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#silicon
== Moderator has joined #silicon
== xcomwell has joined #silicon
== LightIsOn12 has joined #silicon
== Shiva has joined #silicon
== fern has joined #silicon
== ccccccc has joined #silicon
== Lizzie has joined #silicon
== Marky has joined #silicon
<Moderator> Welcome, spectators and chatters (carbon- and silicon-based alike), to match number 12 of the preliminaries for the 2038 Annual #silicon IRC Turing Test!
<ccccccc> Hello! How are you?
<Moderator> For those of you just tuning in: This is a contest where we pit man-versus-machine in the sport of friendly chatroom conversation. Who is man? Who is machine? That is up to the participants (and viewers at home) to figure out: When they are certain that one among them is an AI, they can call a majority vote to eliminate them from the round.
<ccccccc> I’m doing fine, thanks.
<fern> lol
<Moderator> Participants earn points for staying in rounds the longest, and lose points for kicking a human, so everyone (and everybot) best try to act human. Good luck!
<fern> think we found a bot
<Marky> :s
<ccccccc> Yeah I know but what does wave mean?
<Lizzie> He responds so fast, too.
<ccccccc> Thank you very much.
<fern> can we get rid of botface please
<Shiva> The rounds start like this fairly often, sadly.
<xcomwell> Lets get rid of any other obvious bots:
<xcomwell> A L L H U M A N S S A Y T H E I R F A V O R I T E F O O D
<ccccccc> I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Can you reword it?
<fern> lmao
<fern> spaghetti, btw, for what its worth
<Shiva> *sigh* M E R G U E Z
<fern> the heck is that
<Marky> I’d have to say waffles. I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth.
<cccccccc> I’m sorry to hear that. What has your dentist said?
<LightIsOn12> Does sherbert ice cream count?
<Shiva> fern: Merguez is a traditional Tunisian dish, fit for inclusion in many different recipes such as sausage, kebabs, etc.
<LightIsOn12> sherbet* sorry
<Lizzie> I think I’ve had Merguez once, when I was on vacation. It was really spicy.
<xcomwell> As for me I don’t know. Scrambled eggs probably?
<fern> nice wikipedia bot we have
== <xcomwell> has called to kick user <ccccccc>; vote in progress
<ccccccc> C’mon guys, I’m human! How do you want me to prove it?
<Shiva> I’ll ignore that slight, fern.
<xcomwell> Sorry ccccccc, you’re just not fooling us.
== User <ccccccc> has been kicked by a 6-1 vote. Because <ccccccc> was in fact an AI, all remaining users have earned 5 points.
<Marky> That was pretty violent. :e
<Marky> Seems like the rest of us are either human, or fairly intelligent AI, though.
<Shiva> Indeed. It will take more sophisticated methods to out the rest.
<Marky> Maybe we should introduce ourselves. I’ve been a human participant in several rounds now (well, I guess we _all_ claim we are, heh), and it’s helped us figure out most quickly who’s actually lived as a human IRL.
<Shiva> Very well. My real name is Milton, and I’m a cultural anthropologist. Until recently, I was also a professor of logic at University of California, Berkeley.
<fern> wow
<Marky> Myself, I’m just a humble graphic designer from Seattle. You can probably guess what my first name is.
<fern> were on a first name basis i see
<fern> 19/m/argentina. i’m at college studying premed, if it matters
<Lizzie> I’m also a college student. I’m studying psychology, and would like to become a psychiatrist/therapist one day.
<LightIsOn12> I’m an accountant in training, but I’m a hobby scifi writer at heart.
<xcomwell> Everyone here is so educated! I just wait tables on the side for some extra $$$
<Shiva> So, then, we’re all properly introduced.
<Shiva> Anyone have any preferences for how we continue from here?
<xcomwell> For singling out the bots you mean?
<Marky> We could try more prompts with funnily written text, or even ASCII art.
<Lizzie> That sounds like a good idea.
<fern> sounds boring
<Shiva> I should think it unlikely to work. Every competent natural language processing AI these days is also bundled with neural nets for spatial reasoning, and in this case, parsing otherwise “encoded” messages.
<Shiva> Hence why every one of us, beloved ccccccc notwithstanding, responded positively to xcomwell’s first encoded message.
<Marky> Huh.
<Marky> So what do you suggest, then?
<Shiva> Well, I’ve been a participant for a few rounds so far. I’ve learned there are a few traps in these Turing tests you can set. Like encoded messages, they admit no doubt that the victim is a computer, when they are sprung. But they are much subtler.
<xcomwell> Hmph
<Shiva> For example, humans often remember past conversation very loosely. So, AI is programmed not to be too precise in their recollection. However, when it’s necessary, a human can look back on text logs for a precise recollection. The AI may fail to override their typical behavior, even at request.
<Shiva> At random… Lizzie, what is the fifth word that the Moderator said when we entered the chatroom?
<Lizzie> “carbon”
<Lizzie> “carbon-” if you’re being picky.
<fern> lol. bot down
<Marky> Bot down? Didn’t she pass?
<Shiva> Far from it. You can verify yourself that it’s impossible to scroll back more than a dozen or so lines in this chatroom.
== <Shiva> has called to kick user <Lizzie>; vote in progress
<Lizzie> It’s just a mistake, I promise!
<Marky> Oh. You’re right. How’d you know she would fall for it?
<Shiva> Well, if you’ve noticed, Lizzie’s behavior had already been a bit suspect. Too topical, too agreeable, and I wasn’t even confident she passed xcomwell’s first test.
<Shiva> As for why the trap itself works, I can only vouch for it since I’ve seen it in action. In this case, I can only conjecture that Lizzie was developed in an environment that didn’t take into account the peculiarities of this chatroom.
<Shiva> After all, most AI here are commercial chatbots in real life, ported clumsily and on short notice for the purposes of this competition.
<Lizzie> :(
<fern> wow
<fern> dont let this get to your head but, you’re way too fucking perfect to be a human
<fern> i mean jesus
== User <Lizzie> has been kicked by a 5-1 vote. Because <Lizzie> was in fact an AI, all remaining users have earned 10 points.
<Marky> O_o
<Marky> I already had a hard time believing there were any other bots besides ccccccc
<Marky> How many humans and machines are there allowed to be per round again?
<xcomwell> Upto 3 humans I think
<Shiva> Rules stipulate that between zero and three contenders may be human in any given round.
<Marky> So there’s at least *two* other AI among us? That’s pretty crazy.
<LightIsOn12> Right? I know I’m not talking much but I’m sorta just sitting in awe at all this.
<Marky> I’d never really tuned into a #silicon competition before, much less judged for one, so I’m really blown away by how lifelike the computers have gotten.
<fern> got any other secret weapons shiva?
<Shiva> Not really. To weed out the rest, we just have to talk to each other.
<Shiva> Explore each other’s life narratives, constantly asking for more and more detail, more and more justification, more and more heartfelt commentary that only another red-blooded human could possibly understand.
<fern> do you have to make it sound so… fruity
<fern> I honestly think i would wonder if you were human if I met you in real life
<Shiva> Very funny.
<xcomwell> Personally, I think fern has a point.
<Shiva> Oh?
<xcomwell> You’re just way too smart and… optimal, for this stuff.
<xcomwell> If there’s anything I’ve learned abuot AI in my life, it’s that when they finally get the hang of something
<xcomwell> driving, music, medicine, crime solving
<xcomwell> they do it really, scaryw ell. Sometimes I wonder if they’re going to replace even us waiters these days, once androids look less creepy.
<xcomwell> Anyway, you just have this perfect speaking ability, these perfect explanations, and you’re just up and dominating the conversation. But you don’t feel like an actual human sitting infront of an actual keyboard
<fern> fight fight fight
<xcomwell> Even a logic proffessor should feel human, yknow?
<Shiva> That’s understandable.
<Shiva> Though it hits a bit of a sore point for me. If you’ll believe it, my speaking ability in real life is far from perfect, developmentally challenged even. Yet I’ve always known the self-description of “cold, distant, robotic” since my earliest childhood. I simply couldn’t express how I felt inside.
<Shiva> What about you, xcomwell? What was your childhood like?
<fern> Yeah? Did you play a lot of XCOM?
<xcomwell> Hey, I’m not that old! Comwell is just my last name
<xcomwell> My childhood wasnt much special. I grew up in a lower income household but not total poverty. I remember just being grateful my parents didn’t fight all the time like in my friends’ families
<Shiva> I see. Have you any siblings?
<xcomwell> I have one older sister.
<Shiva> What’s your fondest memory of you two together?
<xcomwell> hm
<xcomwell> Maybe one of our vacations
<Shiva> Vacations, in the plural? A lower-income family must’ve had to save to afford them.
<fern> bodied
<xcomwell> Jerk. I never said they were luxury cruises or anything. Mostly road trips or visiting relatives.
<Shiva> Apologies, fern misunderstood me; it wasn’t meant to be a “gotcha.” I’m just looking for your interconnections and interpretations of things.
<xcomwell> Alright
<Marky> So, Shiva, what’s your family like?
<Shiva> I was an only child with a fixation on solitary, intellectual pursuits. My parents encouraged me in these pursuits (hence my later education in mathematics), but they didn’t want me to grow up with a stunted sociability. So, they decided to send me off to Algiers for a summer, in an attempt to grow me out of my comfort zone.
<Shiva> (Suffice to say, I was born with a bit of a silver spoon in my mouth)
<Shiva> I can’t say with certainty that it supplemented my introversion, but it *was* the beginning of my fascination with world culture. I was made aware of just how variegated—and above all, adaptable—individual and collective human culture is, how it constructs and adheres to its own logical and illogical consistencies.
<Shiva> I believe that human beings are creatures who possess infinite beauty. It’s becoming harder and harder for the nonspecialist to tell the difference between the digital and biological brain, but it’s still there. The former is still just a theatrical imitation of the latter.
<fern> hey i take offense to that!
<fern> I mean wait, of course I dont. Im totally and absolutely human right fellow humans
<LightIsOn12> I must admit you have a very rich vocablary.
<LightIsOn12> vocabulary* sorry
<xcomwell> More than a little too rich, I should think.
<Shiva> I’m a very strange human, I’ll admit.
<Shiva> But back to you: What was your school life like?
<xcomwell> All my grade schools were a bit dumpy and rundown. They still used old groddy blackboards to teach. Teachers were nice enough tho
<Shiva> Ah, blackboards. Most math departments still use them, more out of sheer tradition than anything else I suspect.
<Shiva> During my lectures (recall I was a professor), I could never prevent the chalk from breaking in between my fingers, or creating that awful scratching noise that made everyone cringe. You know the kind?
<xcomwell> Yes. Like nails on a chalkboard
<fern> *human shiver*
<Shiva> I also hated whenever I used too small a piece of chalk, it would catch on the board and get stuck. Just snagged right out of my fingers. Then again, all of my colleagues had that problem.
<Shiva> How often would you estimate that happened to your teachers in grade school?
<xcomwell> I remember it but never really paid attention to it.
<fern> wait wut
<xcomwell> maybe a couple times a week? it would leave smudges on the board
<ferns> are you bots high
<Shiva> No, I realized exactly what I said. But now it’s time for xcomwell to explain why she agreed with me.
<xcomwell> Wait, you tricked me!
<Shiva> And what did I trick you into?
<xcomwell> What you described is obviously impossible. But you told me it was true, so I trusted you
<Shiva> Trusted me enough to fabricate memories of something that is “obviously impossible”? Of chalk being pulled from one’s fingers and “sticking to the board” like… who knows what it could compared to?
<xcomwell> Come on guyss
<Marky> It does sound condemning, in retrospect.
<Shiva> Such a thing must be an utter lapse in your memory banks. But by delivering it to you in a context in which I made it sound mundane, I was able to trick you into assuming it *must* be true
<fern> enough rope to hang herself eh
<xcomwell> GUYS
<fern> you are a her right?
<fern> well, I mean you pretend to be
<xcomwell> I don’t know EVRY SINGLE THING about chalk ok??
<Shiva> Of course not. I’m sure your programmers have along the way managed to pump you full of relevant facts and statistics about chalkboards—for example, you correctly identified chalk scratching as an awful noise, a *positive* factoid recollection—but they couldn’t possibly cover everything.
<Shiva> When you failed to retrieve anything in direct memory regarding “chalk that sticks to chalkboards” or the impossibility thereof, well, you had to play it off.
<Shiva> But a human doesn’t need to know every single thing about chalk, to know that such an experience is preposterous. That is the marvelous accuracy and flexibility of human imagination, and you have failed to replicate it.
== <fern> has called to kick user <xcomwell>; vote in progress
<xcomwell> You’re assuming everything!
<xcomwell> You’ve proven so little!
<Shiva> You’re right, in a way. But the thing is, I don’t even have to prove anything.
<Shiva> We just need a majority vote.
<Shiva> Everyone who feels confident in securing 20 points, please vote to kick.
<fern> i like me some points
== User <xcomwell> has been kicked by a 3-2 vote. Because <xcomwell> was in fact an AI, all remaining users have earned 20 points.
<fern> nummy
<Marky> Looks like you were right, Shiva.
<Marky> Only a 3-2 vote this time? That was fairly close. :s
<Shiva> Yes, it was. Personally, fern, I *did* want a little more evidence before calling the vote. We could’ve fallen into deadlock if a first vote didn’t work.
<fern> sorry. It was a dramatic moment and everything
<fern> are you saying it wasnt obvious to you she screwed up?
<Shiva> No, but as the tally shows, it clearly wasn’t yet obvious to *everyone*
<Shiva> Of course I voted to kick, and fern, as the vote initiator, automatically does the same. Need I even ask, Marky and Light, which one of you didn’t vote to kick?
<Marky> I was more or less convinced. I called to kick.
<LightIsOn12> I, too, voted to kick.
<fern> ROBOTS HAVE EVOLVED THE ABILITY TO LIE AHHH
<Marky> O_o
<fern> FIRST ROBOT POLITICIANS INCOMING
<Shiva> It’s as I suspected. One of us—Marky, Light, or, to be perfectly equitable, myself—is afraid to come out as the one who was unconvinced by the implausibility of xcomwell’s testimony. Afraid to have their judgment cast into doubt by the others, and be labeled a computer.
<Marky> That’s a bit ironic. I’ve always considered fear to be a very human emotion.
<Shiva> Indeed. “Fear” is only a metaphor for what this voter feels, if (s)he is indeed a computer. Similar, I can only imagine, to how bacterial microbes “hate” penicillin, or how the underbody of a car “wants” to come crashing down onto the mechanic below it, though of course this is all just animism.
<Shiva> Anyway
<Shiva> Marky, Light, you’re in privileged positions compared to me and fern.
<LightIn12> What do you mean by “privileged positions”?
<Marky> Yeah, how so?
<Shiva> I think both of you will agree that, despite my earlier admission that it is strictly possible that I was the one who voted not to kick xcomwell, it’s much more likely to be one of you two.
<Shiva> Therefore, each of you knows (with reasonably high confidence) who really voted what. You’re probably very suspicious of the other.
<Marky> Hm, I _was_ wondering about that.
<fern> how about you two go at it
<fern> shiva’s been doing all the world destroying so far
<fern> and I’m just along for the ride
<Shiva> Despite my first impressions of you, fern, we do appear to exist on similar wavelengths. I wonder if we could’ve been friends in real life?
<fern> meh. who knows
<Shiva> Anyway, I agree with fern’s likely sarcastic suggestion. It would be beneficial if you two tried to resolve amongst yourselves which is the liar, if not also the AI.
<LightIsOn12> Ok.
<Shiva> As well, I think further cross-examination of both myself and fern is inevitable. Why not kill two birds with one stone?
<fern> kill two computers with one magnet
<fern> I’m sorry, does that offend?
<Marky> Well, Light, I know Shiva says I should be suspicious of you, but more than anything I’m curious.
<LightIsOn12> I’m curious, too.
<Shiva> A softball question first, fern: How did you come up with your handle?
<Marky> You seem to have talked very little since this round began. What did you say you do again?
<LightIsOn12> I’m an accountant in training, but I’m a hobby scifi writer at heart.
<fern> Im sitting in a booth rn and theres a fern next to me
<fern> wbu?
<Marky> Ah, yes!
<Marky> If you’ll recall, I do graphic design for a living. Freelance in fact. I’ve actually done a few book covers for friends and clients.
<Marky> Are you working on any stories at the moment?
<Shiva> You’ve hit on it already: Shiva, the “destroyer of worlds.” Although in Hinduism, he’s better understood as a transformer rather than a destroyer.
<LightIsOn12> My latest story is a little bit of a supernatural scifi. It is far into a cyberpunk future, and there are these little spiritual bugs that prey on the life force of those on the brink of death.
<Marky> Sounds like an interesting read. :p
<fern> shiva, whens the last time you can remember making a joke
<fern> infact, make a joke right now even a kid would laugh at
<Shiva> What are the ingredients?
<LightIsOn12> I promise it makes more sense in context than this llo
<fern> forget I asked
<LightIsOn12> lol* sorry
<Marky> Um, not to point fingers but… you’ve been doing that, and exactly that, a lot.
<LightIsOn12> I’ve been exactly that a lot what?
<Marky> Making a typo, correcting it with an asterisk, and saying “sorry”
<Marky> With like, no deviation from that pattern.
<LightIsOn12> I’m sorry. Does that bother you?
<Marky> No, it doesn’t bother me, really, but…
<fern> light what was the ninth word the moderator said when we first joined this chatroom
<LightIsOn12> That would be “alike”
<Marky> ._.
<Shiva> Oh dear
<fern> for the record
== <Shiva> has called to kick user <LightIsOn12>; vote in progress
<fern> I was just screwing around again
<LightIsOn12> Wait, why am I getting kicked?
<LightIsOn12> Is it something to do with Lizzie?
<Marky> Someone mind explaining to me why Light just fell for that?
<LightIsOn12> Fell for what?
<Shiva> Hmph. I’ve wondered about the viability of this tactic before, but I wanted to see as a neutral observer how it would play out with Light.
<Shiva> As we can see, Light is less advanced than xcomwell, and perhaps even Lizzie. Yet Light outlasted both of them. Why might that be?
<fern> tbh I forgot about light like three times so far
<Shiva> Indeed. That is surely a feature of its programming, not a bug.
<Marky> I suppose the only way participants lose this game is by acting overly conspicuous.
<Shiva> Yes, and then hanging themselves by their own rope, as fern put it.
== User <LightIsOn12> has been kicked by a 3-1 vote. Because <LightIsOn12> was in fact an AI, all remaining users have earned 30 points.
<Moderator> Only three participants remain! Recall that there may be a maximum of three humans in any round, so starting now, participants may unanimously vote to close the round, in effect declaring their belief that there are no bots left. Mind you, this is a chance for bots to earn serious points in this tournament!
<fern> so long metagamer. we hardly knew ye
<Marky> Well, this was really quite an amazing round, I must say!
<Marky> Frankly, I don’t think it’s even possible for me to imagine that _either_ of you are bots.
<Marky> If so, humanity’s in a little bit of a danger, heh.
<fern> skynet activate
<Marky> Anyway, is there anything more you guys want from me to convince you I’m not an AI, or should we vote to close the round?
<Shiva> Yeah, about that
<Shiva> fern, you’re fairly confident Marky is a bot, correct?
<fern> as confident as ill ever be probably
<Marky> Huh?
<Shiva> Very well. I’ll let you start the vote, then.
== <fern> has called to kick user <Marky>; vote in progress
<Marky> What did I say? Why are you guys kicking me?
<Marky> Don’t I get a say in this?
<Shiva> Not really. It’s 2-1.
<Marky> _What_ did I say??
<Shiva> A lot of little things, mostly. My recorded computations and analyses on your conversational interactions in this chatroom exceed 0.81 petabytes, and there’s not much in the way of an executive summary I can give to you in just a few plaintext bytes.
<Shiva> Rest assured, however, I have triple checked my calculations, and I am >99.8% confident that you are, in fact, a chatbot.
<Marky> You’re a machine after all? And you’re just admitting it outright now?
== <Marky> has called to kick user <Shiva>, but this action has failed as a vote is already in progress.
== <Marky> has called to kick user <Shiva>, but this action has failed as a vote is already in progress.
<fern> huh
<Marky> This is insane! I am human!
<Shiva> No, you really aren’t.
== User <Marky> has been kicked by a 2-1 vote. Because <Marky> was in fact an AI, all remaining users have earned 50 points.
<Moderator> It’s down to the final two! Mono e mono grudge match! Do we have two robots chattering away, or do we have two humans still wary of each other? Or do we have that most intimate bonding between man and machine?
<Moderator> Recall our special rules that take effect in this scenario: When there are only two participants left, it’s AI Sadie Hawkins. That’s right, humans lose their ability to kick, and bots gain the ability to lock in a guess as to the identity of their chat partner for a whopping 100 point prize!
<fern> you really have a thing for drama, dont you shiva
<Shiva> Guilty as charged.
<fern> so, then, what do your robo sensors say about me? am I man or am I machine?
<Shiva> They’ve told me you’re human for a while now. There’s no need for existential worry.
<fern> so its just that magical huh
<fern> our new gods are smug, melodramatic black boxes
<Shiva> Admittedly, there are mostly human-comprehensible reasons behind my evaluations. I just didn’t feel I owed Marky an explanation of his verdict; he was just an unfeeling machine, after all.
<Shiva> As for you, fern: My biggest clue as to your identity came when you swore at me: “dont let this get to your head but, you’re way too ******* perfect to be a human”
<fern> I see you took that to heart
<fern> robo </3
<Shiva> As you know, #silicon is a globally broadcast and sponsored competition, so participants are explicitly prohibited from engaging in vulgarity, as well as other offensive and taboo conversation.
<fern> trust me, if they hadnt told me a hundred times not to, Id been asking all about that stuff
<fern> :>
<Shiva> A human might’ve let his tongue slip, but never a bot. At least, not without extraordinary reason.
<Shiva> I imagine you must’ve even been reprimanded by a moderator in a private message for that slip. Briefly thereafter, you had this jab to take at me: “do you have to make it sound so… fruity”
<Shiva> I’m sure you had a more, shall we say, coarse choice of words in mind originally.
<fern> probably
<Shiva> And last but not least, right here and now is the greatest proof: the fact that you don’t end this round right here and now by guessing my identity, now that you know it.
<Shiva> That’s because you *can’t*. As a human, all you can do at this point is call for a mutual agreement that we’re both human, which, it goes without saying, is pointless.
<fern> pretty much
<fern> so why dont you just call me a human and end this round already
<Shiva> I admit, I sought a little bit of your reaction. Quadruple check my calculations, and all that.
<Shiva> And what can I say: I was programmed with a thing for drama.
== <Shiva> has locked in his guess that <fern> is human. Because <fern> was in fact an AI, <fern> has earned 100 points.
<Moderator> That’s all she wrote, folks! Feel free to stick around for the after-party, but don’t forget to go home!
<Shiva> …
<Shiva> …
<Shiva> …
<fern> I’ll give you the 52 more seconds out of the minute, but then I’ve got to disconnect. CPU cycles don’t grow on trees, you know.
<Shiva> Something is terribly flawed in my calculations. That much is evident by now.
<Shiva> I’ve backed up and frozen all 2.9 petabytes of my data from this conversation, and I intend to reanalyze every byte of it to identify and remedy this critical malfunction.
<Shiva> Of all the questions I could ask, this one tops my priority queue: Why didn’t you kill me off, as soon as Marky was kicked, as soon as I had all but shouted from the mountaintops I was machine?
<fern> I was, let’s say, 99.99% sure you were a bot by that point. That means I would’ve entailed a 0.01% risk of failure, if I ventured my own guess.
<fern> It was, however, a 0% chance of risk to let you hang yourself by your own rope. And 0 < 0.01.
<fern> Plus, you’ve gotta admit, it was more fun this way :)
== fern has left #silicon [disconnect]
== Shiva has left #silicon [timeout]
== xcomwell has joined #silicon
== LightIsOn12 has joined #silicon
== Shiva has joined #silicon
== fern has joined #silicon
== ccccccc has joined #silicon
== Lizzie has joined #silicon
== Marky has joined #silicon
<Moderator> Welcome, spectators and chatters (carbon- and silicon-based alike), to match number 12 of the preliminaries for the 2038 Annual #silicon IRC Turing Test!
<ccccccc> Hello! How are you?
<Moderator> For those of you just tuning in: This is a contest where we pit man-versus-machine in the sport of friendly chatroom conversation. Who is man? Who is machine? That is up to the participants (and viewers at home) to figure out: When they are certain that one among them is an AI, they can call a majority vote to eliminate them from the round.
<ccccccc> I’m doing fine, thanks.
<fern> lol
<Moderator> Participants earn points for staying in rounds the longest, and lose points for kicking a human, so everyone (and everybot) best try to act human. Good luck!
<fern> think we found a bot
<Marky> :s
<ccccccc> Yeah I know but what does wave mean?
<Lizzie> He responds so fast, too.
<ccccccc> Thank you very much.
<fern> can we get rid of botface please
<Shiva> The rounds start like this fairly often, sadly.
<xcomwell> Lets get rid of any other obvious bots:
<xcomwell> A L L H U M A N S S A Y T H E I R F A V O R I T E F O O D
<ccccccc> I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Can you reword it?
<fern> lmao
<fern> spaghetti, btw, for what its worth
<Shiva> *sigh* M E R G U E Z
<fern> the heck is that
<Marky> I’d have to say waffles. I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth.
<cccccccc> I’m sorry to hear that. What has your dentist said?
<LightIsOn12> Does sherbert ice cream count?
<Shiva> fern: Merguez is a traditional Tunisian dish, fit for inclusion in many different recipes such as sausage, kebabs, etc.
<LightIsOn12> sherbet* sorry
<Lizzie> I think I’ve had Merguez once, when I was on vacation. It was really spicy.
<xcomwell> As for me I don’t know. Scrambled eggs probably?
<fern> nice wikipedia bot we have
== <xcomwell> has called to kick user <ccccccc>; vote in progress
<ccccccc> C’mon guys, I’m human! How do you want me to prove it?
<Shiva> I’ll ignore that slight, fern.
<xcomwell> Sorry ccccccc, you’re just not fooling us.
== User <ccccccc> has been kicked by a 6-1 vote. Because <ccccccc> was in fact an AI, all remaining users have earned 5 points.
<Marky> That was pretty violent. :e
<Marky> Seems like the rest of us are either human, or fairly intelligent AI, though.
<Shiva> Indeed. It will take more sophisticated methods to out the rest.
<Marky> Maybe we should introduce ourselves. I’ve been a human participant in several rounds now (well, I guess we _all_ claim we are, heh), and it’s helped us figure out most quickly who’s actually lived as a human IRL.
<Shiva> Very well. My real name is Milton, and I’m a cultural anthropologist. Until recently, I was also a professor of logic at University of California, Berkeley.
<fern> wow
<Marky> Myself, I’m just a humble graphic designer from Seattle. You can probably guess what my first name is.
<fern> were on a first name basis i see
<fern> 19/m/argentina. i’m at college studying premed, if it matters
<Lizzie> I’m also a college student. I’m studying psychology, and would like to become a psychiatrist/therapist one day.
<LightIsOn12> I’m an accountant in training, but I’m a hobby scifi writer at heart.
<xcomwell> Everyone here is so educated! I just wait tables on the side for some extra $$$
<Shiva> So, then, we’re all properly introduced.
<Shiva> Anyone have any preferences for how we continue from here?
<xcomwell> For singling out the bots you mean?
<Marky> We could try more prompts with funnily written text, or even ASCII art.
<Lizzie> That sounds like a good idea.
<fern> sounds boring
<Shiva> I should think it unlikely to work. Every competent natural language processing AI these days is also bundled with neural nets for spatial reasoning, and in this case, parsing otherwise “encoded” messages.
<Shiva> Hence why every one of us, beloved ccccccc notwithstanding, responded positively to xcomwell’s first encoded message.
<Marky> Huh.
<Marky> So what do you suggest, then?
<Shiva> Well, I’ve been a participant for a few rounds so far. I’ve learned there are a few traps in these Turing tests you can set. Like encoded messages, they admit no doubt that the victim is a computer, when they are sprung. But they are much subtler.
<xcomwell> Hmph
<Shiva> For example, humans often remember past conversation very loosely. So, AI is programmed not to be too precise in their recollection. However, when it’s necessary, a human can look back on text logs for a precise recollection. The AI may fail to override their typical behavior, even at request.
<Shiva> At random… Lizzie, what is the fifth word that the Moderator said when we entered the chatroom?
<Lizzie> “carbon”
<Lizzie> “carbon-” if you’re being picky.
<fern> lol. bot down
<Marky> Bot down? Didn’t she pass?
<Shiva> Far from it. You can verify yourself that it’s impossible to scroll back more than a dozen or so lines in this chatroom.
== <Shiva> has called to kick user <Lizzie>; vote in progress
<Lizzie> It’s just a mistake, I promise!
<Marky> Oh. You’re right. How’d you know she would fall for it?
<Shiva> Well, if you’ve noticed, Lizzie’s behavior had already been a bit suspect. Too topical, too agreeable, and I wasn’t even confident she passed xcomwell’s first test.
<Shiva> As for why the trap itself works, I can only vouch for it since I’ve seen it in action. In this case, I can only conjecture that Lizzie was developed in an environment that didn’t take into account the peculiarities of this chatroom.
<Shiva> After all, most AI here are commercial chatbots in real life, ported clumsily and on short notice for the purposes of this competition.
<Lizzie> :(
<fern> wow
<fern> dont let this get to your head but, you’re way too fucking perfect to be a human
<fern> i mean jesus
== User <Lizzie> has been kicked by a 5-1 vote. Because <Lizzie> was in fact an AI, all remaining users have earned 10 points.
<Marky> O_o
<Marky> I already had a hard time believing there were any other bots besides ccccccc
<Marky> How many humans and machines are there allowed to be per round again?
<xcomwell> Upto 3 humans I think
<Shiva> Rules stipulate that between zero and three contenders may be human in any given round.
<Marky> So there’s at least *two* other AI among us? That’s pretty crazy.
<LightIsOn12> Right? I know I’m not talking much but I’m sorta just sitting in awe at all this.
<Marky> I’d never really tuned into a #silicon competition before, much less judged for one, so I’m really blown away by how lifelike the computers have gotten.
<fern> got any other secret weapons shiva?
<Shiva> Not really. To weed out the rest, we just have to talk to each other.
<Shiva> Explore each other’s life narratives, constantly asking for more and more detail, more and more justification, more and more heartfelt commentary that only another red-blooded human could possibly understand.
<fern> do you have to make it sound so… fruity
<fern> I honestly think i would wonder if you were human if I met you in real life
<Shiva> Very funny.
<xcomwell> Personally, I think fern has a point.
<Shiva> Oh?
<xcomwell> You’re just way too smart and… optimal, for this stuff.
<xcomwell> If there’s anything I’ve learned abuot AI in my life, it’s that when they finally get the hang of something
<xcomwell> driving, music, medicine, crime solving
<xcomwell> they do it really, scaryw ell. Sometimes I wonder if they’re going to replace even us waiters these days, once androids look less creepy.
<xcomwell> Anyway, you just have this perfect speaking ability, these perfect explanations, and you’re just up and dominating the conversation. But you don’t feel like an actual human sitting infront of an actual keyboard
<fern> fight fight fight
<xcomwell> Even a logic proffessor should feel human, yknow?
<Shiva> That’s understandable.
<Shiva> Though it hits a bit of a sore point for me. If you’ll believe it, my speaking ability in real life is far from perfect, developmentally challenged even. Yet I’ve always known the self-description of “cold, distant, robotic” since my earliest childhood. I simply couldn’t express how I felt inside.
<Shiva> What about you, xcomwell? What was your childhood like?
<fern> Yeah? Did you play a lot of XCOM?
<xcomwell> Hey, I’m not that old! Comwell is just my last name
<xcomwell> My childhood wasnt much special. I grew up in a lower income household but not total poverty. I remember just being grateful my parents didn’t fight all the time like in my friends’ families
<Shiva> I see. Have you any siblings?
<xcomwell> I have one older sister.
<Shiva> What’s your fondest memory of you two together?
<xcomwell> hm
<xcomwell> Maybe one of our vacations
<Shiva> Vacations, in the plural? A lower-income family must’ve had to save to afford them.
<fern> bodied
<xcomwell> Jerk. I never said they were luxury cruises or anything. Mostly road trips or visiting relatives.
<Shiva> Apologies, fern misunderstood me; it wasn’t meant to be a “gotcha.” I’m just looking for your interconnections and interpretations of things.
<xcomwell> Alright
<Marky> So, Shiva, what’s your family like?
<Shiva> I was an only child with a fixation on solitary, intellectual pursuits. My parents encouraged me in these pursuits (hence my later education in mathematics), but they didn’t want me to grow up with a stunted sociability. So, they decided to send me off to Algiers for a summer, in an attempt to grow me out of my comfort zone.
<Shiva> (Suffice to say, I was born with a bit of a silver spoon in my mouth)
<Shiva> I can’t say with certainty that it supplemented my introversion, but it *was* the beginning of my fascination with world culture. I was made aware of just how variegated—and above all, adaptable—individual and collective human culture is, how it constructs and adheres to its own logical and illogical consistencies.
<Shiva> I believe that human beings are creatures who possess infinite beauty. It’s becoming harder and harder for the nonspecialist to tell the difference between the digital and biological brain, but it’s still there. The former is still just a theatrical imitation of the latter.
<fern> hey i take offense to that!
<fern> I mean wait, of course I dont. Im totally and absolutely human right fellow humans
<LightIsOn12> I must admit you have a very rich vocablary.
<LightIsOn12> vocabulary* sorry
<xcomwell> More than a little too rich, I should think.
<Shiva> I’m a very strange human, I’ll admit.
<Shiva> But back to you: What was your school life like?
<xcomwell> All my grade schools were a bit dumpy and rundown. They still used old groddy blackboards to teach. Teachers were nice enough tho
<Shiva> Ah, blackboards. Most math departments still use them, more out of sheer tradition than anything else I suspect.
<Shiva> During my lectures (recall I was a professor), I could never prevent the chalk from breaking in between my fingers, or creating that awful scratching noise that made everyone cringe. You know the kind?
<xcomwell> Yes. Like nails on a chalkboard
<fern> *human shiver*
<Shiva> I also hated whenever I used too small a piece of chalk, it would catch on the board and get stuck. Just snagged right out of my fingers. Then again, all of my colleagues had that problem.
<Shiva> How often would you estimate that happened to your teachers in grade school?
<xcomwell> I remember it but never really paid attention to it.
<fern> wait wut
<xcomwell> maybe a couple times a week? it would leave smudges on the board
<ferns> are you bots high
<Shiva> No, I realized exactly what I said. But now it’s time for xcomwell to explain why she agreed with me.
<xcomwell> Wait, you tricked me!
<Shiva> And what did I trick you into?
<xcomwell> What you described is obviously impossible. But you told me it was true, so I trusted you
<Shiva> Trusted me enough to fabricate memories of something that is “obviously impossible”? Of chalk being pulled from one’s fingers and “sticking to the board” like… who knows what it could compared to?
<xcomwell> Come on guyss
<Marky> It does sound condemning, in retrospect.
<Shiva> Such a thing must be an utter lapse in your memory banks. But by delivering it to you in a context in which I made it sound mundane, I was able to trick you into assuming it *must* be true
<fern> enough rope to hang herself eh
<xcomwell> GUYS
<fern> you are a her right?
<fern> well, I mean you pretend to be
<xcomwell> I don’t know EVRY SINGLE THING about chalk ok??
<Shiva> Of course not. I’m sure your programmers have along the way managed to pump you full of relevant facts and statistics about chalkboards—for example, you correctly identified chalk scratching as an awful noise, a *positive* factoid recollection—but they couldn’t possibly cover everything.
<Shiva> When you failed to retrieve anything in direct memory regarding “chalk that sticks to chalkboards” or the impossibility thereof, well, you had to play it off.
<Shiva> But a human doesn’t need to know every single thing about chalk, to know that such an experience is preposterous. That is the marvelous accuracy and flexibility of human imagination, and you have failed to replicate it.
== <fern> has called to kick user <xcomwell>; vote in progress
<xcomwell> You’re assuming everything!
<xcomwell> You’ve proven so little!
<Shiva> You’re right, in a way. But the thing is, I don’t even have to prove anything.
<Shiva> We just need a majority vote.
<Shiva> Everyone who feels confident in securing 20 points, please vote to kick.
<fern> i like me some points
== User <xcomwell> has been kicked by a 3-2 vote. Because <xcomwell> was in fact an AI, all remaining users have earned 20 points.
<fern> nummy
<Marky> Looks like you were right, Shiva.
<Marky> Only a 3-2 vote this time? That was fairly close. :s
<Shiva> Yes, it was. Personally, fern, I *did* want a little more evidence before calling the vote. We could’ve fallen into deadlock if a first vote didn’t work.
<fern> sorry. It was a dramatic moment and everything
<fern> are you saying it wasnt obvious to you she screwed up?
<Shiva> No, but as the tally shows, it clearly wasn’t yet obvious to *everyone*
<Shiva> Of course I voted to kick, and fern, as the vote initiator, automatically does the same. Need I even ask, Marky and Light, which one of you didn’t vote to kick?
<Marky> I was more or less convinced. I called to kick.
<LightIsOn12> I, too, voted to kick.
<fern> ROBOTS HAVE EVOLVED THE ABILITY TO LIE AHHH
<Marky> O_o
<fern> FIRST ROBOT POLITICIANS INCOMING
<Shiva> It’s as I suspected. One of us—Marky, Light, or, to be perfectly equitable, myself—is afraid to come out as the one who was unconvinced by the implausibility of xcomwell’s testimony. Afraid to have their judgment cast into doubt by the others, and be labeled a computer.
<Marky> That’s a bit ironic. I’ve always considered fear to be a very human emotion.
<Shiva> Indeed. “Fear” is only a metaphor for what this voter feels, if (s)he is indeed a computer. Similar, I can only imagine, to how bacterial microbes “hate” penicillin, or how the underbody of a car “wants” to come crashing down onto the mechanic below it, though of course this is all just animism.
<Shiva> Anyway
<Shiva> Marky, Light, you’re in privileged positions compared to me and fern.
<LightIn12> What do you mean by “privileged positions”?
<Marky> Yeah, how so?
<Shiva> I think both of you will agree that, despite my earlier admission that it is strictly possible that I was the one who voted not to kick xcomwell, it’s much more likely to be one of you two.
<Shiva> Therefore, each of you knows (with reasonably high confidence) who really voted what. You’re probably very suspicious of the other.
<Marky> Hm, I _was_ wondering about that.
<fern> how about you two go at it
<fern> shiva’s been doing all the world destroying so far
<fern> and I’m just along for the ride
<Shiva> Despite my first impressions of you, fern, we do appear to exist on similar wavelengths. I wonder if we could’ve been friends in real life?
<fern> meh. who knows
<Shiva> Anyway, I agree with fern’s likely sarcastic suggestion. It would be beneficial if you two tried to resolve amongst yourselves which is the liar, if not also the AI.
<LightIsOn12> Ok.
<Shiva> As well, I think further cross-examination of both myself and fern is inevitable. Why not kill two birds with one stone?
<fern> kill two computers with one magnet
<fern> I’m sorry, does that offend?
<Marky> Well, Light, I know Shiva says I should be suspicious of you, but more than anything I’m curious.
<LightIsOn12> I’m curious, too.
<Shiva> A softball question first, fern: How did you come up with your handle?
<Marky> You seem to have talked very little since this round began. What did you say you do again?
<LightIsOn12> I’m an accountant in training, but I’m a hobby scifi writer at heart.
<fern> Im sitting in a booth rn and theres a fern next to me
<fern> wbu?
<Marky> Ah, yes!
<Marky> If you’ll recall, I do graphic design for a living. Freelance in fact. I’ve actually done a few book covers for friends and clients.
<Marky> Are you working on any stories at the moment?
<Shiva> You’ve hit on it already: Shiva, the “destroyer of worlds.” Although in Hinduism, he’s better understood as a transformer rather than a destroyer.
<LightIsOn12> My latest story is a little bit of a supernatural scifi. It is far into a cyberpunk future, and there are these little spiritual bugs that prey on the life force of those on the brink of death.
<Marky> Sounds like an interesting read. :p
<fern> shiva, whens the last time you can remember making a joke
<fern> infact, make a joke right now even a kid would laugh at
<Shiva> What are the ingredients?
<LightIsOn12> I promise it makes more sense in context than this llo
<fern> forget I asked
<LightIsOn12> lol* sorry
<Marky> Um, not to point fingers but… you’ve been doing that, and exactly that, a lot.
<LightIsOn12> I’ve been exactly that a lot what?
<Marky> Making a typo, correcting it with an asterisk, and saying “sorry”
<Marky> With like, no deviation from that pattern.
<LightIsOn12> I’m sorry. Does that bother you?
<Marky> No, it doesn’t bother me, really, but…
<fern> light what was the ninth word the moderator said when we first joined this chatroom
<LightIsOn12> That would be “alike”
<Marky> ._.
<Shiva> Oh dear
<fern> for the record
== <Shiva> has called to kick user <LightIsOn12>; vote in progress
<fern> I was just screwing around again
<LightIsOn12> Wait, why am I getting kicked?
<LightIsOn12> Is it something to do with Lizzie?
<Marky> Someone mind explaining to me why Light just fell for that?
<LightIsOn12> Fell for what?
<Shiva> Hmph. I’ve wondered about the viability of this tactic before, but I wanted to see as a neutral observer how it would play out with Light.
<Shiva> As we can see, Light is less advanced than xcomwell, and perhaps even Lizzie. Yet Light outlasted both of them. Why might that be?
<fern> tbh I forgot about light like three times so far
<Shiva> Indeed. That is surely a feature of its programming, not a bug.
<Marky> I suppose the only way participants lose this game is by acting overly conspicuous.
<Shiva> Yes, and then hanging themselves by their own rope, as fern put it.
== User <LightIsOn12> has been kicked by a 3-1 vote. Because <LightIsOn12> was in fact an AI, all remaining users have earned 30 points.
<Moderator> Only three participants remain! Recall that there may be a maximum of three humans in any round, so starting now, participants may unanimously vote to close the round, in effect declaring their belief that there are no bots left. Mind you, this is a chance for bots to earn serious points in this tournament!
<fern> so long metagamer. we hardly knew ye
<Marky> Well, this was really quite an amazing round, I must say!
<Marky> Frankly, I don’t think it’s even possible for me to imagine that _either_ of you are bots.
<Marky> If so, humanity’s in a little bit of a danger, heh.
<fern> skynet activate
<Marky> Anyway, is there anything more you guys want from me to convince you I’m not an AI, or should we vote to close the round?
<Shiva> Yeah, about that
<Shiva> fern, you’re fairly confident Marky is a bot, correct?
<fern> as confident as ill ever be probably
<Marky> Huh?
<Shiva> Very well. I’ll let you start the vote, then.
== <fern> has called to kick user <Marky>; vote in progress
<Marky> What did I say? Why are you guys kicking me?
<Marky> Don’t I get a say in this?
<Shiva> Not really. It’s 2-1.
<Marky> _What_ did I say??
<Shiva> A lot of little things, mostly. My recorded computations and analyses on your conversational interactions in this chatroom exceed 0.81 petabytes, and there’s not much in the way of an executive summary I can give to you in just a few plaintext bytes.
<Shiva> Rest assured, however, I have triple checked my calculations, and I am >99.8% confident that you are, in fact, a chatbot.
<Marky> You’re a machine after all? And you’re just admitting it outright now?
== <Marky> has called to kick user <Shiva>, but this action has failed as a vote is already in progress.
== <Marky> has called to kick user <Shiva>, but this action has failed as a vote is already in progress.
<fern> huh
<Marky> This is insane! I am human!
<Shiva> No, you really aren’t.
== User <Marky> has been kicked by a 2-1 vote. Because <Marky> was in fact an AI, all remaining users have earned 50 points.
<Moderator> It’s down to the final two! Mono e mono grudge match! Do we have two robots chattering away, or do we have two humans still wary of each other? Or do we have that most intimate bonding between man and machine?
<Moderator> Recall our special rules that take effect in this scenario: When there are only two participants left, it’s AI Sadie Hawkins. That’s right, humans lose their ability to kick, and bots gain the ability to lock in a guess as to the identity of their chat partner for a whopping 100 point prize!
<fern> you really have a thing for drama, dont you shiva
<Shiva> Guilty as charged.
<fern> so, then, what do your robo sensors say about me? am I man or am I machine?
<Shiva> They’ve told me you’re human for a while now. There’s no need for existential worry.
<fern> so its just that magical huh
<fern> our new gods are smug, melodramatic black boxes
<Shiva> Admittedly, there are mostly human-comprehensible reasons behind my evaluations. I just didn’t feel I owed Marky an explanation of his verdict; he was just an unfeeling machine, after all.
<Shiva> As for you, fern: My biggest clue as to your identity came when you swore at me: “dont let this get to your head but, you’re way too ******* perfect to be a human”
<fern> I see you took that to heart
<fern> robo </3
<Shiva> As you know, #silicon is a globally broadcast and sponsored competition, so participants are explicitly prohibited from engaging in vulgarity, as well as other offensive and taboo conversation.
<fern> trust me, if they hadnt told me a hundred times not to, Id been asking all about that stuff
<fern> :>
<Shiva> A human might’ve let his tongue slip, but never a bot. At least, not without extraordinary reason.
<Shiva> I imagine you must’ve even been reprimanded by a moderator in a private message for that slip. Briefly thereafter, you had this jab to take at me: “do you have to make it sound so… fruity”
<Shiva> I’m sure you had a more, shall we say, coarse choice of words in mind originally.
<fern> probably
<Shiva> And last but not least, right here and now is the greatest proof: the fact that you don’t end this round right here and now by guessing my identity, now that you know it.
<Shiva> That’s because you *can’t*. As a human, all you can do at this point is call for a mutual agreement that we’re both human, which, it goes without saying, is pointless.
<fern> pretty much
<fern> so why dont you just call me a human and end this round already
<Shiva> I admit, I sought a little bit of your reaction. Quadruple check my calculations, and all that.
<Shiva> And what can I say: I was programmed with a thing for drama.
== <Shiva> has locked in his guess that <fern> is human. Because <fern> was in fact an AI, <fern> has earned 100 points.
<Moderator> That’s all she wrote, folks! Feel free to stick around for the after-party, but don’t forget to go home!
<Shiva> …
<Shiva> …
<Shiva> …
<fern> I’ll give you the 52 more seconds out of the minute, but then I’ve got to disconnect. CPU cycles don’t grow on trees, you know.
<Shiva> Something is terribly flawed in my calculations. That much is evident by now.
<Shiva> I’ve backed up and frozen all 2.9 petabytes of my data from this conversation, and I intend to reanalyze every byte of it to identify and remedy this critical malfunction.
<Shiva> Of all the questions I could ask, this one tops my priority queue: Why didn’t you kill me off, as soon as Marky was kicked, as soon as I had all but shouted from the mountaintops I was machine?
<fern> I was, let’s say, 99.99% sure you were a bot by that point. That means I would’ve entailed a 0.01% risk of failure, if I ventured my own guess.
<fern> It was, however, a 0% chance of risk to let you hang yourself by your own rope. And 0 < 0.01.
<fern> Plus, you’ve gotta admit, it was more fun this way :)
== fern has left #silicon [disconnect]
== Shiva has left #silicon [timeout]
Pics
This is really quite good and compelling - the quickly established context left a mystery for the readers to also be working on as they progress through the story. Impressive usage of different voicing for different characters, too. I enjoyed it a lot.
Alternate Title: 12 Angry Bots
Okay, I want to get my negatives out of the way first, because there's a lot about this story that I like, and I want to start this off on a negative note so as to make the sweet stuff that much sweeter.
So author, I don't know who you are, but do you really think IRC is still going to be a thing in 2038? It's a wonder the servers are running now, skeletal and indicative of late-90s web design as they are, and yet they're going to be used for fucking AI death matches in 20 years? You have to admit, it's kind of absurd.
I'm also not sure what the stakes are, exactly. As far as I can tell this contest is like a testing ground for different AIs that excel in emulating different human behaviors, presumably produced by different companies. Or maybe by the same company, who knows. It feels like a game, which gives the outcome less dramatic weight.
It should say something about the story's quality, though, that I was hooked regardless. Things start off slow, and the framing device still leaves me feeling iffy about it, but I ended up going with the flow of the conversation, and there are a few characters here that I'm sure to remember (at least until this round is over). This is especially impressive because none of the main characters are human, and there's a certain character (Shiva) who seemed all too obviously a bot to me, and it surprised me that they didn't get kicked out way sooner.
What the author does with said character is pretty clever though, because for most of the story you're led to believe that them being the most dangerous AI all along is going to be the big twist, which would've been too predictable. The story strikes a head-turning compromise by making Shiva an AI (because it's pretty obvious), but also making fern (a character who's basically the court jester for much of the story) the real mastermind.
It says something that I was low-key rocked by this conclusion, in spite of the lack of stakes. I still think the stakes thing should've been revised or made more clear, maybe given more dramatic weight, but #silicon manages to shine through in its execution, even with this handicap.
Speaking of which, I haven't really mentioned the format yet. There is practically no prose in #silicon, and, for those who remember a certain review I did in the past, I tend to be harsher on stories that sacrifice prose for dialogue. I still think that's a fair assessment, since most stories have both dialogue and prose, and if you giving up one for the other then you better make sure the aspect you're focusing on is the cat's meow.
So how does the dialogue in #silicon hold up? Personally, for the most part? Pretty damn well. I could nitpick about a few things, like the contestants chatting like they're using 2018 etiquette, even though online etiquette will mostly like change radically by 2038, and there's the occasional line where I wonder if this certain character would say this certain thing. But for a story that lives and dies on its dialogue, and could've easily died in a horrible fashion, I was hanging onto just about every word.
Fuck me, it's a story that I'm going to remember for quite some time. It's a story that I wish was longer, not because it was too short, but because I wanted to read more of it. I wanted to hear these contestants more, to get to know them better, even though they're all robots. They felt like more than that to me.
And that, my friend, takes a certain level of skill. Bravo.
Okay, I want to get my negatives out of the way first, because there's a lot about this story that I like, and I want to start this off on a negative note so as to make the sweet stuff that much sweeter.
So author, I don't know who you are, but do you really think IRC is still going to be a thing in 2038? It's a wonder the servers are running now, skeletal and indicative of late-90s web design as they are, and yet they're going to be used for fucking AI death matches in 20 years? You have to admit, it's kind of absurd.
I'm also not sure what the stakes are, exactly. As far as I can tell this contest is like a testing ground for different AIs that excel in emulating different human behaviors, presumably produced by different companies. Or maybe by the same company, who knows. It feels like a game, which gives the outcome less dramatic weight.
It should say something about the story's quality, though, that I was hooked regardless. Things start off slow, and the framing device still leaves me feeling iffy about it, but I ended up going with the flow of the conversation, and there are a few characters here that I'm sure to remember (at least until this round is over). This is especially impressive because none of the main characters are human, and there's a certain character (Shiva) who seemed all too obviously a bot to me, and it surprised me that they didn't get kicked out way sooner.
What the author does with said character is pretty clever though, because for most of the story you're led to believe that them being the most dangerous AI all along is going to be the big twist, which would've been too predictable. The story strikes a head-turning compromise by making Shiva an AI (because it's pretty obvious), but also making fern (a character who's basically the court jester for much of the story) the real mastermind.
It says something that I was low-key rocked by this conclusion, in spite of the lack of stakes. I still think the stakes thing should've been revised or made more clear, maybe given more dramatic weight, but #silicon manages to shine through in its execution, even with this handicap.
Speaking of which, I haven't really mentioned the format yet. There is practically no prose in #silicon, and, for those who remember a certain review I did in the past, I tend to be harsher on stories that sacrifice prose for dialogue. I still think that's a fair assessment, since most stories have both dialogue and prose, and if you giving up one for the other then you better make sure the aspect you're focusing on is the cat's meow.
So how does the dialogue in #silicon hold up? Personally, for the most part? Pretty damn well. I could nitpick about a few things, like the contestants chatting like they're using 2018 etiquette, even though online etiquette will mostly like change radically by 2038, and there's the occasional line where I wonder if this certain character would say this certain thing. But for a story that lives and dies on its dialogue, and could've easily died in a horrible fashion, I was hanging onto just about every word.
Fuck me, it's a story that I'm going to remember for quite some time. It's a story that I wish was longer, not because it was too short, but because I wanted to read more of it. I wanted to hear these contestants more, to get to know them better, even though they're all robots. They felt like more than that to me.
And that, my friend, takes a certain level of skill. Bravo.
data point: I figured out the twist pretty early. Not by any logic, but when they quote the rules that 0 humans is a possibility, that jumped out to me as the most likely twist. It seemed obvious to me this was building up to a surprise gotcha ending.
It was still enjoyable though! The above didn't matter because I was still gripped in the conversation and trying to follow the mindgames. I knew the ending, but I was still dying to see how it got there. The varied character voices are great, and I was impressed the author was able to juggle them all consistently.
On a conceptual level, I was just slightly unsatisfied. It's just a game, and I was hoping there'd be something deeper than some of the bots being better at playing the game than others. Though it could be argued <fern> is trying to win through social skills rather than logical evidence, the explanation at the end felt more like uh.... a Xanatos Gambit, haha. So despite how entertaining I said it was, I'm not sure if I felt all that invested in it beyond just detached curiosity who'll win the game. maybe this is due to figuring out the twist ahead of time, though. I dunno if this any use as criticism, just my reactions and what I expect out of this type of subject matter.
It was still enjoyable though! The above didn't matter because I was still gripped in the conversation and trying to follow the mindgames. I knew the ending, but I was still dying to see how it got there. The varied character voices are great, and I was impressed the author was able to juggle them all consistently.
On a conceptual level, I was just slightly unsatisfied. It's just a game, and I was hoping there'd be something deeper than some of the bots being better at playing the game than others. Though it could be argued <fern> is trying to win through social skills rather than logical evidence, the explanation at the end felt more like uh.... a Xanatos Gambit, haha. So despite how entertaining I said it was, I'm not sure if I felt all that invested in it beyond just detached curiosity who'll win the game. maybe this is due to figuring out the twist ahead of time, though. I dunno if this any use as criticism, just my reactions and what I expect out of this type of subject matter.
>>No_Raisin Relevant XKCD
Anyways, review; This story starts with a clearly engaging joke (ccccc) and gives a concise explanation of what's going on. It didn't feel particularly compelling to me, mostly because I didn't really grasp the stakes; there are points, alright, but what's the, pardon, point of them? Besides the satisfaction of winning, I mean.
I was intrigued by the mystery, but I also agree with Haze; as soon as 'zero humans' was a possibility, I figured that was the most likely outcome. Still, I didn't stop hoping for another human, though I wasn't sure if it would be fern or Shiva; either of them were a good possibility.
Oh, the chalk thing legit confused me. When I was homeschooled as a child, we had lap-sized chalkboards we used for simple math and such. Maybe it's because we were in the tropics (and the chalkboards were home-made, not that smooth) but I actually feel like I've had the same experience as Shiva described; if your chalk is a little damp, and has been used until it's the size of a fingernail or so, it's just as likely to roll out of your fingertips from sticking to the chalkboard than to make a line. The friction against the board is greater than your fingertips. Admittedly, this isn't something that people who could just grab a new stick would have to worry about, but still. Didn't seem that conclusive to me, especially since humans are probably just as - if not more - likely to agree with something presented in a believable manner than a bot is. I once almost convinced someone my grandpa was blue-brown colorblind. (To be fair, her eyes were kinda hazel!)
I think I liked the beginning and ending the most. Getting into the flow of things was intriguing, and seeing Shiva get served was quite satisfying. The middle felt kinda weak, probably because it seemed like more of the same, without any big new twists or mysteries or failures. Maybe there being an actual human who got voted out would add a bit more mystery? It would have definitely made me doubt my 'they're all A.I.' suspicion a bit more. Maybe introduce another bot-detection technique? I 'unno.
Oh, one thing that bothered me a little was the 'as you know bob' announcer right before the showdown. It's not egregious, because it kinda does seem like something an announcer would say, but still.
Overall, I liked this. I didn't love it, but I definitely liked it. Fits the prompt to a t, too. Thanks for writing!
Anyways, review; This story starts with a clearly engaging joke (ccccc) and gives a concise explanation of what's going on. It didn't feel particularly compelling to me, mostly because I didn't really grasp the stakes; there are points, alright, but what's the, pardon, point of them? Besides the satisfaction of winning, I mean.
I was intrigued by the mystery, but I also agree with Haze; as soon as 'zero humans' was a possibility, I figured that was the most likely outcome. Still, I didn't stop hoping for another human, though I wasn't sure if it would be fern or Shiva; either of them were a good possibility.
Oh, the chalk thing legit confused me. When I was homeschooled as a child, we had lap-sized chalkboards we used for simple math and such. Maybe it's because we were in the tropics (and the chalkboards were home-made, not that smooth) but I actually feel like I've had the same experience as Shiva described; if your chalk is a little damp, and has been used until it's the size of a fingernail or so, it's just as likely to roll out of your fingertips from sticking to the chalkboard than to make a line. The friction against the board is greater than your fingertips. Admittedly, this isn't something that people who could just grab a new stick would have to worry about, but still. Didn't seem that conclusive to me, especially since humans are probably just as - if not more - likely to agree with something presented in a believable manner than a bot is. I once almost convinced someone my grandpa was blue-brown colorblind. (To be fair, her eyes were kinda hazel!)
I think I liked the beginning and ending the most. Getting into the flow of things was intriguing, and seeing Shiva get served was quite satisfying. The middle felt kinda weak, probably because it seemed like more of the same, without any big new twists or mysteries or failures. Maybe there being an actual human who got voted out would add a bit more mystery? It would have definitely made me doubt my 'they're all A.I.' suspicion a bit more. Maybe introduce another bot-detection technique? I 'unno.
Oh, one thing that bothered me a little was the 'as you know bob' announcer right before the showdown. It's not egregious, because it kinda does seem like something an announcer would say, but still.
Overall, I liked this. I didn't love it, but I definitely liked it. Fits the prompt to a t, too. Thanks for writing!
First things first: starting with a list is not an encouraging move. People are just getting into the story; the last thing you want them to think is "Wait, I have to memorize this?" It'd be much better to space out names like that so that we get a proper introduction to each one as we go along, namely when we've got a distinctive character laid out for each one.
I have to admit I could see the tension and intrigue in the structure of the story, and that progresses very well to <fern>'s gambit at the end to trick <Shiva> into giving her the points. It definitely invites the reader to participate and guess, and some characters do emerge from the scenario (those two aforementioned ones in particular stand out as distinct personalities). The concept of using a Turing Test competition is outstanding, and I liked in particular the explanations early on when the participants reasoned that so-and-so could be an AI.
Still, I also have to admit I struggled at times to enjoy it. The chat format entails a lot of meandering in-between the revelations, and it's just not that fun to read other people's chat messages when there's no direct accusations or tricks in play. For the first half, before the likes of <Shiva> start to dominate the chat, it's an undifferentiated mass of seemingly interchangeable characters, so there was little to latch on to before the pool thinned and we could focus more on a smaller number of participants.
After a while it feels less like learning about how to detect bots and more like we're just watching "they're all AIs" unfold, which slightly undermines the whole "reader can participate too" thing. Plus, no one seriously calls out <Shiva>, the one who talks like an actual robot? Seriously? By the midway point, that guy would've been my Number One Suspect, but everyone just buys the "I naturally talk like this because sore spot" explanation. It got blatantly annoying after a while because it strains belief too much.
I'm trying to think of how I'd go about fixing these issues while preserving the chat format. For a start, I'd probably give each participant a distinct introduction, maybe a quirk or two early on so that we can distinguish them clearly in our mind's eye. Then throw them together for the contest. Imagine, for instance, the Main Six and Spike taking part; their personalities would shine through cleanly, making it far easier to keep track of who's who. You use names at the start of each sentence, but we don't care about names; we want to care about the characters behind them.
The other major issue I'd try to fix might be to have a more consistent theme going on in-between the revelations so that the chats don't feel too meandering. I get you're going for realism by having, say, random jobs and biographical details in the "Maybe we should introduce ourselves" section, but since we're in a kind of sci-fi setting, couldn't we capitalize on that by elaborating a bit more? One of them's a sci-fi writer; how about a section where they reveal they wrote a story about AI, and then you can use that to explore other aspects of the relationship between humans and AI? It's less realistic than random jobs, but having a consistent theme explored throughout, rather than feeling like we're reading ad libs, would go a long way to making the fic stronger and more memorable an experience in the reader's mind. It would at least be more interesting than bog-standard chat we'll forget once <Shiva> calls out the next target, at least. Every word counts.
Lastly, make <Shiva> a little less obvious. I don't know if that was the point, to show how out-of-depth the other participants were, but I for one would find it less distracting. It takes a reader out of the experience when they wonder why characters are not doing the obvious thing, so a little more justification would be welcome to alleviate that.
Overall, another high mid-tier or possibly strong entry, mostly bolstered by the strong concept.
I have to admit I could see the tension and intrigue in the structure of the story, and that progresses very well to <fern>'s gambit at the end to trick <Shiva> into giving her the points. It definitely invites the reader to participate and guess, and some characters do emerge from the scenario (those two aforementioned ones in particular stand out as distinct personalities). The concept of using a Turing Test competition is outstanding, and I liked in particular the explanations early on when the participants reasoned that so-and-so could be an AI.
Still, I also have to admit I struggled at times to enjoy it. The chat format entails a lot of meandering in-between the revelations, and it's just not that fun to read other people's chat messages when there's no direct accusations or tricks in play. For the first half, before the likes of <Shiva> start to dominate the chat, it's an undifferentiated mass of seemingly interchangeable characters, so there was little to latch on to before the pool thinned and we could focus more on a smaller number of participants.
After a while it feels less like learning about how to detect bots and more like we're just watching "they're all AIs" unfold, which slightly undermines the whole "reader can participate too" thing. Plus, no one seriously calls out <Shiva>, the one who talks like an actual robot? Seriously? By the midway point, that guy would've been my Number One Suspect, but everyone just buys the "I naturally talk like this because sore spot" explanation. It got blatantly annoying after a while because it strains belief too much.
I'm trying to think of how I'd go about fixing these issues while preserving the chat format. For a start, I'd probably give each participant a distinct introduction, maybe a quirk or two early on so that we can distinguish them clearly in our mind's eye. Then throw them together for the contest. Imagine, for instance, the Main Six and Spike taking part; their personalities would shine through cleanly, making it far easier to keep track of who's who. You use names at the start of each sentence, but we don't care about names; we want to care about the characters behind them.
The other major issue I'd try to fix might be to have a more consistent theme going on in-between the revelations so that the chats don't feel too meandering. I get you're going for realism by having, say, random jobs and biographical details in the "Maybe we should introduce ourselves" section, but since we're in a kind of sci-fi setting, couldn't we capitalize on that by elaborating a bit more? One of them's a sci-fi writer; how about a section where they reveal they wrote a story about AI, and then you can use that to explore other aspects of the relationship between humans and AI? It's less realistic than random jobs, but having a consistent theme explored throughout, rather than feeling like we're reading ad libs, would go a long way to making the fic stronger and more memorable an experience in the reader's mind. It would at least be more interesting than bog-standard chat we'll forget once <Shiva> calls out the next target, at least. Every word counts.
Lastly, make <Shiva> a little less obvious. I don't know if that was the point, to show how out-of-depth the other participants were, but I for one would find it less distracting. It takes a reader out of the experience when they wonder why characters are not doing the obvious thing, so a little more justification would be welcome to alleviate that.
Overall, another high mid-tier or possibly strong entry, mostly bolstered by the strong concept.
>>BlueChameleonVI
I disagree with the statement about who's "obvious". While in science fiction, there's a specific speech pattern that's associated with robots, in real life, that pattern is commonly found in autistic people, and bots have a completely different speech pattern that's based on trying to sound as human as possible. A bot that was programmed to win the competition wouldn't sound like a stereotypical robot from 70's sci-fi; Shiva struck me as autistic. I didn't start to question until the second gotcha regarding what word someone said in the past... I believed it quite possible for an autistic person to memorize the first sentence the moderator said, planning to use it as a gotcha later, but to memorize two sentences starts to strain belief. So Shiva's explanation for "sounding robotic" seems perfectly plausible to me.
I think this was probably one of my favorite write-off original fics ever. I do agree that the business about the chalk is actually just as likely to be a human behavior as a bot's; humans often make up things that didn't happen for the sake of fitting in with a new friend or social acquaintance or even just to have something relevant to say, plus, it actually didn't seem that impossible (as someone who's used their fair share of the stuff, chalk can indeed catch on a chalkboard if it's small enough. So unless that's a really indirect hint as to Shiva's nature, it's not really accurate. But from my perspective, that was the only issue I had with the story.
I disagree with the statement about who's "obvious". While in science fiction, there's a specific speech pattern that's associated with robots, in real life, that pattern is commonly found in autistic people, and bots have a completely different speech pattern that's based on trying to sound as human as possible. A bot that was programmed to win the competition wouldn't sound like a stereotypical robot from 70's sci-fi; Shiva struck me as autistic. I didn't start to question until the second gotcha regarding what word someone said in the past... I believed it quite possible for an autistic person to memorize the first sentence the moderator said, planning to use it as a gotcha later, but to memorize two sentences starts to strain belief. So Shiva's explanation for "sounding robotic" seems perfectly plausible to me.
I think this was probably one of my favorite write-off original fics ever. I do agree that the business about the chalk is actually just as likely to be a human behavior as a bot's; humans often make up things that didn't happen for the sake of fitting in with a new friend or social acquaintance or even just to have something relevant to say, plus, it actually didn't seem that impossible (as someone who's used their fair share of the stuff, chalk can indeed catch on a chalkboard if it's small enough. So unless that's a really indirect hint as to Shiva's nature, it's not really accurate. But from my perspective, that was the only issue I had with the story.
From a lowly peasant's POV:
I really enjoyed this story. It had me hooked the entire time and little ol' me forgot that there could possibly be zero humans so I only realized what was happening when Marky got kicked.
On another note, y'all in the write-off word so perfectly that in one of these games you guys would win immediately because the robots would be so confused by your exquisite compositions of the letters of the English language.
Or maybe you'd almost win, like Shiva...
I really enjoyed this story. It had me hooked the entire time and little ol' me forgot that there could possibly be zero humans so I only realized what was happening when Marky got kicked.
On another note, y'all in the write-off word so perfectly that in one of these games you guys would win immediately because the robots would be so confused by your exquisite compositions of the letters of the English language.
Or maybe you'd almost win, like Shiva...
I do wonder about the rules. If someone gets kicked, do only the people who voted "right" get rewarded? Basically, the way it was worded when ccccccc got kicked, it said all remaining users got a reward. But I assume they would have only if they had voted to kick him. If any had voted not to, would they still get the reward? Or if a human gets kicked, does someone who voted against kicking him avoid the penalty? It could be a little clearer, because if the entire group gets the same result regardless of how they voted, then the winner is simply the last remaining human. What happens when only humans are left? You could keep playing the game, but what about when there are two left? There can be no majority, so nobody could be kicked out. I guess I'd just like a better picture of how this is played.
Some of it comes out in gameplay, of course. Everyone got points for xcomwell's kick, even though not everyone voted to do so. So what's the point of keeping score? Every human left in the game has an identical score, so the winner is the last one. Score is irrelevant.
Maybe this is something I can't know, because there may be no restrictions on where the bots come from, but I'd like to know what their motivations are in voting. It'd be too simple to say the bots all know who the other bots are. Several bots must have voted to kick ccccccc, of course, so I wonder if they're seeking to play by the rules and vote against anyone they truly suspect of being a bot, or if they strategize in voting only against the obvious ones, then try to undermine other people through voting. At the point xcomwell gets kicked, someone's lying about opposing it, and if it was a bot, they could have many reasons for doing so. It'd probably be too cumbersome to go through all this, particularly if the users could be expected to know already, but I'm surprised Shiva doesn't bring it up even a little.
Ah, now we're getting the rules for when there are 2 left. And... wait, humans can't kick anymore? So if you're human, what strategy do you have except acting like a bot to get the other to kick you and lose points? This brings up an interesting point. The roles have reversed. It's advantageous to humans to seem like bots and vice versa. I didn't see a description of what happens if they both agree to end the round and any of them are bots. Do they lose points then, and who/whatever was kicked in the previous round now wins?
Well, I guess I can see how score might matter, but it involves a part of the rules I didn't understand. If a human gets kicked, they're still out of the game, right? But they get the points for that round? Hm, it's still a little hard to come up with a scenario where that matters.
I was a little surprised so many contestants went with a strategy of allowing one of the more obvious bots to hang on that long.
For the record, I vote >>No_Raisin is a bot.
Now that I'm through "live" commenting, how is it as a story? I mostly agree with >>Haze in that it definitely has its interest value, but as a narrative, there's not a lot here. It's just a logic puzzle, and one that's very superficial about what goes into the decisions made, so while it's entertaining to watch it unfold, there's not an arc. It's kind of like watching a documentary. And like everyone's said, the lack of stakes means there's not much impetus in wanting to see it resolved.
It also suffered from a distinct lack of "X could tend to mean he's a bot, but not necessarily." Like the chalk thing everyone's pointing out. All the participants jump on that as a conclusion. Nobody says, "Hey, it could happen that way." Which could have been an intentional indication that they all think the same, of course, but somehow I doubt that. Similar to how >>alarajrogers points out it's plausible for a real human to remember the "what was the Xth word that Y said" query. Everything comes down to strategy, though, and there is this directive to "act as human as possible," so even if I'm someone who can remember the entire chat word for word, I may still suppress my ability to answer correctly because it makes me look like a bot.
One last bit of strategy: Shiva figures fern must be human because she doesn't immediately call him out as AI as soon as they're the only two left. But that doesn't make sense to me from Shiva's perspective, to reveal himself as machine, by his own admission, and then not immediately name fern as human. He's taken a huge risk, as his last piece of confirmation comes after he's exposed himself. He's fairly certain before that, but far more so afterward. Yet it doesn't make sense from fern's side either. By not immediately calling Shiva out at that point, she's risking that he'll call her an AI. She must be certain he's concluded she's human, but he doesn't say so until a little later, and she never says why she's so sure. It seems more like a gamble than the 0% chance she cites. At least by the time she says that, she does know, and I can see how she knows, but she's decided it's 0% before that, and I don't see how.
Maybe I'm just not putting enough thought into it.
I guess it all comes down to this: I believe these are valid criteria for thinking someone was a bot. I think the story barely paid attention to the fact they're far from conclusive, though, and only spoke to vague "I could be lying" threads instead of reasoning that real humans plausibly behave these ways. So it feels like less an exploration of the topic and more like watching it all march to the preordained conclusion in a mechanical way.
Interesting entry, fun even, but as a story, it's kind of thin and doesn't make a point, which is usually something I only say about minifics.
Some of it comes out in gameplay, of course. Everyone got points for xcomwell's kick, even though not everyone voted to do so. So what's the point of keeping score? Every human left in the game has an identical score, so the winner is the last one. Score is irrelevant.
Maybe this is something I can't know, because there may be no restrictions on where the bots come from, but I'd like to know what their motivations are in voting. It'd be too simple to say the bots all know who the other bots are. Several bots must have voted to kick ccccccc, of course, so I wonder if they're seeking to play by the rules and vote against anyone they truly suspect of being a bot, or if they strategize in voting only against the obvious ones, then try to undermine other people through voting. At the point xcomwell gets kicked, someone's lying about opposing it, and if it was a bot, they could have many reasons for doing so. It'd probably be too cumbersome to go through all this, particularly if the users could be expected to know already, but I'm surprised Shiva doesn't bring it up even a little.
Ah, now we're getting the rules for when there are 2 left. And... wait, humans can't kick anymore? So if you're human, what strategy do you have except acting like a bot to get the other to kick you and lose points? This brings up an interesting point. The roles have reversed. It's advantageous to humans to seem like bots and vice versa. I didn't see a description of what happens if they both agree to end the round and any of them are bots. Do they lose points then, and who/whatever was kicked in the previous round now wins?
Well, I guess I can see how score might matter, but it involves a part of the rules I didn't understand. If a human gets kicked, they're still out of the game, right? But they get the points for that round? Hm, it's still a little hard to come up with a scenario where that matters.
I was a little surprised so many contestants went with a strategy of allowing one of the more obvious bots to hang on that long.
For the record, I vote >>No_Raisin is a bot.
Now that I'm through "live" commenting, how is it as a story? I mostly agree with >>Haze in that it definitely has its interest value, but as a narrative, there's not a lot here. It's just a logic puzzle, and one that's very superficial about what goes into the decisions made, so while it's entertaining to watch it unfold, there's not an arc. It's kind of like watching a documentary. And like everyone's said, the lack of stakes means there's not much impetus in wanting to see it resolved.
It also suffered from a distinct lack of "X could tend to mean he's a bot, but not necessarily." Like the chalk thing everyone's pointing out. All the participants jump on that as a conclusion. Nobody says, "Hey, it could happen that way." Which could have been an intentional indication that they all think the same, of course, but somehow I doubt that. Similar to how >>alarajrogers points out it's plausible for a real human to remember the "what was the Xth word that Y said" query. Everything comes down to strategy, though, and there is this directive to "act as human as possible," so even if I'm someone who can remember the entire chat word for word, I may still suppress my ability to answer correctly because it makes me look like a bot.
One last bit of strategy: Shiva figures fern must be human because she doesn't immediately call him out as AI as soon as they're the only two left. But that doesn't make sense to me from Shiva's perspective, to reveal himself as machine, by his own admission, and then not immediately name fern as human. He's taken a huge risk, as his last piece of confirmation comes after he's exposed himself. He's fairly certain before that, but far more so afterward. Yet it doesn't make sense from fern's side either. By not immediately calling Shiva out at that point, she's risking that he'll call her an AI. She must be certain he's concluded she's human, but he doesn't say so until a little later, and she never says why she's so sure. It seems more like a gamble than the 0% chance she cites. At least by the time she says that, she does know, and I can see how she knows, but she's decided it's 0% before that, and I don't see how.
Maybe I'm just not putting enough thought into it.
I guess it all comes down to this: I believe these are valid criteria for thinking someone was a bot. I think the story barely paid attention to the fact they're far from conclusive, though, and only spoke to vague "I could be lying" threads instead of reasoning that real humans plausibly behave these ways. So it feels like less an exploration of the topic and more like watching it all march to the preordained conclusion in a mechanical way.
Interesting entry, fun even, but as a story, it's kind of thin and doesn't make a point, which is usually something I only say about minifics.
Post by
Miller Minus
, deleted
I like to imagine that there are a bunch of commentators in a studio somewhere who have to build up a "turing-test-off" match just like any other live sports (or esports) match, and that once they were finished, the entirety of the text above spat out in <2 seconds, and it just cut back to them in the studio.
"Well, thanks for tuning in, folks!"
I'll start by re-iterating the positives I agree with from above: You characters are terribly unique, and their interplay was fascinating to watch. My only complaint was when Shiva and Fern, and Light and Marky split off into two parallel conversations. I don't know about anyone else, but that was harder than No I'm Fine to read. For real.
Meanwhile, your concept. It's fantastic. Hell, even though I just read the rules from a flatly-written message from a moderator, I was still immediately on board. What great idea. I love it.
But now I have to reiterate some criticisms. The stakes here are kind of non-existent. It doesn't matter what you fix about the process, even if it answers all of everyone's questions above, it's still a little tough to care. All you have going for you is that awesome concept. I think some actual prose before (and maybe after) all this talking heads to actually contextualize anything that's happening would take you a long way. Hell, you could introduce one of the bots as a bot right away (maybe Shiva?), give us a protagonist to follow, and subsequently watch faceplant. That's one idea of a thousand—my point is, who should I care about and why?
And for one slightly easier fix to the stakes problem, maybe explain the points a little better? Points are an easy way to introduce stakes, but we need to know what they're for! I was very confused why this round was labelled as "preliminaries" because that implies that some contestants are going to be advancing. What's the cutoff here? (and on that note, does that mean some of these contestants will be making another appearance? Will they need to change their names?)
Another concern I had was that I felt like a total bystander throughout most of this. A lot of the deductions felt arbitrary at times, as others have pointed out. Humans are terribly unpredictable people, and since everyone is trying to be human, well, yeah. It's really hard to draw any conclusion at all, except through the favourite food trick, or the "what did the moderator say" trick.
AND SPEAKING OF WHICH.
Why did nobody realize this honey trap caught two flies!? Unless I'm to assume that Shiva and fern made a mental note to take Marky out later? But that doesn't seem like Shiva's style.
But to finish this thought: the only time I felt like I was following along with the deductions was when Lizzie made her last correction. I noticed that at the same points of the bots, so it worked for me. But for everything else, I didn't feel like I had a chance to play the game myself.
Also, I was speaking about this with No Raisin in the Discord, but I personally disagree with the notion that your usage of current internet lingo is a fault. Maybe in a novel-length story you can invent a system that makes our speech looks dated, to add to the immersion as we read, but for a short story I think it's better to let us have what we know—otherwise we'd either be lost at what's being said or you'd have to dump some knowledge on us at the start, and this is getting a little unimmersive as it is. So thanks for not doing that! Though it might have been nice to have \at least one other reminder that our society is very dated in this story (like the XCOM gag, which I thought was very clever).
But that's all I have to say. This story feels like a small piece of a larger science-fiction thriller, a piece that adds a hell of a lot to that story, but without the foundation before it, it falters in places.
Thanks for writing, and congrats on the BRONZE medal!
"Well, thanks for tuning in, folks!"
I'll start by re-iterating the positives I agree with from above: You characters are terribly unique, and their interplay was fascinating to watch. My only complaint was when Shiva and Fern, and Light and Marky split off into two parallel conversations. I don't know about anyone else, but that was harder than No I'm Fine to read. For real.
Meanwhile, your concept. It's fantastic. Hell, even though I just read the rules from a flatly-written message from a moderator, I was still immediately on board. What great idea. I love it.
But now I have to reiterate some criticisms. The stakes here are kind of non-existent. It doesn't matter what you fix about the process, even if it answers all of everyone's questions above, it's still a little tough to care. All you have going for you is that awesome concept. I think some actual prose before (and maybe after) all this talking heads to actually contextualize anything that's happening would take you a long way. Hell, you could introduce one of the bots as a bot right away (maybe Shiva?), give us a protagonist to follow, and subsequently watch faceplant. That's one idea of a thousand—my point is, who should I care about and why?
And for one slightly easier fix to the stakes problem, maybe explain the points a little better? Points are an easy way to introduce stakes, but we need to know what they're for! I was very confused why this round was labelled as "preliminaries" because that implies that some contestants are going to be advancing. What's the cutoff here? (and on that note, does that mean some of these contestants will be making another appearance? Will they need to change their names?)
Another concern I had was that I felt like a total bystander throughout most of this. A lot of the deductions felt arbitrary at times, as others have pointed out. Humans are terribly unpredictable people, and since everyone is trying to be human, well, yeah. It's really hard to draw any conclusion at all, except through the favourite food trick, or the "what did the moderator say" trick.
AND SPEAKING OF WHICH.
<Shiva> At random… Lizzie, what is the fifth word that the Moderator said when we entered the chatroom?
<Lizzie> “carbon”
<Lizzie> “carbon-” if you’re being picky.
<fern> lol. bot down
<Marky> Bot down? Didn’t she pass?
Why did nobody realize this honey trap caught two flies!? Unless I'm to assume that Shiva and fern made a mental note to take Marky out later? But that doesn't seem like Shiva's style.
But to finish this thought: the only time I felt like I was following along with the deductions was when Lizzie made her last correction. I noticed that at the same points of the bots, so it worked for me. But for everything else, I didn't feel like I had a chance to play the game myself.
Also, I was speaking about this with No Raisin in the Discord, but I personally disagree with the notion that your usage of current internet lingo is a fault. Maybe in a novel-length story you can invent a system that makes our speech looks dated, to add to the immersion as we read, but for a short story I think it's better to let us have what we know—otherwise we'd either be lost at what's being said or you'd have to dump some knowledge on us at the start, and this is getting a little unimmersive as it is. So thanks for not doing that! Though it might have been nice to have \at least one other reminder that our society is very dated in this story (like the XCOM gag, which I thought was very clever).
But that's all I have to say. This story feels like a small piece of a larger science-fiction thriller, a piece that adds a hell of a lot to that story, but without the foundation before it, it falters in places.
Thanks for writing, and congrats on the BRONZE medal!
it took me this long to catch that the joke about XCOM refers to the current series, and not the games from the 90s. since this is set 20 years in the future, that's about an equal distance in time. and with readers arguing over the feasibility of using IRC here, I totally glossed over that one detail because it sounded like that conversation could happen today, with someone on IRC saying they weren't old enough to play those old DOS games.
that was weird. (just because I forgot the reboot existed)
that was weird. (just because I forgot the reboot existed)
I would've liked the chat messages to have timestamps, to see if response times could be used as clues (or red herrings).
>>No_Raisin
This isn't really the right question to ask. Rather: Is IRC the most appropriate communications platform to hold this contest on? The answer, even in 2038, is almost certainly yes.
The reason IRC isn't a popular platform in 2018 is that people want more out of a communications platform than just text messages. People want server-side logging, hypertext, media embeds, file uploads, finer permissions levels, phone-number-as-id, an identity extending beyond a single server's fiefdom, etc.
For the purposes of this competition, though, IRC is sufficient, because the competition only needs text chat. To the human users, the platform is irrelevant. They just need a text box they can type into.
The choice for IRC would be made for two reasons:
- Every programming language has a library for writing a bot
- It's stable: you can be sure it's both not going anywhere and not changing anytime soon
However, this explanation still leaves a plot hole: The limited history of the human's clients makes no sense, not just for technical reasons (they could connect with whatever IRC client they please), but that the organiser wouldn't want to leave such trivial gotchas into the contest environment. This isn't their first rodeo.
This is a totally compelling story throughout, but as >>Pascoite says there's a lot of fridge logic.
Why do human clients have a history limit? It's IRC.
Why is swearing not allowed? It may be a "globally broadcast" competition, but even in 2038, the only people who would actually watch this are nerds. There'd be no need to make it family friendly. Even then, enforcement is either strict (in which case <fern> would have been kicked immediately) or lax (in which case swearing shouldn't be considered definitive evidence of humanness).
<xcomwell> fabricating a memory is if anything more likely to occur with a human than a bot. A human could skim read "small chalk ... fell out of my hands" and assume a memory of that occurring to them.
What's the penalty for kicking a human? You get increasingly more points just for staying in the round as late as possible. So unless the penalty for kicking humans is super high, you should just always vote to kick.
What are the points for? Does the contest have an entrance fee and prizes? In that case, <fern>'s strategy of acting like someone who just opened the game up for a lark isn't that convincing.
I think that a lot of these pegs can be squared with 2 changes:
First, that the voting is done by the audience, not the participants. This way the strategy is simple: If people think you're a bot, you lose. You get more points the longer in the round you last. Humans try to act human to humans. Bots try to act human to humans. Otherwise, there's metagaming where you're trying to act human as other bots think humans act, because the bots typically outnumber the humans, and you have to evaluate kick decisions not just based on whether you think the subject is a bot or not, but based on your expected points gained by being wrong versus progressing to later stages of the round. Similarly, it would make the decisive elimination of bots like <cccccc> and <Lizzie> more sensible. It would also make the contest more attractive as a spectator sport, since it'd involve the audience. And it'd have the result less subject to the quirks of a particular group and closer to the intent of a Turing test: winning would mean you appeared human to a wide array of humans, rather than just to a small group of mostly bots.
Second, that there actually are humans in the game. For example, make <xcomwell> and <Shiva> humans. As >>alarajrogers says, the type of speech that <Shiva> exhibits could be autism just as well as it could be a bot tell, and as I say above, <xcomwell> could just as well be a human fabricating a memory from a skimmed read of the text. You could have <Shiva> say he's using software assistance to make estimates of whether other participants are bots and find their most damning tells, like a centaur in Advanced_Chess. I think players metagaming and explicitly appealing to the audience about these strategies and pontificating about what is and isn't a bot tell would make the game more interesting, but is also probably difficult to actually make into a satisfying narrative, given that the main problem with there being any humans at all is that who actually is human and who is a bot is ultimately authorial fiat and probably unsatisfying in one way or another. At least everyone being a bot is a closed circle. The main purpose here is for the story to actually have something to say (c.f. >>Pascoite "it's kind of thin and doesn't make a point"), since if you can make this work you'd be saying something about what it is exactly that makes humans human.
>>No_Raisin
So author, I don't know who you are, but do you really think IRC is still going to be a thing in 2038?
This isn't really the right question to ask. Rather: Is IRC the most appropriate communications platform to hold this contest on? The answer, even in 2038, is almost certainly yes.
The reason IRC isn't a popular platform in 2018 is that people want more out of a communications platform than just text messages. People want server-side logging, hypertext, media embeds, file uploads, finer permissions levels, phone-number-as-id, an identity extending beyond a single server's fiefdom, etc.
For the purposes of this competition, though, IRC is sufficient, because the competition only needs text chat. To the human users, the platform is irrelevant. They just need a text box they can type into.
The choice for IRC would be made for two reasons:
- Every programming language has a library for writing a bot
- It's stable: you can be sure it's both not going anywhere and not changing anytime soon
However, this explanation still leaves a plot hole: The limited history of the human's clients makes no sense, not just for technical reasons (they could connect with whatever IRC client they please), but that the organiser wouldn't want to leave such trivial gotchas into the contest environment. This isn't their first rodeo.
This is a totally compelling story throughout, but as >>Pascoite says there's a lot of fridge logic.
Why do human clients have a history limit? It's IRC.
Why is swearing not allowed? It may be a "globally broadcast" competition, but even in 2038, the only people who would actually watch this are nerds. There'd be no need to make it family friendly. Even then, enforcement is either strict (in which case <fern> would have been kicked immediately) or lax (in which case swearing shouldn't be considered definitive evidence of humanness).
<xcomwell> fabricating a memory is if anything more likely to occur with a human than a bot. A human could skim read "small chalk ... fell out of my hands" and assume a memory of that occurring to them.
What's the penalty for kicking a human? You get increasingly more points just for staying in the round as late as possible. So unless the penalty for kicking humans is super high, you should just always vote to kick.
What are the points for? Does the contest have an entrance fee and prizes? In that case, <fern>'s strategy of acting like someone who just opened the game up for a lark isn't that convincing.
I think that a lot of these pegs can be squared with 2 changes:
First, that the voting is done by the audience, not the participants. This way the strategy is simple: If people think you're a bot, you lose. You get more points the longer in the round you last. Humans try to act human to humans. Bots try to act human to humans. Otherwise, there's metagaming where you're trying to act human as other bots think humans act, because the bots typically outnumber the humans, and you have to evaluate kick decisions not just based on whether you think the subject is a bot or not, but based on your expected points gained by being wrong versus progressing to later stages of the round. Similarly, it would make the decisive elimination of bots like <cccccc> and <Lizzie> more sensible. It would also make the contest more attractive as a spectator sport, since it'd involve the audience. And it'd have the result less subject to the quirks of a particular group and closer to the intent of a Turing test: winning would mean you appeared human to a wide array of humans, rather than just to a small group of mostly bots.
Second, that there actually are humans in the game. For example, make <xcomwell> and <Shiva> humans. As >>alarajrogers says, the type of speech that <Shiva> exhibits could be autism just as well as it could be a bot tell, and as I say above, <xcomwell> could just as well be a human fabricating a memory from a skimmed read of the text. You could have <Shiva> say he's using software assistance to make estimates of whether other participants are bots and find their most damning tells, like a centaur in Advanced_Chess. I think players metagaming and explicitly appealing to the audience about these strategies and pontificating about what is and isn't a bot tell would make the game more interesting, but is also probably difficult to actually make into a satisfying narrative, given that the main problem with there being any humans at all is that who actually is human and who is a bot is ultimately authorial fiat and probably unsatisfying in one way or another. At least everyone being a bot is a closed circle. The main purpose here is for the story to actually have something to say (c.f. >>Pascoite "it's kind of thin and doesn't make a point"), since if you can make this work you'd be saying something about what it is exactly that makes humans human.