948: AI
| AI |
 Title text: And they both react poorly to showers. |
Explanation
This comic is a reference to the wildly funny video of two Cleverbots talking to each other. By recording and analyzing whatever humans type into its input, they can sound pretty human to whoever is reading their response.
Megan has been watching the video and ask Cueball about it. He says it's just "clumsy sampling" as they are still very far from sounding like humans and holding normal conversations.
Megan then sums up that as of the release of this comic computers were good at chess and at driving cars through a desert (i.e. a place with no obstacles to hit, this would improve much later with the self-driving cars). But they cannot hold a conversation for five minutes. And she thus concludes that a cleverbot would be perfect for attending Burning Man.
Burning Man is a week long event held yearly in Black Rock City, Nevada. Participants do all sorts of random stuff. Apparently they can play chess and drive cars in deserts, but not hold a proper conversation. A tradition of Burning Man is not to shower while you are there, mostly because all water must be brought in from offsite.
And of course Cleverbot reacts badly in showers because if you do try to shower a Cleverbot, you end up with a shorted out computer.
Transcript
- [Megan sits on a wheeled computer chair at a desk. A laptop computer is on the desk playing some sort of media with audio. Megan is facing away from the computer addressing someone off panel.]
- Megan: Did you see the Cleverbot-Cleverbot chat?
- Computer: I am not a robot. I'm a unicorn.
- [In the next frameless panel, Megan has wheeled away from the desk and is now seating in front of Cueball who holds one hand up as he replies.]
- Cueball: Yeah. It's hilarious, but it's just clumsily sampling a huge database of lines people have typed. Chatterbots still have a long way to go.
- [A close-up of Megan's head and shoulders. She has a hand to her chin and appears to be contemplating the last remark.]
- Megan: So... Computers have mastered playing chess and driving cars across the desert, but can't hold five minutes of normal conversation?
- Cueball (off-screen): Pretty much.
- [Both are shown again, Cueball with his hands down.]
- Megan: Is it just me, or have we created a Burning Man attendee?
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refresh comments!Discussion
I object to this unfair depiction of burning man attendants. My beer can do all that, hold me. Davidy²²[talk] 08:48, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't think the joke about the five-minute conversation is about how Burning Man attendees can only talk about one subject. That wouldn't limit them to five minutes. I think it's a joke about them taking drugs. AmbroseChapel (talk) 02:11, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
I guarantee you the "cars across the desert" is a reference to desert bus 172.69.170.120 16:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
I made a Trivia section because I'm not sure where I should put that piece of info. please verify 162.158.193.188 18:06, 11 February 2023 (UTC)ChX
WIth LLMs now this comic is from a different era before actually clever AI.. 108.162.241.171 (talk) 19:43, 15 November 2023 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- Define 'clever'... 172.70.90.230 21:15, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
