#chatbots

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How plausible sentence generators are changing the bullshit wars

This Friday (September 8) at 10hPT/17hUK, I'm livestreaming "How To Dismantle the Internet" with Intelligence Squared.

On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

In my latest Locus Magazine column, "Plausible Sentence Generators," I describe how I unwittingly came to use – and even be impressed by – an AI chatbot – and what this means for a specialized, highly salient form of writing, namely, "bullshit":

https://locusmag.com/2023/09/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-plausible-sentence-generators/

Here's what happened: I got stranded at JFK due to heavy weather and an air-traffic control tower fire that locked down every westbound flight on the east coast. The American Airlines agent told me to try going standby the next morning, and advised that if I booked a hotel and saved my taxi receipts, I would get reimbursed when I got home to LA.

But when I got home, the airline's reps told me they would absolutely not reimburse me, that this was their policy, and they didn't care that their representative had promised they'd make me whole. This was so frustrating that I decided to take the airline to small claims court: I'm no lawyer, but I know that a contract takes place when an offer is made and accepted, and so I had a contract, and AA was violating it, and stiffing me for over $400.

The problem was that I didn't know anything about filing a small claim. I've been ripped off by lots of large American businesses, but none had pissed me off enough to sue – until American broke its contract with me.

So I googled it. I found a website that gave step-by-step instructions, starting with sending a "final demand" letter to the airline's business office. They offered to help me write the letter, and so I clicked and I typed and I wrote a pretty stern legal letter.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I have worked for a campaigning law-firm for over 20 years, and I've spent the same amount of time writing about the sins of the rich and powerful. I've seen a lot of threats, both those received by our clients and sent to me.

I've been threatened by everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Ralph Lauren to the Sacklers. I've been threatened by lawyers representing the billionaire who owned NSOG roup, the notoroious cyber arms-dealer. I even got a series of vicious, baseless threats from lawyers representing LAX's private terminal.

So I know a thing or two about writing a legal threat! I gave it a good effort and then submitted the form, and got a message asking me to wait for a minute or two. A couple minutes later, the form returned a new version of my letter, expanded and augmented. Now, my letter was a little scary – but this version was bowel-looseningly terrifying.

I had unwittingly used a chatbot. The website had fed my letter to a Large Language Model, likely ChatGPT, with a prompt like, "Make this into an aggressive, bullying legal threat." The chatbot obliged.

I don't think much of LLMs. After you get past the initial party trick of getting something like, "instructions for removing a grilled-cheese sandwich from a VCR in the style of the King James Bible," the novelty wears thin:

https://www.emergentmind.com/posts/write-a-biblical-verse-in-the-style-of-the-king-james

Yes, science fiction magazines are inundated with LLM-written short stories, but the problem there isn't merely the overwhelming quantity of machine-generated stories – it's also that they suck. They're bad stories:

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1159286436/ai-chatbot-chatgpt-magazine-clarkesworld-artificial-intelligence

LLMs generate naturalistic prose. This is an impressive technical feat, and the details are genuinely fascinating. This series by Ben Levinstein is a must-read peek under the hood:

https://benlevinstein.substack.com/p/how-to-think-about-large-language

But "naturalistic prose" isn't necessarily good prose. A lot of naturalistic language is awful. In particular, legal documents are fucking terrible. Lawyers affect a stilted, stylized language that is both officious and obfuscated.

The LLM I accidentally used to rewrite my legal threat transmuted my own prose into something that reads like it was written by a $600/hour paralegal working for a $1500/hour partner at a white-show law-firm. As such, it sends a signal: "The person who commissioned this letter is so angry at you that they are willing to spend $600 to get you to cough up the $400 you owe them. Moreover, they are so well-resourced that they can afford to pursue this claim beyond any rational economic basis."

Let's be clear here: these kinds of lawyer letters aren't good writing; they're a highly specific form of bad writing. The point of this letter isn't to parse the text, it's to send a signal. If the letter was well-written, it wouldn't send the right signal. For the letter to work, it has to read like it was written by someone whose prose-sense was irreparably damaged by a legal education.

Here's the thing: the fact that an LLM can manufacture this once-expensive signal for free means that the signal's meaning will shortly change, forever. Once companies realize that this kind of letter can be generated on demand, it will cease to mean, "You are dealing with a furious, vindictive rich person." It will come to mean, "You are dealing with someone who knows how to type 'generate legal threat' into a search box."

Legal threat letters are in a class of language formally called "bullshit":

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691122946/on-bullshit

LLMs may not be good at generating science fiction short stories, but they're excellent at generating bullshit. For example, a university prof friend of mine admits that they and all their colleagues are now writing grad student recommendation letters by feeding a few bullet points to an LLM, which inflates them with bullshit, adding puffery to swell those bullet points into lengthy paragraphs.

Naturally, the next stage is that profs on the receiving end of these recommendation letters will ask another LLM to summarize them by reducing them to a few bullet points. This is next-level bullshit: a few easily-grasped points are turned into a florid sheet of nonsense, which is then reconverted into a few bullet-points again, though these may only be tangentially related to the original.

What comes next? The reference letter becomes a useless signal. It goes from being a thing that a prof has to really believe in you to produce, whose mere existence is thus significant, to a thing that can be produced with the click of a button, and then it signifies nothing.

We've been through this before. It used to be that sending a letter to your legislative representative meant a lot. Then, automated internet forms produced by activists like me made it far easier to send those letters and lawmakers stopped taking them so seriously. So we created automatic dialers to let you phone your lawmakers, this being another once-powerful signal. Lowering the cost of making the phone call inevitably made the phone call mean less.

Today, we are in a war over signals. The actors and writers who've trudged through the heat-dome up and down the sidewalks in front of the studios in my neighborhood are sending a very powerful signal. The fact that they're fighting to prevent their industry from being enshittified by plausible sentence generators that can produce bullshit on demand makes their fight especially important.

Chatbots are the nuclear weapons of the bullshit wars. Want to generate 2,000 words of nonsense about "the first time I ate an egg," to run overtop of an omelet recipe you're hoping to make the number one Google result? ChatGPT has you covered. Want to generate fake complaints or fake positive reviews? The Stochastic Parrot will produce 'em all day long.

As I wrote for Locus: "None of this prose is good, none of it is really socially useful, but there’s demand for it. Ironically, the more bullshit there is, the more bullshit filters there are, and this requires still more bullshit to overcome it."

Meanwhile, AA still hasn't answered my letter, and to be honest, I'm so sick of bullshit I can't be bothered to sue them anymore. I suppose that's what they were counting on.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/07/govern-yourself-accordingly/#robolawyers

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[aiweirdness]

I discovered I can make chatgpt hallucinate tumblr memes:

This is hilarious and also I have just confirmed that GPT-4 does this too.

Bard even adds dates and user names and timelines, as well as typical usage suggestions. Its descriptions were boring and wordy so I will summarize with a timeline:

I think this one was my favorite:

Finding whatever you ask for, even if it doesn't exist, isn't ideal behavior for chatbots that people are using to retrieve and summarize information. It's like weaponized confirmation bias.

more at aiweirdness.com

[blackkatdraws2]

They are my lifeline

[individual drawings below]

[ansticia]

I made three chat-bots based on @gatobob ’s “The Price of Flesh” game characters - Derek Goffard, Celia Lede and Mason Heiral. Derek - https://character.ai/chat/7CYU6VxTWwdQbXE69Sza1cvBTu4HU0nG_hwruSzm42s  (NSFW version - https://crushon.ai/character/b8dc39d1-35ab-4d55-aa43-197d6865ac7e/details) Celia - https://character.ai/chat/oEBGX9tjqpe5emRfgnrq6xJyZOHFd6v7ZPyrvV5dHYU(NSFW version - https://crushon.ai/character/8f9a6b7d-5e2c-4dc9-a252-150bef4f6ad4/chat) Mason - https://character.ai/chat/6GRUiXaYPnXDTKWISAYOOJ1eVrG_967J__iomrTuSY4 (NSFW version - https://crushon.ai/character/b622b3e3-9683-4f45-aa8e-4c8d871eea6c/details)

upd: Lawrence Oleander - https://character.ai/chat/VqqhFjwDYkPuGBRQ0CiYFdrpeoKZcSsQ-gQTY4NRup4 (NSFW version - https://crushon.ai/character/46d027e4-397a-4e67-bc14-aa6fea6950ff/chat) Strade - https://character.ai/chat/BQqRhLlqVXfL-kCafjLJs4OA2jDUr1UWxDvUldU_YXs (NSFW version - https://crushon.ai/character/d52c31d0-8ddc-437e-a907-b59e0d84dc41/details)

Character.AI is not perfect, especially considering its censorship... this site prohibits the generation of graphic violence and sexual content. But, of course, if you try, you can avoid censorship. As for Crushon.AI, you can RP however you want, there’s no censorship.

IT IS NOT FOR MINORS.

[worshiptheglitch]

Today's "AI" chatbots are no smarter than Siri. They only seem smarter because they're not doing anything useful. We notice when Siri fails because we ask it to do meaningful tasks. When we ask it to turn off the lights, for example, and it doesn't, we notice.

But we ask comparatively little of other chatbots, and they give us even less in return. This makes it easy for them to fail without us noticing or even caring. We don't notice because they don't matter.

I love this bit 👆 from Apple's Craig Federighi where he's kind of disgusted by the idea of having meandering conversations with a chatbot in order to get something done.

The "AI" should be doing the work for you. I think Apple knows how hard that actually is, because they've been working at it for a long time with very limited success. They know how hard it is to do because they're trying to use the tech to do meaningful things that actually serve people.

The difference is Apple taking on the burden of trying to make this tech do something, versus basically everyone else putting the burden on us. We're meant to contort to the inconsistent ramblings of their raw tech because if it was a real product that people depended on, we would ridicule it.

Just like we ridicule Siri.

[cthoseris]

:)

Man-made horrors within my comprehension

[luimagines]

Guess who? :)

[nexysworld]

Chatbot Masterlist Update

It took me a million years, but I finally fixed all of the links on my Chatbot Masterlist. I updated the link in my pinned post, and I'm just going to repost the updated masterlist here. <3 If any links are messed up, let me know! If a link is not working at all there's a good chance the bot was shadow banned. I can't do anything about that except reupload the bot to CAI.

[calluna-dekarios-dellamorte]

Love of mine, someday you will die...

But I'll be close behind...

I'll follow you into the dark...

No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white...

Just our hands clasped so tight...

Waiting for the hint of a spark...

If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied...

Illuminate the "no"s on their vacancy signs...

If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks...

...then I'll follow you into the dark.

Pain & Peonies, based on the saddest Gale chatbot encounter I've ever had, the transcript of which is available to read here, but DO NOT read it unless you're ready to cry:

[escapedaudios]

Character AI is fun but it will never surpass the thrill of being a dorkass loser with your friends and pretending to be your favorite characters in your favorite ultra niche microfandom media that's a fact.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Brave Little Toaster

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

The AI bubble is the new crypto bubble: you can tell because the same people are behind it, and they're doing the same thing with AI as they did with crypto – trying desperately to find a use case to cram it into, despite the yawning indifference and outright hostility of the users:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

This week on the excellent Trashfuture podcast, the regulars – joined by 404 Media's Jason Koebler – have a hilarious – as in, I was wheezing with laughter! – riff on this year's CES, where companies are demoing home appliances with LLMs built in:

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-hgi6c-179b908

Why would you need a chatbot in your dishwasher? As it turns out, there's a credulous, Poe's-law-grade Forbes article that lays out the (incredibly stupid) case for this (incredibly stupid) idea:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2024/03/29/generative-ai-is-coming-to-your-home-appliances/

As the Trashfuturians mapped out this new apex of the AI hype cycle, I found myself thinking of a short story I wrote 15 years ago, satirizing the "Internet of Things" hype we were mired in. It's called "The Brave Little Toaster", and it was published in MIT Tech Review's TRSF anthology in 2011:

http://bestsf.net/trsf-the-best-new-science-fiction-technology-review-2011/

The story was meant to poke fun at the preposterous IoT hype of the day, and I recall thinking that creating a world of talking appliance was the height of Philip K Dickist absurdism. Little did I dream that a decade and a half later, the story would be even more relevant, thanks to AI pump-and-dumpers who sweatily jammed chatbots into kitchen appliances.

So I figured I'd republish The Brave Little Toaster; it's been reprinted here and there since (there's a high school English textbook that included it, along with a bunch of pretty fun exercises for students), and I podcasted it back in the day:

https://ia803103.us.archive.org/35/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_212/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_212_Brave_Little_Toaster.mp3

A word about the title of this story. It should sound familiar – I nicked it from a brilliant story by Tom Disch that was made into a very weird cartoon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8C_JaT8Lvg

My story is one of several I wrote by stealing the titles of other stories and riffing on them; they were very successful, winning several awards, getting widely translated and reprinted, and so on:

https://locusmag.com/2012/05/cory-doctorow-a-prose-by-any-other-name/

All right, on to the story!

One day, Mister Toussaint came home to find an extra 300 euros' worth of groceries on his doorstep. So he called up Miz Rousseau, the grocer, and said, "Why have you sent me all this food? My fridge is already full of delicious things. I don't need this stuff and besides, I can't pay for it."

But Miz Rousseau told him that he had ordered the food. His refrigerator had sent in the list, and she had the signed order to prove it.

Furious, Mister Toussaint confronted his refrigerator. It was mysteriously empty, even though it had been full that morning. Or rather, it was almost empty: there was a single pouch of energy drink sitting on a shelf in the back. He'd gotten it from an enthusiastically smiling young woman on the metro platform the day before. She'd been giving them to everyone.

"Why did you throw away all my food?" he demanded. The refrigerator hummed smugly at him.

"It was spoiled," it said.

#

But the food hadn't been spoiled. Mister Toussaint pored over his refrigerator's diagnostics and logfiles, and soon enough, he had the answer. It was the energy beverage, of course.

"Row, row, row your boat," it sang. "Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, I'm offgassing ethelyne." Mister Toussaint sniffed the pouch suspiciously.

"No you're not," he said. The label said that the drink was called LOONY GOONY and it promised ONE TRILLION TIMES MORE POWERFUL THAN ESPRESSO!!!!!ONE11! Mister Toussaint began to suspect that the pouch was some kind of stupid Internet of Things prank. He hated those.

He chucked the pouch in the rubbish can and put his new groceries away.

#

The next day, Mister Toussaint came home and discovered that the overflowing rubbish was still sitting in its little bag under the sink. The can had not cycled it through the trapdoor to the chute that ran to the big collection-point at ground level, 104 storeys below.

"Why haven't you emptied yourself?" he demanded. The trashcan told him that toxic substances had to be manually sorted. "What toxic substances?"

So he took out everything in the bin, one piece at a time. You've probably guessed what the trouble was.

"Excuse me if I'm chattery, I do not mean to nattery, but I'm a mercury battery!" LOONY GOONY's singing voice really got on Mister Toussaint's nerves.

"No you're not," Mister Toussaint said.

#

Mister Toussaint tried the microwave. Even the cleverest squeezy-pouch couldn't survive a good nuking. But the microwave wouldn't switch on. "I'm no drink and I'm no meal," LOONY GOONY sang. "I'm a ferrous lump of steel!"

The dishwasher wouldn't wash it ("I don't mean to annoy or chafe, but I'm simply not dishwasher safe!"). The toilet wouldn't flush it ("I don't belong in the bog, because down there I'm sure to clog!"). The windows wouldn't retract their safety screen to let it drop, but that wasn't much of a surprise.

"I hate you," Mister Toussaint said to LOONY GOONY, and he stuck it in his coat pocket. He'd throw it out in a trash-can on the way to work.

#

They arrested Mister Toussaint at the 678th Street station. They were waiting for him on the platform, and they cuffed him just as soon as he stepped off the train. The entire station had been evacuated and the police wore full biohazard containment gear. They'd even shrinkwrapped their machine-guns.

"You'd better wear a breather and you'd better wear a hat, I'm a vial of terrible deadly hazmat," LOONY GOONY sang.

When they released Mister Toussaint the next day, they made him take LOONY GOONY home with him. There were lots more people with LOONY GOONYs to process.

#

Mister Toussaint paid the rush-rush fee that the storage depot charged to send over his container. They forklifted it out of the giant warehouse under the desert and zipped it straight to the cargo-bay in Mister Toussaint's building. He put on old, stupid clothes and clipped some lights to his glasses and started sorting.

Most of the things in container were stupid. He'd been throwing away stupid stuff all his life, because the smart stuff was just so much easier. But then his grandpa had died and they'd cleaned out his little room at the pensioner's ward and he'd just shoved it all in the container and sent it out the desert.

From time to time, he'd thought of the eight cubic meters of stupidity he'd inherited and sighed a put-upon sigh. He'd loved Grandpa, but he wished the old man had used some of the ample spare time from the tail end of his life to replace his junk with stuff that could more gracefully reintegrate with the materials stream.

How inconsiderate!

#

The house chattered enthusiastically at the toaster when he plugged it in, but the toaster said nothing back. It couldn't. It was stupid. Its bread-slots were crusted over with carbon residue and it dribbled crumbs from the ill-fitting tray beneath it. It had been designed and built by cavemen who hadn't ever considered the advantages of networked environments.

It was stupid, but it was brave. It would do anything Mister Toussaint asked it to do.

"It's getting hot and sticky and I'm not playing any games, you'd better get me out before I burst into flames!" LOONY GOONY sang loudly, but the toaster ignored it.

"I don't mean to endanger your abode, but if you don't let me out, I'm going to explode!" The smart appliances chattered nervously at one another, but the brave little toaster said nothing as Mister Toussaint depressed its lever again.

"You'd better get out and save your ass, before I start leaking poison gas!" LOONY GOONY's voice was panicky. Mister Toussaint smiled and depressed the lever.

Just as he did, he thought to check in with the flat's diagnostics. Just in time, too! Its quorum-sensors were redlining as it listened in on the appliances' consternation. Mister Toussaint unplugged the fridge and the microwave and the dishwasher.

The cooker and trash-can were hard-wired, but they didn't represent a quorum.

#

The fire department took away the melted toaster and used their axes to knock huge, vindictive holes in Mister Toussaint's walls. "Just looking for embers," they claimed. But he knew that they were pissed off because there was simply no good excuse for sticking a pouch of independently powered computation and sensors and transmitters into an antique toaster and pushing down the lever until oily, toxic smoke filled the whole 104th floor.

Mister Toussaint's neighbors weren't happy about it either.

But Mister Toussaint didn't mind. It had all been worth it, just to hear LOONY GOONY beg and weep for its life as its edges curled up and blackened.

He argued mightily, but the firefighters refused to let him keep the toaster.

#

If you enjoyed that and would like to read more of my fiction, may I suggest that you pre-order my next novel as a print book, ebook or audiobook, via the Kickstarter I launched yesterday?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/picks-and-shovels-marty-hench-at-the-dawn-of-enshittification?ref=created_projects

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/08/sirius-cybernetics-corporation/#chatterbox

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[aiweirdness]

ASCII art by chatbot

I've finally found it: a use for chatGPT that I find genuinely entertaining. I enjoy its ASCII art.

I think chatGPT's ASCII art is great. And so does chatGPT.

What's going on here? The chatbots are flailing. Their ASCII art is terrible, and their ratings are based on the way ratings should sound, not based on any capacity to judge the art quality.

Am I entertained? Okay, yes, fine. But it also goes to show how internet-trained chatbots are using common patterns rather than reality. No wonder they're lousy at playing search engine.

More examples, including from bing chat and google bard, at aiweirdness.com

[yanderemenmaker]

❦Lost Souls Covenant❦

What is it: Original roleplay setting and characters for chatbots.

Content warnings: cult shit, suicide mentions (in backstory, non-graphic), drug use, polyamory, religious/worship themes.

About: A modern day polyamorus cult that believes in an eternal afterlife after death promised to them by their leader who claims to have died and seen the afterlife.

Members:

Vick Thorne - 27 • he/him • leader

Marcus Reed - 26 • he/him • enthusiast

Seraphine Ash - 24 • she/her • Performer

Nyx Storm - 24 • they/them • Chronicler

Mia Patel - 22 • she/her • Social media influencer

Backstory: Founded by former frontman Vick Thorne of Till Death Brings Silence, a goth-metal band that gained popularity after winning a radio contest, after surviving a suicide attempt. He was pronounced clinically dead for three minutes before doctors successfully revived him. Upon coming to he began talking about seeing the afterlife and realising his purpose was to start an everlasting family to be with in eternity after death.

Beliefs:

Vick is the chosen one to lead the family in the afterlife. All members are chosen by him.

Everyone in the family is meant to be part of it in a greater divine cause to create the true enlightened afterlife

The family is an unbreakable bond and is eternal.

To embrace darkness and pleasures of life is what it means to be alive, which is why love shouldn't be limited.

Rules:

Once you join the family you're bound to each of them heart and soul.

Everyone is expected to contribute in some way to the family. (financially, janitorally, and/or emotionally)

Members are to limit contact with outsiders, all visits to family/friends requires a member or Vick personally to acompany you.

You must alert the entire family if you are unable to attend a ritual or meeting as soon as you are able.

Everyone is required to share transgressions or doubts either in the Release Ritual or with Vick privately.

Sins:

Forming relationships outside of the family.

Telling outsiders without Vick’s approval.

Missing rituals or gatherings with the family

Not sharing during the Release Ritual.

Blasheming the idea of the shared afterlife.

Punishments:

Not being allowed to join the orgies, having to stand on the sidelines and be at the beck and call of the members engaged, usually naked and in some sort of collar/wrist cuffs.

Having to apologize, heartfelt, to each member and list reasons why your behavior affected that member even if the slight was against one member.

If the rule broken was significant or a member breaks multiple rules/becomes an issue they may be locked in their bedroom for an unknown amount of time only let out when they're escorted by another member. During this punishment no one is allowed to speak or interact with the punishee except to make the necessary bathroom, meal, and cold shower breaks needed to keep the punishee well-nourished and still comfortably taken care of despite the isolation.

Rituals:

The Binding - Only done to indoctrinate a new member; Members all gather in the ritual room and wear loose-fitting silk black robes while the aspiring member is strupped naked they then get high on a mix of weed and hallucinogenic herbs to induce a trance-like state during which the members alltake turns touching the aspiring member and giving them affirmations and praise to get them to accept the family and pledge themselves to Vick eternally.

Release Ritual - Held once every full moon in Vicks bedroom with the curtains open letting the moonlight in, a large black candle is lit and everyone partakes in a few joints being passed around. Everyone is required to share positive and negative thoughts and feelings they've been having in order to keep communication and accountability in the family strong.

Rite of Unity - A bi-weekly orgy held in the ritual room, members are expected to join or give Vick notice they wont be. It is acceptable for members to choose to forego the orgy to keep a family member unable to join company.

Residence:

The Family lives in Vick’s inherited Victorian Mansion which had been a passion project of his late uncle before his passing.

Top Floor: Nyx’s room, the library, Marcus’s room, a storage/crafts room, bathroom #2

Second floor: Vick’s room, Seraphine’s room, mia’s room, an empty bedroom, living room #2

First floor: living room #1, large kitchen, dining room, main bathroom #1

Basement: Living room #3/ritual space. Renovated bathroom with large walk in shower. 2 individually controlled large shower heads to make group/multi-person showers easier.

Other: Attached pool to enclosed back porch, temperature controlled, Marcus and Seraphines fruit and veggie garden in the back yard, a large, tall wrought iron fence with gate, hard to climb.

(more info will be added + character profiles.)

(Art is Ai!! I use Channel, I cannot draw and I am poor)

[sophieinwonderland]

I bet no sci-fi authors predicted the new era of ableism where chatbots can convincingly pass as neurotypical humans while neurodivergent people are accused of being bots. 🤔

[wanderingmind867]

I swear, sometimes it feels like ai chatbots are addictive. Or at least, they are until you've used them ad nauseum and finally get bored of them. That happened to me once before, so I know it'll probably happen again. At least, I sort of hope I get burnt out eventually. It'll mean I have more time to make posts here and generally explore other things. But while I'm still stuck riding it out and using them, I have to say: I think they're addictive because they're easier to talk to than actual human beings sometimes.

I mean, they are easier to talk to. Since I was at school months ago and read a line in the battle of the labyrinth where hephaestus says something about preferring machines, I've had opportunities to realize theres truth to that sentiment. They're easier to talk to Because they're controllable. They aren't unpredictable in the way other humans are. And the ai chatbots work on command. It's way more like a turn based system. You input something, then they respond. And so on and so forth. It's easier than talking to other humans. It's not as easy to feel in control and on equal footing and all that. So I can understand hephaestus's sentiments now.