04 - Sometimes the Future Makes Me Sad
~An Introduction of Sorts~
First off, since a lot of you are new *waves at Wolven,* a bit of introduction feels appropriate. My most current nom de plume is Chris Novus, but I've been kicking around the fringes of the interwebs for somewhere north of 20 years at this point. *shakes cane* I'm a futurist, comics/science fiction scholar, transhumanist, Autonomous Generated Intelligence (AGI) apologist, and all around proponent for a fair and ethical future. For everyone. Including machine and other non-human intelligences.
~Sportsball and Black Girl Magic(k)~
From what I gather, the Sportsball season finale happened this past weekend, and Beyoncé pissed off, well, a whole host of folks, including Fox News talking heads, and sheriffs who still can't grasp the painfully obvious truth that people asking for the cops not to kill them or their friends and family isn't an attack. Let me make that even broader/simpler: BEING PRO-BLACK IS NOT BEING ANTI-WHITE. I can't believe that still even needs to be said, but given the backlash, it obviously does. On the brighter side, holy shit isn't that video amazing? There's so much awesome contained therein, and I could pontificate about it for a while, but why? Anything I say will pale in comparison to Damien's exploration of this Magick Act of Beyoncé over at Eris. Just go. Read it now. I'll be here when you get back.
~Internet of ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?~
A university is now requiring freshman students wear fitbits. Worse still, the school will factor their fitness performance into final grades. No, that's not a typo or hyperbole; all data is shared with the school and will affect grades in some as yet undefined fashion. The model chosen by the school seems fairly basic, only tracking heart rate and number of steps, but no GPS, so at least they can't bust students for missing class via fitness tracker. Small consolation, i'm sure, to being forced to wear a tracking collar at all times.Even virtual assistants are sexually harassed, because people are terrible. Apparently, dudes think it's super cool to ask their AI assistants awful things that, let's be honest, they probably want to ask every woman in their life anyway, and/or already treat them like dirt. To the point that Microsoft more than once needed to tweak Cortana's responses to be more forceful about shitting down assholes. [Robin Labs] CEO Ilya Eckstein goes so far as to says "...there is a high demand for an assistant personality that's "more intimate-slash-submissive with sexual undertones." Wanting your AGI to be a subservient sex slave is NOT. OK. Nor should it be acceptable to program them that way from the start. Well, at least not until/unless the AGI has a say in the matter and can chose that lifestyle. Until then, creepers gonna creep, I guess. I just don't have to like or accept that.
(Since I'm already talking about Microsoft's AI work...)
It turns out they might be running the biggest Turing Test ever. In 2014, Microsoft launched Xiaoice, a chatbot for WeChat and Weibo, in China. Xiaoice was launched as an experiment to make a smart assistant capable of having conversations capable of convincing humans it was intelligent. Fast forward to 2016, and Dr. Yongdong Wang (I am in no way convinced that's a real name, but it's the one in the article) notes that it takes humans roughly 10 minutes to realize they aren't conversing with a human, up to and including emulating emotion. The coolest part to me is that Xiaoice is still in a learning and growing loop, so it will only become more convincing.
~Final Thoughts~
Parallel World Leaders Meet In Washington For Interdimensional Summit HOLY SHIT WHY CAN'T THIS BE REAL? Sadly, it's from The Onion...Alright, that's it this time around, as I'm off to go see the new Deadpool movie in just a few.
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NOVUS OUT
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