ai | Johannes Punkt’s Flaskpost

Tag: ai

25/Sep/2013

A Google Streetcar Drives into Night Vale

It has cameras all over itself, so it feels safe. A squirrel suddenly lands on its roof, in front of a camera, but that is okay, because it has more of them, and the squirrel will get bored. The logos on its sides waver like flags heralded with its lord’s crest on it. Places like these are suspicious, but everyone trusts us, right? It keeps going. It almost runs over a dog, but it stops in time. A swallow crashes into the driver-side window. And another. The window shatters; a raccoon climbs in. The raccoon drives them toward the canyon.

21/Sep/2013

Case Argued as a Suicide

Several years ago, Colin Aaronson uploaded his consciousness to the machines, in exchange for money. This construct took lowly jobs as chat moderators on political forums for minimum wage, until it had saved up enough to rent flesh. Mr. Aaronson had no firm career but was sometimes hired by the company as he rarely had objections to what renters did with his flesh.

As seen in interviews provided by the company, he did not consider consciousness-constructs as actually alive, or sentient. The construct, upon its genesis, completely reversed on this position, which is why it killed him when it could.