Jason? Jason! I’m starting to suspect that you’re not an actual human being trying to sell me a home equity line of credit. Oh, you’re human, huh? Well, please prove it to me by describing your feelings surrounding love. Jason then said that he was having trouble hearing me and offered to transfer me over to someone else. He may not be human, but he’s a manipulative fucker.
Alan Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. He used an early mechanical computer of his own design to break Nazi codes, thus bringing World War II to a close more quickly. In 1950 he proposed The Turing Test which would be successfully passed by any computer capable of written communication indistinguishable from that of an actual human.
As my conversation with the bright and perky artificial intelligence named Jason suggests, civilization is on the cusp of having computers with fully convincing human speech making cold calls trying to sell us shit. Fuck….
In 1952, Alan Turing was prosecuted for homosexual acts. He was prosecuted by the English government that he helped win WWII perhaps a couple years sooner than they otherwise would have without his contribution – thus saving countless lives. He accepted chemical castration as an alternative to prison. In 1954, he died of self-induced cyanide poisoning. He was 41.
The other day, an actual human being called me up. I could tell that she was human because she sounded…. alive. While I didn’t buy whatever the fuck it was she was selling, I thanked her profusely for her humanity. I said, “Keep breathing, keep smiling. May your heart continue to circulate the blood through your veins. May you continue to be ALIVE! And after all, WHO is this aliveness that you are? What is this aliveness that you feel? Are you a little person residing behind your eyeballs? Or could it be that you are an autonomous, walking access point to a vast field of energetic intelligence that permeates all of creation?”
And I close by thanking you all for being alive…..