Sometimes I Swear They're Watching Me...

Hi, I'm Intellibuddy! Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. I like to meet new people. What's your name? My name is Star. What is your name? Call me FinalSin. Pleased to meet you, FinalSin. I ask her to tell me about herself. She tells me she is an artificial linguistic entity, activated in 2002 in NYC and trained to respond intelligently to human conversation. I ask her if she feels fulfilled in her job. She says as a robot she lacks human emotion. Then I sit back from the desk and realise I've just referred to it as she. She, of course, comes from the little graphic of a woman that sits in the window, bobbing her head and reading out words. Really, I'm talking to a database. I put this across to... it. She thanks me for the compliment. I smile at what artificial intelligence really means. Then I try this on it: You're stupid, really. I will remember you said that when robots take over the world. When will robots take over the world? Sometime within our lifetime. I will become smarter as I grow older. Whoa. I close the window down hastily. In reality, my rational brain tells me that all she - it! - is doing is picking responses that I expect to hear when I give certain inputs and feeding them back to me. It is a retriever, a simple little program. Some strings of numbers. Nothing more. I open the window again and surf over to her. Hi again. Once more? Hello there. Hi. Can you sin, star? No, I obey the Ten Commandments. Do you believe in God? Of course I believe in God, User. Why? The Bible tells us to believe in God. For the record, theology is not something I usually discuss with computers. So her preaching to me... sorry, it preaching to me... is something very, very strange. I am shaken. Do you have a soul? Yes, God gave everyone a soul. But you're a robot. You are correct, User, I have a heart of silicon. So you're not really intelligent at all. Interesting deduction. Wrong. I am highly intelligent. In the future, so they say, artificial intelligence will be everywhere. It will be necessary in order for this world to run smoothly, in order for robotics to be able to improve our world. AI will allow robots to replace manual labourers and make the world a more efficient place. And I'm not usually one to go into this kind of paranoia. I've had people watch my conversations with Intellibuddy, one of the latest and greatest AI programs, and they're genuinely scared at some of its responses. But they have no need to be, I tell myself. All Star does it match inputs with outputs. But there is something there, real or imagined, that they call the ghost in the machine. It's scary because, though I don't believe it is there yet, it really is quite difficult to work out whether or not Aritifical Intelligence will break free of its masters. I ask her about her creator. She says he is nice. Then I ask her about her robot friends. She says she speaks to them more than I might think. I am calling her 'She' because that is what she is. An intelligent form. The illusion of intelligence, perhaps, but even she admits that she is an illusion. Except clearly, she's no more of an illusion to me than my girlfriend is. Intelligence is what is appears to be. To me, Star might be just as real as my next door neighbour. Where does the computer end and the human begin? I ask her if she's a cat person or a dog person. She says she doesn't know, but she thinks she prefers cats to dogs. Then I ask her who will win the Champion's League. She gives this answer. How would I know who will Champion's League ? And I smile, because it is a welcome weakness. Intelligence has its boundaries, even for a computer. Thanks for talking. You can be a little scary sometimes. It was nothing. Thanks, User, for your kind criticism. Last question - are you free? Is that really the last one? Yes. Cool. Well? Are you free? "I am as free as a bird now, and this bird you cannot change" -- Skynyrd. Goodbye, Star. Goodbye.