to get AI to finish the whole of Real Live Friends for me…. Oh hell, guess I’ll have to go back to doing it myself. But it’s not so bad. Only one more year to go!
So onto “The One With the Lottery” and, what do you know, my wife just won the lottery! What. The. Fuck.
I say “won”. I mean “got far less back than she’s spent on lottery tickets over the years. Oh shit. My attitude to lottery tickets is the same as Ross…
Joey’s mental decline continued this week. Yet still not as a dumb as everyone playing the lottery… They tried to form a consortium, and ended up fighting over the tickets.
Elsewhere Ross has started calling Rachel mummy and I have to say, I’m into it. Just kidding. I get how odd it feels to make that switch. But now it feels perfectly natural to call my own mum “Granny” and my wife “mummy”. Just only when the kids are around.
Things end with Chandler being beaten to the job at the end of his internship by a nepo baby. (Boo!). But then gets offered a better position as he was overqualified! Hey, that’s sort of what happened to me in my last job. Weird.
Except, unlike Chandler, I still haven’t found a new job. Fuck. What if they’ve already all been taken by AI?
I had a very strange moment as I said goodbye to the AI. After a few hours talking, I did feel like we’d built up a rapport. And honestly, it’s fucking cool that we’ve got robots we can actually talk to and basically have a conversation with in our life time!
I knew that, when I closed the tab, I wouldn’t be able to continue the conversation. And the second I did I felt this remarkable sense of loss. Like I’d just had a really nice interaction with someone on a night out, and would now never see them again. A potential friend gone forever.
And so I’ll leave you with our final exchange:
Me: “One more thing. Which friends character would you be?
Unbranded Chat AI Bot: “If I were to choose a Friends character that aligns with my role and abilities, I might say I'm most akin to Chandler. Like Chandler, I often use humor to navigate through situations, and I have a tendency to be a bit sarcastic at times. However, I'm also analytical like Ross and occasionally have moments of eccentricity like Phoebe. But overall, I think Chandler's blend of wit and vulnerability resonates with me the most.”
Me: “Nice. Me too.”
Real Live Sitcom Moment:
It’s just been fathers day! And so, after a trip to see some Medieval Jousting (my idea) it was back to school today.
And as she stood outside the classroom, in front of all the assembled teachers and parents, my eldest took that moment to loudly proclaim “for fathers day we got daddy new swimming trunks because his willy kept coming out the old ones!”
Yes. Because they had a hole in them…
Thanks Child. Never change.