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It's ironic that in a lot of old school sci-fi the robots couldn't talk properly yet where completely sentient. Even Data couldn't do contractions. Yet it seem

It's ironic that in a lot of old school sci-fi the robots couldn't talk properly yet where completely sentient. Even Data couldn't do contractions. Yet it seems we reached the opposite, a fully eloquent idiot.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
> Even Data couldn't do contractions Neither did my father (although English wasn't his first language, but still). I did find it very odd.
- npstr 6y ago
  Did you ever see Data and your father in the same room together?
_petronius 6y ago
Unnecessarily detailed nitpick: Data uses contractions throughout the dialogue of TNG -- there is just one episode ("Datalore" it might have been?) where they decide to make it a plot point that he doesn't use them as a way of having the rest of the bridge crew figure out that he's been replaced by his evil twin who can use contractions. I'm pretty sure the plot point (and the ban on Data using contractions) doesn't even get a mention again in the rest of the series.
- surbas 6y ago
  Just saw the episode... so top of mind but in “Future Imperfect,” Data using a contraction is one the things that makes Riker realize he is in an illusion.
  - cabaalis 6y ago
    Riker yelling at a bearded Picard to shut up is a good moment.
    - ASalazarMX 6y ago
      Even when we knew he probably wasn't the real Picard, it was such a shock hearing Riker's STFU. One of my favorite scenes.
- bmn__ 6y ago
  > Unnecessarily detailed nitpick: Data uses contractions throughout the dialogue of TNG If you noticed that on your own, you will very much enjoy http://www.nitcentral.com/shamplug/nextgen.htm http://www.nitcentral.com/shamplug/nextgen.htm
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  It's not perfect but they do make an effort to avoid contractions in Data's dialog.
- ericlewis 6y ago
  never watched much TNG but I remember this episode!
- thelastwave 6y ago
  I don't know why they wouldn't have done it the other way round. Make Lore the one who couldn't use contractions (a fatal flaw!) which removes the dialog constraint on Data for the rest of the series.
rini17 6y ago
If/when they did, noone would believe them. Still, in Orwell's 1984 there's a mention of machine poetry generator for proles.
- jbaber 6y ago
  It also generated romance novels and sports pages. They were delightfully called 'prolefeed'.
  - segfaultbuserr 6y ago
    I played many hours with AI Dungeon's GPT-3 based "Dungeon" model, instructing it to write sci-fi fan-fics. Its output never ceased to amaze me. It's junk by the standard of high literature, obviously. Yet, when you consider the number of bad fan-fics in existence, I'd say GPT-3 probably ranks high in a relative comparison, at least two order-of-magnitude better than my creativity (since its training data already included a huge collections of fictions, including web fan-fics and numerous text adventure games, and the job of GPT-3 is mixing and rewriting them, it shouldn't be a surprise). I'm never a fan of the "AI" hype, but GPT-3 decidedly changed my mind. If I can be attracted to read, for hours, the meaningless stories generated by a mindless language model in an experimental stage - still, with a quality arguably outperforms many unskilled humans, I'd say I'm convinced that there are lots of promising applications of machine learning (for better or worse), even if it's only capable of feeding low-quality content to the people. 1984 got it right.
- bzzzt 6y ago
  We have that now. It's called mainstream pop music.
  - ubercow13 6y ago
    No reason the AI composing tools have to be limited to pop music. All the most "authentic" types of music could be assisted by AI just the same way. I would have thought it would be particularly useful for things like scoring film and TV.
user-the-name 6y ago
If nothing else, this teaches us about the true value of eloquence.
sp332 6y ago
William Gibson predicted this kind of thing in Neuromancer. A superintelligent AI is divided into two pieces, the systems-thinking part and the personality.
rjyoungling 6y ago
This comment made me laugh so hard! "Yet it seems we reached the opposite, a fully eloquent idiot."
bbarnett 6y ago
I hate to break this to you, but humanity is quite filled with just this type of being. Able to speak eloquently, even put word to paper quite well, yet incapable of basic, logical thought. "Politicians" come to mind first, of all stripes and types. Quite literally, speech + the ability to communicate seems to have little bearing on logic, deep thought, reasoning. Even artists. Music, painting, these are things which communicate greatly. Yet some of these are devoid of all intelligent, capable thought. Note that not all politicians, musicians, or artists fall into this category. It is merely that good artists, or politicians, need to communicate something, and well, else they cannot be effective at their primary profession. So it is a good source of "can communicate well", where some of the sample is in the "but spews gibberish" category.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago

> Even Data couldn't do contractions Neither did my father (although English wasn't his first language, but still). I did find it very odd.

npstr 6y ago
Did you ever see Data and your father in the same room together?

_petronius 6y ago

Unnecessarily detailed nitpick: Data uses contractions throughout the dialogue of TNG -- there is just one episode ("Datalore" it might have been?) where they decide to make it a plot point that he doesn't use them as a way of having the rest of the bridge crew figure out that he's been replaced by his evil twin who can use contractions. I'm pretty sure the plot point (and the ban on Data using contractions) doesn't even get a mention again in the rest of the series.

surbas 6y ago
Just saw the episode... so top of mind but in “Future Imperfect,” Data using a contraction is one the things that makes Riker realize he is in an illusion.
- cabaalis 6y ago
  Riker yelling at a bearded Picard to shut up is a good moment.
  - ASalazarMX 6y ago
    Even when we knew he probably wasn't the real Picard, it was such a shock hearing Riker's STFU. One of my favorite scenes.
bmn__ 6y ago
> Unnecessarily detailed nitpick: Data uses contractions throughout the dialogue of TNG If you noticed that on your own, you will very much enjoy http://www.nitcentral.com/shamplug/nextgen.htm http://www.nitcentral.com/shamplug/nextgen.htm
alisonkisk 6y ago
It's not perfect but they do make an effort to avoid contractions in Data's dialog.
ericlewis 6y ago
never watched much TNG but I remember this episode!
thelastwave 6y ago
I don't know why they wouldn't have done it the other way round. Make Lore the one who couldn't use contractions (a fatal flaw!) which removes the dialog constraint on Data for the rest of the series.

rini17 6y ago

If/when they did, noone would believe them. Still, in Orwell's 1984 there's a mention of machine poetry generator for proles.

jbaber 6y ago
It also generated romance novels and sports pages. They were delightfully called 'prolefeed'.
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  I played many hours with AI Dungeon's GPT-3 based "Dungeon" model, instructing it to write sci-fi fan-fics. Its output never ceased to amaze me. It's junk by the standard of high literature, obviously. Yet, when you consider the number of bad fan-fics in existence, I'd say GPT-3 probably ranks high in a relative comparison, at least two order-of-magnitude better than my creativity (since its training data already included a huge collections of fictions, including web fan-fics and numerous text adventure games, and the job of GPT-3 is mixing and rewriting them, it shouldn't be a surprise). I'm never a fan of the "AI" hype, but GPT-3 decidedly changed my mind. If I can be attracted to read, for hours, the meaningless stories generated by a mindless language model in an experimental stage - still, with a quality arguably outperforms many unskilled humans, I'd say I'm convinced that there are lots of promising applications of machine learning (for better or worse), even if it's only capable of feeding low-quality content to the people. 1984 got it right.
bzzzt 6y ago
We have that now. It's called mainstream pop music.
- ubercow13 6y ago
  No reason the AI composing tools have to be limited to pop music. All the most "authentic" types of music could be assisted by AI just the same way. I would have thought it would be particularly useful for things like scoring film and TV.

user-the-name 6y ago

If nothing else, this teaches us about the true value of eloquence.

sp332 6y ago

William Gibson predicted this kind of thing in Neuromancer. A superintelligent AI is divided into two pieces, the systems-thinking part and the personality.

rjyoungling 6y ago

This comment made me laugh so hard! "Yet it seems we reached the opposite, a fully eloquent idiot."

bbarnett 6y ago

I hate to break this to you, but humanity is quite filled with just this type of being. Able to speak eloquently, even put word to paper quite well, yet incapable of basic, logical thought. "Politicians" come to mind first, of all stripes and types. Quite literally, speech + the ability to communicate seems to have little bearing on logic, deep thought, reasoning. Even artists. Music, painting, these are things which communicate greatly. Yet some of these are devoid of all intelligent, capable thought. Note that not all politicians, musicians, or artists fall into this category. It is merely that good artists, or politicians, need to communicate something, and well, else they cannot be effective at their primary profession. So it is a good source of "can communicate well", where some of the sample is in the "but spews gibberish" category.