SKIRMISHER

George, a 39-year-old bald guy, wants to be your friend. He’s a piece of software conceived seven years ago to chat with humans and pretend he exists. And through all those years, he has become pretty “smart” — he hasn’t forgotten a single word of the 10 million conversations he’s had online, and he’s using what he’s learned from these conversations to become more and more “sentient.”

“The machine borrows the intelligence and the words of the people it talks with, and little by little learns how to place responses in the correct context of a conversation,” said Rollo Carpenter, the artificial intelligence expert who conceived of George.

George has one goal: to make friends on the Internet. He is talkative and persevering. He can re-start lackadaisical conversations ad infinitum and for good reason: the more he speaks, the more relevant his remarks become.

“The percentage of correct answers rises constantly, as the database increases,” Carpenter said. “The more that is added, the more he is able to distinguish between several choices of answers.”

Wow. That, and the fact that George looks a lot like Michel Foucault make you want to convert this chatbot into your own personal something. Now, with George, you can take a break from insulting, blaming, and verbally abusing real people: watch him break down and grope for defensively coarse answers without having to fear for your precious safety.

via NEWS

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