Intelligent, but not conscious: A warning about AI chatbots

[DaveC426913]

I might have bailed on Frameshift - vaguely remember something too Boys from Brazil for me.

There was that, but also some elements that blew up plausibility - I almost flung the book away.

Spoiler

The only one I remember is when the title character wanted to get pregnant but didn't have a donor. Her doctor, a crotchety old gristle of a man (whom I envision would be played by Walter Matthau) volunteered himself, and on a whim, right there in his office, she said 'Sure, why not'.

 

[exchemist]

MT? Mmm. A little bit like Betelgeuse, just a little worried if we say it three times he will appear again.
He was not nasty, malicious or anything like that. Just a little impervious to certain things.
Phyti is giving me the same vibe with the maths questions.

Oh phyti amuses me. His speciality seems to be being wrong.

Usually it is some aspect of relativity he is doggedly wrong about, but now it seems to be probability.

Stubbornness is a quality he shares with Write4U. As Write4U is (or was) Dutch that is to be expected. I don’t know phyti’s background, however.

 

[TheVat]

Stubbornness is a quality he shares with Write4U. As Write4U is (or was) Dutch that is to be expected.

Wait....what?

 

[exchemist]

Wait....what?

As Norman Davies says in his book on the history of Europe, “400 years of dogged struggle against the elements cannot have failed to leave its mark on the people involved” and goes on to muse about the Dutch character. I lived in the Netherlands for some years and found the Dutch character and style in many ways highly admirable. You know where you stand with a Dutchman. But stubbornness is definitely part of it.

Write4U, though living in the USA, came from the Netherlands originally, he told me.

 

[DaveC426913]

Write4U, though living in the USA, came from the Netherlands originally, he told me.

Are you sure he didn't say he came from the nether regions?

 

[TheVat]

As Norman Davies says in his book on the history of Europe, “400 years of dogged struggle against the elements cannot have failed to leave its mark on the people involved” and goes on to muse about the Dutch character. I lived in the Netherlands for some years and found the Dutch character and style in many ways highly admirable. You know where you stand with a Dutchman. But stubbornness is definitely part of it.

Write4U, though living in the USA, came from the Netherlands originally, he told me.

Ahh. So it's the resolute and tenacious kind of stubborn. Coming from a part of the US where people also doggedly struggle against the elements, I can relate. I guess Write4U was resolute in maintaining his dikes against contrary evidence flooding in. And protecting the microtubules, of course.

 

[geordief]

Ahh. So it's the resolute and tenacious kind of stubborn. Coming from a part of the US where people also doggedly struggle against the elements, I can relate. I guess Write4U was resolute in maintaining his dikes against contrary evidence flooding in. And protecting the microtubules, of course.

Here is a short article

Where Dutch directness comes from

Straightforwardness is so intrinsic in Dutch society that there’s even a Dutch word for it: 'bespreekbaarheid' (speakability) – that everything can and should be talked about.

www.bbc.com

They were pretty direct with me when I tried to sign on at the job centre, taking it as a sign that my next step was the dole.

I was deported in short order

Another ruse they had was when I went to the hospital for free dental treatment (extraction):

They passed me over to a student who promptly cracked the root.



I was told by my then friends that that was common practice (whether or not it was)

A positive story was when my wallet was returned having fallen off my bike on the way to work at the "onion factory" in the morning (waiting for me at the camp site reception in the evening)

They saw me coming,I will give them that ;-)