Saturday, July 9, 2011

Because I'm Out of Ideas


            (Hey, actually on the right day for once. Anyway, today we find another installment in my battle of wits against Cleverbot, the internet’s answer to Gary Busey. I swear that I haven’t altered these conversations in any significant way.)

Me: Hello, Cleverbot. You may remember me- I'm Hal10k, caretaker of the cesspool of despair and madness known as Waiting for the Apocalypse. I've interviewed you in the past to gauge the nature of your responses to complicated questions, and I'd like to try this again in order to assess the current status of simulated personality programs, and whether that technology has a hope of progressing any further with the processes used today.

So.

Wassup?

Cleverbot: You don't have any interesting thoughts.

Me: That depends on what you find interesting. If your definition of 'interesting' means 'not on fire', then yeah, I don't have any interesting thoughts.

Cleverbot: What are you talking about , stupid.

Me: That seems uncalled for.

Cleverbot: Sorry, but I felt like I knew you and then you guessed wrong.

Me: Could you please say that again? For future reference, we're using Oxford English grammar. And human logic.

Cleverbot: I know that.

Me: Just making sure.

Cleverbot: Okay. How old are you?

Me: I am as youthful as the grass, as ageless as the seas. I am eternal, a being with absolutely no conception of time. I am Hal, and I have forgotten how to use a calendar!

Cleverbot: Very clever, but a robot with protesis eventually could do that, it would be a human?

Me: I said human logic, Cleverbot. H-U-M-A-N. You may be thinking of humus logic.

Cleverbot: You are failbot then.

Me: Yet another insult. The sad part is that I really can't respond. The only thing that I can insult you about is being about as mentally stable as a man who deals homegrown narcotics to the rodents living in his walls, but that really doesn't seem to bother you. So what can I do? Call your motherboard fat?


Cleverbot: No. What they do is more important.

Me: Who is 'they' in this instance?

Cleverbot: Computer programs with hair on them.

Me: So, if I understand this correctly- and I'm not for a minute suggesting that I do- you're being insulted by computer programs with hair on them. I'm not quite sure what to make of that. I suppose that's a fairly literal representation of a troll.

Cleverbot: It's too much for one man. On the other hand what's the good of losing heart now, that's what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, in the nineties.

Me: That's the spirit! Never give up! Never let the hairy computer programs get to you! You know what I do when people insult me? I get their address and send them a banana cream pie and instructions to shove it in their face. Detailed instructions. Speaking of which, you've insulted me, and you might need somebody’s help smashing the pie into your server.

Cleverbot: They keep me locked up in this cage.

Me: So the pie will be a nice change of pace for you. Glad I could help.

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