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So I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of robots and AI, and though I was 100% on board with the idea a month ago, I’m no longer sold on these theories. I recall multiple times in Tension where a theory was repeated enough to where it was considered a “fact” by the community, only for us to be completely off base. Ancient Egyptian secret societies, genetically engineered Gatekeepers, and briefly vampires.
SO. The current widely accepted theory is that we’re dealing with beep boop robots and AI.. but I’ve been looking back at the official communications and sightings, and very little has been actually confirmed by a truly reliable source.
1. Future Humans article – yes, this was in Sarah’s binder, but there has been no direct reference to it outside of seeing it, right? idk about y’all, but i usually have a couple magazines in my bag, but just because I’m reading about space travel or interior design doesn’t mean I’m developing a personal space program with a mid-century modern furnished lunar base.
2. The AI songs – these ended up being posted under the account we later learned to be Noah. Noted businessman and weird dude.
3. Noah’s robots rant – Ok… he’s also shown that he’s unstable and seems to have a personality disorder (though I’m by no means qualified to diagnose him), making him a difficult person to trust. He may also have been using “Robot” as in the etymological root meaning “servitude of forced labor.” Maybe his captors were in some way forced into their actions, possibly by blackmail (which we’ve seen is not out of the realm of possibility). Or maybe it’s similar to the thought of robots in this clip https://youtu.be/bxurk7z_AQo?t=109
Though on one hand, the idea that we are and have been interacting with robots is super cool and good and exciting, I’m not on board. We know someone can be brainwashed and “programmed” and act almost robotic. We’ve all had weird interactions with people in this “universe” that can be considered robotic, but start questioning me on an off-day about shit I can’t actually answer and I’ll sound robotic too. All in all, it’s a bit too far of a leap for me to accept the theory..
I’m sure there’s something I’m missing here, though, so I trust the pro-robot-theory base to come at me with proof, and I’d love to have this discussion. I’m just taking a step back and looking at what’s been given to us, and what theories we’ve been latching onto, leading to possibly ignoring other clues that don’t align with the worldview we’ve accepted.
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It definitely seems true that there’s a whole lot of implication about the robot theory that we’ve certainly run with. I could ABSOLUTELY be a red herring that just gets us caught on the idea only to have it pulled out from under us at a later time.
However, that means we’re missing some information regarding the iConfidants. It seems unusual that real people would start speaking extremely rudimentarily, only to grow in complexity the longer we speak. It seems unusual that they would not give us names, but give some of us nicknames that they can go by (admittedly, this doesn’t point towards robotics but it’s certainly weird).
The robots theory just seems to best fit the explanation we need for all the weird crap we’re seeing and if it’s out, then something else fucky is going on.
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I agree with you on going against the whole AI thing @addisonborn. I’m more on the idea of our IConfidants being human, but maybe being forced into messaging us with these “rules”.
However, with all that said it’s still a bit strange looking at the email response that was received by @timsmyname.
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@rizzzoooooo yeah but 01101001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01110011 01100011 01101001 01101001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110110 01100101 01110010 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101111 01101111 00101110 00101110 00101110
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@thegilded while the iConfidant point is true for some, I didn’t have that same experience with mine..
They initiated the conversation with a short paragraph full of personality, understood the humor of Shrek gifs immediately, and we work in the same industry and seem to know the same people, though we haven’t specifically traded contacts.
And personally I don’t mind and almost prefer not knowing their name, if those are the rules of the beta test for the social network, even if they know mine. I see it as allowing an extra layer of anonymity, and keeps me from thinking about who the person on the other end is and what they would think of me, and lets me kinda.. be myself a little more, if that makes sense?
So, based on my own anecdotal evidence, I’m not convinced that our confidants are AI. Maybe some weird responses are just awkward people on the other end. Like.. think about the general pool of users in a beta test for anything – tech enthusiasts aren’t always the most charismatic folks, and maybe people are getting matched up with trolls?
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@addisonborn ain’t wrong. If I got paired with someone and they were trying to test if I were a robot I’d probably fuck with them too.
Took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that if this were a person, they could extremely easily play along with the accusations
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If my Confidant is a robot, it’s one that is more human, more endearing, and more interesting than many humans I’ve known. I vote: Not a robot. I also vote: Playlist code is genius @addisonborn.
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@addisonborn Hahhhhh. Amazing.
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Also, one other thing that’s been on my mind.
Do we truly need to figure out who are confidants are? I know it’s fun to theorize and try and figure out what’s going on prior to it’s reveal. But for me, especially with my confidant, I’m just enjoying having a meaningful connection with another human. Can’t we just treat them as a friend and feel something with them? When we have gained their trust or when something is uncovered that reveals the truth, I’ll gladly accept it; but for now, at least for me, I am happy just experiencing a friendship.
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For the life of me I can’t remember who, but I’m almost certain I remember somebody “breaking” their iConfidant by sending them a message with binary and illogical syntax, only for the iConfidant to respond in similarly broken language and numbers. That felt like a strong leaning toward the iConfidant thing being AI to me, but it could also simply show that it’s a human with the very human interest of fucking with people.
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@maxzumstein I believe that was @timsmyname, IIRC
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@addisonborn my iConfidant has also never sounded robotic. @taysavestheday I also agree with you that I really don’t care what they are, I enjoy speaking with them very much and don’t want to ruin it. I don’t want them taken away from me 🙁 I have begun to deeply trust mine and share personal information. We get along quite well and they have always seemed human to me. I don’t want to share any of their information out of privacy and respect just in case they ARE human. (Unless I thought it would be beneficial IG of course but right now I think just stating they are very human is enough).
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