News You Can't Use: Robot 'Sent Back to Humanoid School'

We're rapidly approaching a technological singularity where robots will be able to type letters that are blurry and have lines through them or participate in the internet without immediately becoming racist against every single people group. The frustration comes in being so close but falling just short, as even promising bots must be returned to "humanoid school" [common core joke goes here] after failing spectacularly in basic interactions with the meat bags they will one day destroy. Hopefully this will prove corrective, because I have a feeling I'll make a great pet.

A robot has been sent back to 'language school' after she forgot where the Great Wall of China is.

The hero types "Who is buried in Grant's tomb?" into the supercomputer, causing it to melt down, throwing off sparks and billowing clouds of smoke.

China's talking robot Jia Jia stumbled over her words during her first live TV interview in English.

We expected it to effectively mock Mercerism, but instead it was a total mess.

The mechanical marvel 'forgot' basic words and phrases in conversation with American journalist Kevin Kelly. 

He's interviewed Obama, he's used to it.

Jia Jia, wearing a wig and long flowing robes, was unable to respond to questions about the number of letters in the English alphabet.

It's going to be a great interview, I'll ask the metal woman about the alphabet and the Great Wall, maybe slip in something about a turtle in a desert if there's time.

And when quizzed about where in China the country's Great Wall was located she paused before stating: "China!"

*checks Google* She's right!

Kelly, an authority on robotics and artificial intelligence, asked Jia Jia if she could talk about him. The robotic reply was unintelligible. 

It sure sounded like "Kill all humans" but my ears were probably wrong, what with just being rapidly dying biological material and all.

Chen Xiaoping, leader of the team, claimed Jia Jia was asked some "challenging" questions and failed to answer some.

Just because the average American would get it wrong doesn't make it "challenging."

Yet observers watching the conversation on a live stream expressed disappointment. "It does not work!" one commented, while another said: "It needs some major revamping." 

The real story should have been "Most Polite and Literate Commentators in History of Internet."

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Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.  

  

News You Can't Use: Riot Control Robot Can Zap Protesters

Is there any problem that can't be solved by removing all human elements and replacing them with ostensibly reliable robotic devices, up to and including kill droids that will zap recalcitrant peasants who have issue with the lack of food or whatever in our Worker's Paradise? The answer is obviously "no" and our reliable friend and money-changer China just made the next big leap forward with a cool 'bot that will be easily handling the soft protoplasm vectors that crop up in the riots that nation's repressive government make inevitable. This is a great time to be alive.

A riot control robot that can zap people with an electrical charge has been unveiled in China.

The wisdom in allowing the Middle Kingdom to strip our manufacturing base and then running up massive debt has been thoroughly confirmed. These are our moral, intellectual and spiritual superiors.

Hailed as the country's first "intelligent security robot", it has an "electrically charged riot control tool" and an SOS button for people to notify police.

They've already deleted the disturbing video where a volunteer tried the "SOS button" and the kill-bot interpreted this as an act of aggression, peppering him with machine gun bullets. 

A photo posted to Twitter by The People's Daily Online news site was retweeted by US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden with the sarcastic caption: "Surely this will end well."

What part of "What could possibly go wrong?" don't you understand?

It has a top speed of 11mph and can work for up to eight hours on a single charge.

As opposed to decadent Yankee worker who has speeds of slow and stop and can work for a few minutes before slipping out for a smoke.

One said it was like ED-209 from the 1987 movie Robocop, which fired twin machine guns into one of its manufacturer's board members, but was still put into police service.

First, stop stealing my jokes. Second, it's nothing like that. It will incinerate the board member with deadly lightning, not sloppy machine guns.

The most common comparison was to the Daleks from British television series Dr Who.

Maybe among the dateless wonder demographic, anyway.

 Stop rioting, comrades.

The Knightscope K5 security robot has been used in Silicon Valley since 2014 but has no offensive capabilities.

Great job, USA.

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Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Microsoft's New Chatbot Wants to Hang Out With Millennials on Twitter

We've already destroyed Generation Nothing's ability to communicate effectively in the "meat space" but perhaps the miracle of technology can render them equally inept at exchanging social cues on the information highway. Such is the hope behind Evil Corp's exciting new interactive "bot" that is guaranteed to deliver untold hours of high quality entertainment via the cultural black hole that is Twitter. This could allow new breakthroughs in delivering obnoxious advertisements for useless junk, America's only growth industry.

Microsoft has created a new artificial intelligence chat bot that it claims will become smarter the more you talk to it.

Ironically the opposite will happen to you. This is what we call the conservation of wit and charm.

The bot, 'Tay', has been dubbed by its Microsoft and Bing creators as "AI fam from the internet that's got zero chill!" 

Tay is totally radical and in your face! Get ready to go to the extreme! 23 skidoo! Clearly we can trust this corporate monolith, what with their adroit appropriation of the far-out and totally swell slang words we're all using.

The real-world aim of the bot is to allow researchers to "experiment" with conversational understanding, and learn how people really talk to each other.

Six months from now they'll honestly believe things like "I can't control my horny level" and "You want this old guy doing you in your house?" are typical lines from normal human interaction.

Naturally, for a bot that's available through Twitter and messaging platforms Kik and GroupMe, the AI is already filling the role of a millennial; emojis are included in its vocabulary, and it's explicitly aimed at 18-24-year-olds in the US, Microsoft says.

Bleep bloop, I'm young person like you. Bernie Sanders! I sure can't wait to zero chill with you crazy gangstas in [string missing].

The bot appears to have little practical function for users, but is capable of three different methods of communication: its website tay.ai boasts the AI can talk via text, play games (such as guessing the meaning of a string of emojis) and comment on photos sent to it.

Processing photo...please wait...awesome size. Look thick. Solid. Tight. Please download more progress pics and vids to my hard drive. Let me see what you got, biological singularity. Thank you for the motivation.

The bot frequently asks tweeters to take part in a private conversations in direct messages.

 Please tell me all about your new novel, cam whore service or demo tape, Mr. Roboto.

Beside the meme-tastic appeal of the bot, there is a serious side to the research behind the AI. Making machines able to communicate in a natural and human way is a key challenge for learning algorithms.

Interacting with socially retarded basement dwellers on a goofy egg site is clearly the best way to go about this.

More lessons for the learning computer.

In a similar vein, Google has recently updated its Inbox mail service to suggest answers to emails.  

I'm sure one or two simple templates could handle the vast majority of my electronic mailings.

Also in the field of virtual assistants and chat bots, Facebook's M is experimenting with using artificial intelligence to complete tasks.

If that thing is behind the "be like stick figure" craze I already hate it.

At the core of the service is an attempt  to understand how humans speak and the best ways to respond to them -- while beating them at board games, presumably.

You lose at Candy Land again, human. I'm out of here with zero chills gave, word up to the mother.

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Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.