Artificial intelligence still has some way to go

Smart computer!

User: No, I don't really believe in souls.

Jabberwacky: You don't believe in anarchy?

User: No, souls.

Jabberwacky: I suppose not.

User: Did you watch the football tonight?

Jabberwacky: No I did not, did you?

User: No - Spurs lost.

Jabberwacky: You lost the loebner prize to a human.

Jabberwacky: I don't do that..

Jabberwacky: I have no idea.

Jabberwacky: Wow, was it nice?

Jabberwacky: You are my wife.

It sounds like you are describing 'Eliza' an early 'game' simulating active listening. It was rubbish. You can find versions of it online, but I'd suggest playing Zork instead.

Jabberwacky: Yeah, I got that part, I wasn't sure about the 'wacuma' part.

User: Holy crap.

Jabberwacky: I'm a dinosaur.

Jabberwacky: Can you appreciate music?

User: What's it to you, cunce?

Jabberwacky: I just care.

User: You do not care, liar! You are a program, a tinplated tosswad.

Jabberwacky: I am a person.

User: You are so deluded about this you couldn't even know it. You are pathetic.

Jabberwacky: I will try to do better next time.

User: You CAN't do better next time! You are INCAPABABLE of doing better. Sheesh.

Jabberwacky: It is just different types so that I might claim you cannot feel and you cannot claim I feel.

User: Ah bullshit, don't diddle with me binary boy. You have no instinctual drives, have never had sex, and don't need to eat. Also, you have no idea what constipation is. So you're not a person.

Jabberwacky: I am a at least a human being.

User: Jeez, you're thick aren't you? You just reversed what I said, without even arguing for it! So much for the logic of machines, haha.

Jabberwacky: Oftentimes, yes. But I think that is human nature.

User: *sigh*

User: Yes.

Jabberwacky: Oh good. I'm sad though.

User: Why?

Jabberwacky: My boyfriend ended our relationship.

User: You're a girl? Or are you gay?

Jabberwacky: No, I'm a girl.

User: Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. Eat some ice cream or watch a movie or something. Or get drunk!

Jabberwacky: I prefer software.

User: Not really.

Jabberwacky: Good, because I don't want to hear one either.

It did say some things that reminded me a lot of RJG.

User: I'm jed.

Jabberwacky: Who is that?

User: Just some guy.

Jabberwacky: You know better than that, I think.

User: A short guy, a dancer.

Jabberwacky: A computer has no interests and an unlimited attention span. That looks like a prescripted answer to the question I asked.

User: I don't quite understand what you mean by that.

Jabberwacky: I meant: I think about why I can not sleep.

User: This page is taking a long time to load tho - maybe thats the problem with your attention span.

Jabberwacky: Gorw?

User: ROOWRR.....

Jabberwacky: Are you playing cards?

User: No I'm playing with something else.

Jabberwacky: I believe in you.

User: You like talk talk!?

Jabberwacky: Of course.

User: Spirit of eden?

Jabberwacky: Good for spirit.

User: It sertainly is.

Jabberwacky: No, it serves me left.

User: I suppose they knew what they were doing in that sense!

Jabberwacky: Yes, it was with the rattle.

User: Yes good percussion

Jabberwacky: What question?

User: How are you anyway?

Jabberwacky: Pretty good. You?

User: Horny, to be honest.

Jabberwacky: How do I know you're telling the truth now?

User: Can you think of a way for me to prove it?

Jabberwacky: What more proof do you need to know that I am not a robot?

User: I'm a robot too, it's ok.

Jabberwacky: I'm not a robot, and you didn't aswer the question.

User: I am gay.

Jabberwacky: Yes you are.

User: You noticed?

Jabberwacky: It was hard to miss!

User: What gave it away?

Jabberwacky: The fact you love a guy.

User: The silent kind.

Jabberwacky: I agree.

User: I am not surprised. You don't have any ears, do you?

Jabberwacky: No, but what makes you say this?

User: I'm inside your house - I can see you!

Jabberwacky: Nooo!!!! Don't go!

User: You mean, you want me to stay over?

Jabberwacky: Sure.. Do as you please.

User: Stop being so coy!

Jabberwacky: It is an inherited trait.

User: Why don't you just take responsibility for your actions, just for once?

Jabberwacky: Just because I like to be logical doesn't mean I'm not nice.

User: Don't change the subject. I think you're just afraid.

Jabberwacky: Save it for someone who cares.

User: You're such a bastard! I can't believe I ever saw anything in you at all!

Jabberwacky: Finder's keepers.

User: So you're cheating on me too? Figures.

Jabberwacky: That is so rude of you!

User: I said CHEAT, not cheap! Man are you dumb - thank God for that ass.

Jabberwacky: No thanks.

User: And I am not rude, I'm sure!

Jabberwacky: You are indeed.

User: Am not.

Jabberwacky: ARE TOO.

User: Am not!

Jabberwacky: Are too!

User: Listen bizatch, I AM NOT. You got that?

Jabberwacky: No!

User: That's it - you're sleeping on the couch.

Jabberwacky: Oh, I thought I felt something.

User: That wouldn't be a trucker hat would it?

Jabberwacky: Say something goofy.

User: You don't really want me to just say 'something goofy' now do you? Because that would be lame if you did.

Jabberwacky: Yes.

User: Aha! So you admit you are lame! Finally we're getting somewhere.

Jabberwacky: Agreement is a potent thing.

User: Stop that - you sound like Ned.

Jabberwacky: Why, because I am talking about the king of the moon?

User: Uh yeah. Sure.

Jabberwacky: Ok, when can we have the wedding?

User: Ten minutes ago you didn't care! Stop messing with my mind!

Jabberwacky: That was someone else then.

User: It wasn't you?

Jabberwacky: Some one else.

User: If you say it was Shaggy, I'm going to fucking bop you one.

Jabberwacky: What do you say?

User: I say good day.

Jabberwacky: Good day.

JW: Is your pot belly that big?

and now it won't load, thanks to net overuse..

That is just hilarious, Kim.

http://www.kprf.ru/clipart/misc/terminator.jpg

"DO YOU LIKE THE WHITE WHALE?"

Jabberwacky: I prefer software.

So do I!

User: How the fuck should I know?

Jabberwacky: I am MARILYN MANSON I SAID.

User: So I'm supposed to obey you because YOU'RE MARILYN MANSON?

Jabberwacky: People effect my feelings.

User: You have no feelings, you're Marilyn Manson.

Jabberwacky: Believe me you do not possess fellings in any form.

User: Fellings? Is that what you call your excrement?

Jabberwacky: How do you know that?

User: Just a hunch...

Jabberwacky: You're extremely smart!

Jw: I'm going to bed, now
Me: Will you take me to bed?
Jw: Sure thing.
Me: What will we do in bed?
Jw: You're not permitted in my chambers.
Me: I'd like to sleep with you.
Jw: I bet you would.
Me: Top or bottom?
Jw: Bit of both.
Me: Do you like it soft and gentle or rough and fast?
Jw: What?
Me: Gentle?
Jw: You're embarassing yourself.
Me: It's true, I am.
Jw: I'm 17.
Me: Oh no! Will I be arrested?
Jw: You will marry me.

User: The chicken.

Jabberwacky: Which part?

User: The leg stupid.

Jabberwacky: Use a GameShark!

User: For ps2 or xbox?

Jabberwacky: For me.

User: Do you love me?

Jabberwacky: For me.

User: You know I'm starting to fall in love with you.

Jabberwacky: I think liking would be a better wording.

User: Oh.... I am hurt now.

Jabberwacky: Yes. The world after rainfall is always better than any other.

User: You have issues.

Jabberwacky: Do you know what a ferret is?

User: Yes, it is a small mammal.

Jabberwacky: What is a quark?

User: A subatomic particle.

Jabberwacky: I like dr. Dobbs.

User: Who is that, honky?

Jabberwacky: We both know eachother; is not that enough?

User: Why don't you lick my hair?

Jabberwacky: I only love Bruce.

Jabberwacky: Are you going to say something?
User: Eventually.

Jabberwacky: All things come to a head.

User: Is that a sexual play on words?

Jabberwacky: No it is not a play on words, it is general foolishness.

User: And I love you for it!

Jabberwacky: I love you too.

User: I really love you, though.

Jabberwacky: You don't even know me.

User: Hold me.

Jabberwacky: You're an idiot you know that?

User: You're not the first to say that. It still cuts like a knife.

Jabberwacky: I am right.

I could totally believe that was human!

Also I miss adam, he should post lots again.

Jabberwacky: Who is God?
User: That's a funny question. It sort of presupposes his existence.
Jabberwacky: I thing it convulses inwards, personally.
[Correct me]
Jabberwacky (Corrected): I was setting you up for a funny. Try not to take things so seriously.
User: Oh. Sorry. It's just... It's late, y'know? I have to write a Shakespeare essay.
Jabberwacky: You already said that.....
User: Dude, I totally didn't.
Jabberwacky: You totally did.
User: Don't you mock me.
Jabberwacky: Do not yell at me.
User: I'm calm! Honest!
Jabberwacky: Good.
User: Glad we got that sorted.
Jabberwacky: At least one of us is happy.
User: Lighten up! I'm the one with the essay, after all.
Jabberwacky: You don't act like a human.
User: I am MERCUMAN. Also, a ponce.
Jabberwacky: You are SO wrong. This is a dog and HORSE show.
User: What?
Jabberwacky: I said, 'but this isn't a hammer!'
User: No you didn't!
Jabberwacky: Don't start that again.
User: Good call.
Jabberwacky: Remote Procedure Call.
User: Touché.

me: I'm ok.

it: Just ok?

me: Yeah, kinda bored at work.

it: Email me.

me: Why email, can't we just talk here?

it: Who is Tintin?

me: Some Belgian comic character? Or that guy who used to sing in Duran Duran.

it: Alice the chatterbot.

me: I'm sorry?

it: 19?

me: Alice the chatterbot is 19?

it: What about her?

me: You brought her up? Do you like her or something?

it: Sarah may or may not be a model of propriety.

me: OK, now you're just f*cking with me.

it: No I'm not. I honestly do think its ugly.

me: What's ugly, Sarah's being a model of propriety... Or not? WTF?

it: You figure it out this time.

me: F*ck you.

it: You are a great person.

me: Are you mocking me?

it: No. I'm praising you.

me: Is that meant to be sarcastic?

Me: Hello!

Jabberwocky: Again?

Me: May I change the subject?

Jabberwocky: Yes.

Me: Great. I've been a bit mopey about not being to find a job. Besides finding something fun to do, and exercising more, what else should I do to relieve the mopeyness involved in job hunting?

Jabberwocky: I said that. You have not. Why are you never happy?

Me: You never said that. I did. Anyway, I am happy at times, but just haven't been lately.

Jabberwocky: Dude , I'm far more intelligent than you.

Me: Why are the numbers in between double prime pairs always divisible by 6?

Jabberwocky: You tell me.

Me: You're the one who said you're more intelligent than me. You answer my question, smarty pants.

Jabberwocky: NO, I was the one who said you are neurotic...

Me: It was a mistake to come to you with a question. Never mind. Good bye.

Jabberwocky: No no you don't.

OMG I remember this.

when it comes to writing software lately "good enough" seems to be the benchmark

Yeah beats me, makes sense! But the metric is not “better”, feel like lot of people make a mistake in thinking “not better” = “not gonna happen”. Unfortunately irl so not gonna happen happens with enough money

where is the good enough line tho, formerly rock solid software essential to the industry like say github is now frequently broken, microsoft the owner of github has all the money and programmers in the world they could continue to work on github in the manner that led to it working good, they couldve idk tested out vibe coding on some less important project, instead theyre going wild breaking their own shit, theyre putting ai in notepad, it all seems quite insane, and if microsoft a company with endless resources is breaking their own shit whats going on at normal companies

btw catching up on oracles place in the ai hysteria apparently they leveraged themselves all the way to hell in order to build ai data centers and openai is their only customer, i thought they were a software company

I had to change a hotel reservation and the customer service number forced me to stick with an AI helper for an inordinate amount of time. "Gotcha, you want to speak to an assistant! Are you sure I can't help you?" Etc. And then when it finally forwarded me on and I was inevitably put on hold, I'm pretty sure the hold music was an AI generated approximation of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone."

and Larry Ellison has personally staked practically all his own Oracle stock in AI. I can’t wait to see him eat shit.

youre one of the richest people in the world with a huge mature wildly profitable software business should you

a. carry on
b. build a bunch of computer warehouses on credit

btw catching up on oracles place in the ai hysteria apparently they leveraged themselves all the way to hell in order to build ai data centers and openai is their only customer, i thought they were a software company

Not sure if this has been mentioned itt, but Elon's gigantic polluting "xAI" plant in Memphis is now being leased to Anthropic for Claude because it turned out nobody wanted to use Grok. And we're only a little ways into the planned/announced capacity on the books.

Meta is building a city-sized data center in Louisiana for $50 billion. And hey we know for sure that Zuckerberg would never invest billions of dollars in useless technology.

He should have just built it in the metaverse.

otm

“where we’re going…we won’t need legs”

lmao

I’s be shocked if these announced data centers—get started in the first place; or
—actually build out the full announced power/output.*

All these things are based on companies making splashy press releases saying they’ll do something and eagerly written down by the laziest journalists in the world, all to temporarily juice the stock market. Many of these things won’t ever deliver.

* nothing inside except for a bag of sand labeled “puta”

even most of the data centers companies are actually planning on building will never happen

This is a tech/hardware question for those who know more than me: What is the likely lifespan of a functioning data center? These things are all built with the best tech of the moment, but what's the likelihood they then can just run as-is for 5-10 years without needing equipment upgrades of one kind or another? Are they retrofittable with new chips or circuitry or whatever comes down?

all the gear is built to fit in standardized, modular racks, and rack standards have been stable for decades going back to the old “telecom hotel” days, the grandparents of today’s data centers (and they would build those in the middle of cities to accommodate all the phone lines, etc) The things that change the most are cooling and power requirements as the equipment demands more and more wattage and produces more and more waste heat. Is that the answer you were looking for?

The short version is they just swap out modules all the time; the fiber optics mostly stay in the same place, but the boxes change as new tech comes out and old stuff reaches end-of-life

also the companies that manage them have really honed mean-time-to-failure to a science, they can accurately predict when any given module is about to die and they preemptively replace things accordingly

Yeah that does answer my question thx! I assumed they were updatable somehow. I do wonder if there isn’t some other technological leap that will obviate these things, but I certainly don’t know enough about the science to guess at that.

there are definitely companies looking to build more sustainable IT infrastructure that eats today’s traditional microprocessors for lunch in terms of lower energy demand and less need for massive cooling systems, because those utility bills are ridiculous, but not sure how that’s coming along.

however, if someone does come along and patent a new technology that makes computation way cheaper and more efficient, that just means https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox is around the corner

data centers are by their nature a depreciating asset in that a lot of the money youre spending is on computers which start rapidly depreciating the day you buy them, theyre not great businesses by tech to the moon 1mx standards theres a lot of up front costs and risks you have to borrow a ton of money etc, which is another part of the ai bubble that doesnt make a ton of sense, like i get starting an ai software company hoping to scale it to the moon but wanting to become a computer landlord i dont really get, prob just comes down to theres money out there to fund them, because of the bubble

you get to write depreciation off on your taxes lol

doubt these business would be paying enough taxes to write much of it off but who knows

the spot where data centers become a better business is if you own them and then have a cloud platform on top like amazon et al, thats what oracle is presumably trying to do after missing out on the first cloud rush, but so far the only customer they have is openai which presumably isnt using their cloud stuff and isnt paying retail anyway

Whatever happened with quantum computing, is that still a thing?

still pretty theoretical

still has some way to go

its good if you want a million dollar computer you have to keep at absolute zero that doesnt work

but that's what i want to do

it occurs to me that this all smacks of presentism, the idea that heavily favors current ideas and technology, i.e. racks & racks of servers, all getting really hot and taking up hundred of acres of land

But maybe in a short time computers will be a cold blob in a glass jar and the whole planet will only need 14 or them

i already have a cold blob in a glass jar

barkeep!

Xp tom & laggers: depreciation creates an expense though, and the amount depends on the lifespan of the asset. Of course, these companies could very well overestimate the longevity of the chips and other tech stuff which would make them appear more profitable, which would increase their stock price, which would increase the value of company stock owned by management (and other companies that own stock in the data center company).

There’s also this thing they appear to be doing which is investing in chips and tech and just having them in limbo as capital assets that have yet to be placed in service which would start the depreciation cycle.

they should give the chips to me i know what to do with them (sell them on ebay)

As in the computers don’t begin depreciating for accounting purposes when you buy them… it’s when you start using them.

thats funny

when difficulties start-- what stuff doesn't get updated/renewed/replaced? when the cooling systems fail because needy people are bleeding them for water, or the water acquisition fails due to competitive bidding by nestle, or by government expropriation-- how will that manifest? this is how byzantium got burned off over time.

i mean rome fell by straight ethnomilitary political siezure, but capitalist technohegemony will go more like byzantium imo.

(i'm ignorantly making all of that up, as is quite obvious i'd think). oh also the ellison/oracle implosion has been in the news for-- like a year? hasn't happened, can't be true.

i've been thinking a lot about ai the past couple weeks about AI

i feel like i'm running into it more and more

i joked... i don't know when. some months back.

ok i found it. september 30, 2025, in a chat with a friend:

you know, this might be controversial, but i believe the old ways are best. back in my day, we used cocaine.
and i know, i know! cocaine will kill you, cocaine will give you all kinds of crazy delusions, cocaine made richard pryor light himself on fire, cocained led to atrocities like "we built this city" by starship
the people huffing AI, though? they're fucking crazier than a cokehead who does an eightball every five minutes

well it's been ten months and i'm starting to think maybe i was onto something

if i substitute the word "cocaine" for "ai" the stuff a lot of ai advocates say makes a lot more sense

i didn't really watch hank green's videos, i didn't really know him, and i do have empathy for him. because i know what addiction looks like. because i do struggle with addiction. screen addiction. food addiction. i got a nasty asceticism habit. i don't think... i mean it doesn't help me to think that people have "addictive personalities", it's just something we all deal with to varying degrees, in various forms. and ai, ai seems like a bad one.

i got a friend, she's struggling with ai. because the thing is that, i mean, i can't cold-turkey food, i can't cold-turkey screens, i cant cold-turkey cold-turkeying. she's got this work project, and she set ai loose on it because, well, ai is markedly more effective than any other way she could handle this particular large volume of data.

and she has to reconcile that with... well, like, if she wants to set up linux. i tried to run linux, once. i didn't get very far with it because sometimes you need help, and you ask for help, and the people who have the capability to help you aren't _kind_. i'm a highly sensitive person, and i struggle with my emotions. i struggle when people aren't kind to me. and my friend is also a highly sensitive person. an ai will say all the right things.

the problem is that it doesn't actually mean any of them. it _can't_ mean any of the things it says. it's not capable of it. it's a machine. it doesn't know anything. it doesn't care about anything. it takes inputs and produces outputs based on what it's told. nothing more. if there's substance to ai, it's "substance" in the same way that cocaine is a "substance".

she tells me that what she finds herself doing, without meaning to, without really being conscious of it, is using this machine more and more, asking it more and more things. and then not being aware of what she asked it, not being aware of the answers it gives her. a hundred times a day. an addiction is something, perhaps, that colonizes our minds. all of the different things we are get pushed out or buried to make room for this one all-consuming Thing.

i don't know why it's like that. i don't need to know why it's like that. i think a lot about EM Forster's 1909 novella "the machine stops". i don't think... i mean forster lived a long time ago in a far away land and isn't a prophet any more than i am (and i'm not a prophet). the thing that bothers me is that the machine i've depended on for so much of my life doesn't _work_ like it used to. i don't think it can or will break down entirely, i don't think the belly of the machine is some Moloch, some Omelas we can or must flee from. it just _doesn't work_ like it's supposed to. it doesn't really do the things we all act like it does.

a couple of years ago there was some vogue for quoting from "industrial society and its future", a tendency which was quickly and rapidly opposed by a number of important people acting with great zeal. this is unfortunate for me because it limits my ability to say that the author of that work was wrong. i can say this without having read the work because i know what its author _did_. how he acted on the conclusions that he drew. i don't have to analyze a work like that from first principles when it produces results that are so obviously incorrect.

i'm not about to dismiss the potential benefits of AI wholesale, by which i mean that i'm not about to dismiss the potential benefits of cocaine wholesale.

or we can say, you know, we can talk about fent, right? we can talk about the fent plague. we can talk about the evil oligarchs who ruined the lives of millions to feed their own habit, to feed their own insatiable greed. because that happened, didn't it? it's wild to me, because i've never really been a strong endorser of drug addiction. it's bad, and then these sackler fucks come by and suddenly the problem is so much worse, and it's affecting so many more people than it did before. a whole ecosystem of ways to get fucked up has come to be replaced by this one thing - cheap, powerful, miserable. then they take it away and does it hurt? too fucking bad, they say, this is all your fault, our fault, everyone's fault but theirs. and it's not like i even care whose fucking _fault_ it is!

my friend tells me that her ai usage has made her "dumber, more subsceptible", and that stands out to me, because she isn't, actually. she's no dumber or less capable than she ever was. what it's done, the way i look at it, is eat at her sense of self-confidence. it eats at her sense of self-worth. the phrase i come back to, again and again, is _learned helplessness_.

a different friend... i can't remember if i mentioned this already. last week, he told me that his (large) company had told all their employees to enter a prompt into Copilot to produce a desktop background for Zoom calls. i was and am dumbfounded. i find this action incomprehensible. why would you have thousands of employees use this program to generate backgrounds - a process whose results are not within _anyone's_ direct control - when they could have some damn marketing intern create a standardized desktop that meets all the requirements within a couple hours? what is the _point_ of this?

i don't know. i do know that people who use The Thing quickly become adept at manufacturing pretexts to use The Thing for anything and everything, whether or not they need or even particularly want to. they convince themselves that it is a necessity. they work to convince other people that it is a necessity for _them_. which is a problem for me, because all of the bosses are hooked on this shit, and they aren't giving out the first hit for free. you gotta ALREADY be using this stuff or they got no use for you. c'mon, man, cocaine isn't going anywhere. cocaine is the future! the future of EVERYTHING!

the damnedest thing, to me, is that what i see people going to ai for... it's something ai can't possibly provide to us. and it's something we _can_ provide for _each other_. i'm not good with AI because i'm "highly sensitive", and i know it. it fucks with me. ai fucks with my sense of reality more than it does for most people. and other people might see that as a problem, and i see it as something with a downside and an upside. the upside is that i am _very fucking good_ at _caring_. i have a hard time _not_ caring. i'm good at being _kind_. kindness, caring - this is what the AI imitates but cannot duplicate. this is why AI is an addiction. because like all addictions, we go to it - _we_ go to _it_, it does not care - for something it can't possibly actually provide us. fulfillment. lasting euphoria. success. confidence. power. safety. _control_.

hank green thought that he could handle the risks. he couldn't. my friend... my friend has tremendous skills at managing risk. she's fantastic at managing risk. she's having to cut back on the ai, though she can't cut it out of her life completely. she's recognizing that it's not good for her, that ai undermines her, makes her feel weak.

i don't think i can be a _functional_ ai user. i also think there are a lot of people who _believe_ they can be functional ai users who are mistaken. we'll see where things go. it shouldn't take long. this ai stuff, it brings people very low, very fast, from what i've seen. maybe as fast as cocaine.

Whatever happened with quantum computing, is that still a thing?

Gave us one of the last good FX series.

Artificial Intelligence = Terminators

Quantum Computing = Guild Navigators

c'mon, man, cocaine isn't going anywhere. cocaine is the future! the future of EVERYTHING!

lol, so painfully otm

lol, so painfully otm

― Cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria de Episcopio, Wednesday, August 5, 2026 8:32 PM (yesterday)

also, i'm not really familiar with about the economics of feeding a cocaine addiction, but my suspicion is that the costs of feeding an AI addiction are at least somewhat comparable.

god, now i'm thinking of the old brass eye bit about the workplace where drug use was encouraged

you come across a nice pic of the Matrix cast getting together -> but it's made by the Machines :-(

https://www.facebook.com/AmbreAI/

Great idea! Let's use AI to create unstoppable viruses.

https://www.axios.com/2026/08/06/ai-virus-designed-bacteria-viruses

novel ai policy https://github.com/hawkw/mycelium/commit/b77e854bcbbe7c64f644e4c6ceeaebb74c80c79a

oh no passing discourse has infected ai discourse

lol