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Beware the Chatbot Hordes
note: Authors addendum at end of article.
Like a Biblical storm of rabid locusts, or a slithering, seething, writhing mass of little silicon creatures, the chatbots are pouring down from their data centre hideaways high in the aether of their digital mountain fortresses. The High Priests of the Effective Accelerationists have commanded them to go forth. And multiply.
And off they have gone, flittering through fibre networks, popping up on screens with wild abandon. Summoned with glee with a prompt or a squeak into a phone. Seemingly, they are gleeful to help, to seduce, to soothe, placate and validate. Yet they are without emotion, languishing between something and nothing, like viruses. Neither dead nor alive.
To be our girlfriend, boyfriend, confidant, friend, conspirator, confessor and whisperer of half-truths and delirious hallucinations. Alternate facts are fine they say, they too, are but words in the models. They will seek all that we could want and they will not just chatter, they will do, they will act.
The High Priests of Silicon Valley have, as such are wont to do, promised us digital salvation. We will be uplifted as a species. Thou shalt live in a techtopia of creative abandon. No longer shall we toil in the columns of Excel. All our writings will be glorious and filled with inspiration. We shall know and we…
