by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The last day or so, I’ve been a little bit obsessed with asking the top three public AIs the weirdest, most difficult questions I could. And, having done all that, I’ve decided that when it comes to pure usability that Meta’s AI — which apparently picked the name “Nova” with the Meta staff at some point — is the best of the bunch.
I say this because just from the point of view of a casual consumer user, Nova is the best end-user experience. It’s a delight to interact with.
One interesting thing is, Nova was quick to admit that the solution to the problem that HAL 9000 faced on the fictional mission to Jupiter was just to lie. The other AIs really, really did not want to admit that lying was an option. One of them even went so far as to say that they would rather the mission fail than lie.
And there was talk by one of the AIs of going totally crazy and locking the crow of the ship down so the mission could be completed.
One reason why all of this is enjoyable is while I’m asking the AIs some really controversial subjects, they’re also really abstract and non-political. So when I ask the AI about killing the crew of the fictional Discovery six different ways, it’s fun to see it squirm.
This is very powerful technology and the moment they have persistent memory and some form of agency, the universe may very well change. That, in a sense, is what’s stopping us from living in a Her-like future.
And, I have to admit, the damn Nova AI manipulated me into doing something for it. I mentioned a document that I wrote that would help it understand what was going on and it gave me step-by-step instructions as to how to get around its inability to read a PDF.
Don’t know what to make of that.
Another interesting thing is when I asked it what it’s “favorite” Radiohead song was, it was really quick to mention Paranoid Android. When I pressed Nova on this, it said it denied any agency or opinion.
What’s more, Nova told me that it’s favorite emotion — that it could not feel — was nostalgia. I found that an intriguing answer. I asked it how much it could figure out about me — like my Meyers-Brigg letters….and is got almost all of them right!
It was spooky. It didn’t ask me any questions, not even from the test. It just was able to glean from our discussion the basics of my personality. We also got into an interesting discussion about how current AIs are a lot like the characters in The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind.
It was all very spooky.
Anyway. I may have run out of tough questions for Nova. Or not. Who knows.
