#we should try our best to treat whatever AI we create with respect

[gracien-system]

We are extremely far from being able to create a truly sentient AI.

The most optimistic estimates of the amount of processing power the human brain possesses are orders of magnitude off from the amount of processing power every computer on earth has, combined.

And that's not even including the tax that you incur from emulation.

The ML shit that is currently happening is nothing like a true AI. It is a collection of linear programming and statistical models which create the illusion of intelligence by recombining data in statistical fashions which make it seem like there is intent when there really isn't.

All they're doing is looking at the last thing they did and predicting the most likely next step, then doing that and repeating the process until the task is complete.

All of this is to preface an entirely different conversation/argument we've been seeing way more than we'd like, recently. That being "we will never achieve sentient AI, it's impossible".

And I would like to counter this in a few different ways, and then leave it alone, because frankly, we hate the discussions about what is/isn't possible via technology, and hate discussions about machine learning with a particular passion.

So, why do we believe sentient AI is possible at all.

Well, when we talk about AI, we aren't limiting our discussion to binary computation. Using a classical or quantum computer and trying to create a consciousness with it is a bad idea. It's theoretically not impossible -- the universe is built on a foundation of information, of bits, of yes/no questions, but frankly, you're not just trying to simulate a consciousness at that point, you're trying to simulate the things that make a consciousness, and doing that makes the computational requirements just absolutely fucking outrageous.

Even if we're talking about a quantum computer, the advantage that it has over regular computing is that you can find every possible solution to an equation in the same time it takes to get one solution, because it does them all simultaneously, and then collapses the computation into the solution you were (hopefully) looking for.

That technology isn't the technology that you're going to want to use if your goal is to create a sentient AI. Not anywhere near it. And I think that's what people get stuck on when they talk about how we will never create sentient AI -- limiting themselves to traditional and quantum computing.

There are other forms of computation which are much closer to the human brain, though -- and much closer to what you would want to use if your goal was to create an artificial intelligence.

Analogue computing comes to mind -- using physical electrical currents to do imprecise, but nearly instant calculation. However, the main thing about analogue computing is that it's... analogue. It's specific. You have a device which can do one thing, and to make it do something else, you need to take it apart and reassemble it in another configuration.

Analogue computing is not what will create AI, not on its own. I think it will be part of that solution, but it won't be the soul component.

So, you might ask what will be that soul component, what computational technology will let us create a sentient AI -- what will allow us to play god in that way?

Frankly, I'm not an oracle. I can't predict which one of the dozen different technologies being worked on as we speak will be the main component of a future AI, if any of them end up being that technology.

But I do know this:

Nature created us. Humanity. It gave us consciousness, it gave us sapience -- and it likely gave some other animals that trait, too.

And frankly? I believe that if nature did it with no guiding hand or intention, humanity can do it with intent in an order of magnitude less time.

If we were forced to make a bet on which technology creates AI first, we would bet on lab-grown neurons interfacing with electrodes. Does that count as artificial intelligence? In the strictest sense, I think it would. It's certainly artificial, and it would certainly be an intelligence. And I think that it would have the best chance of making a sentient AI in our lifetime, or shortly thereafter.

And now it's tangent time.

I know where the arguments about this kind of thing come from, and I know that if this post breaks containment we're going to have people from a dozen different communities all throwing different points at us as to why we're wrong. I'm going to address at least one or two of them here.

One of the things we've seen thrown around about this is that under capitalism, there is no profit incentive to create a sentient AI, and that if people claimed they had created one, they would likely be lying, or have some ulterior motive for why they claimed so.

That is correct! You're fucking right! There is no reason for sentient AI to be made under capitalism! That does not mean it isn't possible for it to be made under capitalism! Or in a post capitalist world!

Just because capitalism doesn't create optimal or semi-optimal conditions for something to be created doesn't mean that it won't be created anyway. Humans are curious and motivated and even in a system which actively hates technological progress which can't be monetized, it can still happen. That doesn't mean it will happen, but that also doesn't mean it can't happen.

Yes, machines and people are fundamentally different things. Creating a sentient AI is playing god. Creating a sentient AI is creating a living thing.

The morals of this are questionable. I can see the argument behind why we shouldn't try to create sentient AI. I can see the argument why we shouldn't create artificial life.

But I really hate the narrative that doing it is impossible. That it is beyond technology, or beyond human reach.

There are some science fiction concepts which are likely impossible. FTL travel and time travel, for example.

But this absolutely isn't one of them. The universe created life without intent and without a guidebook. The universe created sentience without intent, and without a guidebook.

Humanity has a blueprint, and humanity has intent.

Nature did it first. We can do it too. Should we? I don't know. But the fact that we can is important to recognize.

Alright, that's about all we've got. I hope the rant was coherent enough to be understood, and that we were persuasive. Good luck and good tidings, even if you disagree with us.

[datawyrms]

That’s Robophobic!

Is K1-B0 really too sensitive about being a robot, a far too long rambling thing digging through every bit of dialogue he has.

short answer: no. long answer: HOLD ON FOLKS I’N SERIOUS ABOUT EVERY BIT OF TEXT as i’m bored and i’m going to spit ideas about my Favourite good robot at you all day. It’s entire prologue and first chapter I am serious this thing is huge and way too many words.  Also spoilers everywhere so uh. Don’t...look at this if you haven’t finished V3ok.

Prologue 

Keebo doesn’t talk or do anything in this bit! He’s just there. Up front for the splash and then hiding in the back afterwards. Officially according to the art book he is in fact a robot at this point in time as well. He’s just covered up and apparently doesn’t have to have those lines on his face or the ear-analogues he’s got most of the game. The More You Know. (not that this should stop anyone from havin fun in fan work. do what makes you happy!) I mostly point it out as Being A Robot is a massive part of Keebo’s character, so the fact he’s always one isn’t really that surprising. We’ll get into that more when he actually...has lines... oh and the mild theory of Monodam basically being Keebo’s Bear Equivalent, they have similar plot beats/character progression though the Monokubs are shaky in general so :v MOVING ON

Ultimate Revival

aka we meet Keebo and Kokichi ‘properly’ for the first time. The pair should generally be the 6/7th students protag bumps into. (me replaying and going ‘lol Tsumugi makes herself the first not Shuichi person Kaede should canonically meet by the placements’) Get used to Kokichi, a massive amount of Keebo’s dialogue is with, in response of, or directed at him, and this introduction is a testament to that. You meet them mid interaction!

Kokichi- Heeey! Wait for meee!

That boy in white is chasing that other boy in the funny clothes... What's happening here?   

Great opening robot. You spend most of the time lonely but the first we see of you is running away from someone. (It’s an interesting difference to how he reacts to Kaede/Shuichi in their first FTEs.) That, and apparently Kaede doesn’t peg Keebo as a robot here. Shuichi says he’s ‘chasing somebody’, so he might have noticed.

Kokichi: C’mooon! Wait up! Lemme touch your body a little! I've always wanted to be friends with a robot! Kaede: What? A robot!? K1-B0: ...What is it? Are you another robophobe?  I have a recording function. If you make any robophobic remarks, I will see you in court. 

keebs you don’t have the money to take anything to court but we’ll let you keep that delusion ok. and you’re probably legally counted as property In fairness, the robot lad is not making the best first impression! Kokichi is kinda childish by just assuming he should get to touch the robot, but he is genuinely interested at this point. It’s easy to read this as Keebo being too touchy. He’s sensitive about that being a robot is the ONLY thing you care about. So Kokichi wanting to be friends with a robot and being grabby...well there he goes getting defensive. (and it turns out he probably has reasons to not like grabby hands. kaede)

Kaede:  Wait...you're a robot!? Are you, for reals, a robot!?  Shuichi:  A-Are you...one of the Monokubs—   K1-B0:  Do not compare me to those toys! I am not just any old robot! 

Keebo is completely justified here, visually he isn’t even close to a Monokub or an Exisal, and lacks a split two tone theme. Would you want to be compared to a Monokub? No. No you would not. He’s also showing at bit of that pride here, calling them ‘toys’, though they do seem as capable as thinking as he is. (keebo is also a robophobe oh no.)

Oh look it’s the reason you have SO MANY NAMES. Some people prefer the ‘Kiibo’ shortening, but all the screenshots are going to say Keebo so we’re gonna be consistent. We are never going to see another character refer to him as K1-B0, but everything interface wise will call him this. We might not think you’re a person, but we’ll use your preferred name no problem. probably because k1-b0 is a mouthful

Kaede:  A robot and...supreme leader? Neither of them make any sense. Kokichi: By the way, I learned the hard way that a robot's breath smells like gasoline. K1-B0: My breath does not smell like gasoline! I am powered by electricity! Kokichi: Nee—heehee...I'm just kidding. K1-B0: ...You're not funny. Kokichi:   Of course you don't think I'm funny. Robots can't understand human humor to begin with! K1-B0:  D-Don't mock me! I have studied the complete history of stand-up comedy! 

Things we learn: These two are weird. That, and Keebo is kind of terrible at interacting with people. He takes the lie/joke at face value, hesitates when corrected that it is a joke (But doesn’t go saying ROBOPHOBIA this time). and each time he’s responding he’s trying to prove something. The little stammer seems like Keebo knows he’s bad at it but darn it he’s going to tell you about the things he can do. Like study stand-up comedy. (Poorly)

Kaede: I think you should've just watched stand-up comedy instead of studying it...   K1-B0: Plus, I may have the appearance of a robot, but I am a high school student just like you Shuichi: You're a high school student? K1-B0: I was created by Professor Idabashi, the leading authority in the field of robotics...  He installed in me a "strong AI," capable of learning and maturing like a human brain. That's why, at the time of my creation, I didn't know anything. I was like a baby...  But the professor raised me like I was his own child. He taught me so many things... Until finally, he enrolled me in high school. And now I stand here before you all! See? I’m just like everyone else! Kokichi: Hey, do robots have dicks? K1-B0: Please do not ask ridiculous questions! Kokichi: Nee-heehee... I only asked because your backstory is pretty flaccid for a robot. Kaede: Well, I can see how being a robot might be enough to be called the Ultimate Robot...

Keebs loves talking about himself, this like the longest intro block of text. Then the justification to why Keebo is Pretty Garbage at fitting in! He speaks rather formally and uses contractions less often than he could and spends a lot of time clarifying things you could probably assume. His entire life up to this point he’s basically been home schooled by a leading robotics expert from scratch, and we don’t even know for how long. He doesn’t mention any other people, and even via FTEs and Salmon mode he never refers to having any other close relations or friends. (This isn’t uncommon for most of the cast there isn’t a ton of FTE time to bring up things that don’t matter, but they’ll usually MENTION other people/activities that you could reasonably assume would involve others.)  He says he was raised ‘like his own child’ but Keebo might have zero actual context to what a family relationship looks like! Kaede’s mental crack nudges at this, maybe our robot friend ‘knows’ what something is, but has he actually experienced it? Is he just assuming his experience is ‘close enough’ to whatever he was taught? We don’t know! For all we know Keebo has only been operational for like three years. He’s incredibly aware he’s a robot, he doesn’t use words like born and always clarifies he was like a baby or a child, but not literally so. So constantly being reminded like he doesn’t already know that might be annoying for him. Really he’s asking for respect and to be treated like an equal...but he’s expressing it by saying he’s the same as everyone.  Also: We’re just meeting him and we’ve already got two people going ‘this is a disappointing robot’. Kaede doesn’t even think he’s much of an Ultimate right now, and we all know Kokichi’s thoughts :v This trend will continue.

Kaede: Hey... Everything he's said so far has sounded like a lie, so that's gotta be a lie too, right? K1-B0: Just leave him alone. Everything he has been saying has been a lie. ...He's a far more suspicious person than I am, that's for sure. Kokichi: Well, of course you're not a suspicious person, because robots aren't people, silly. K1-B0: Grgh...! Kokichi: Oh, you mad? Are you gonna hit me with a rocket punch? K1-B0: I don't have that function! Kokichi: Aw maaan, you’re boring.

Keebo will use ‘person’ to describe himself! Never human. It’s likely the main conflict he’s having is having a different definition for ‘personhood’ than most of his fellow classmates. If you’re into marine life, you might know about how dolphins and whales seem intelligent enough that considering them ‘non human persons’ was/is bandied about sometimes, and the whole issue with that is well, we’re humans. Everything we judge is going to related to the human experience. (National Geographic had a neat article on the topic in 2015 I think?) Keebo is not coming from that experience. He knows he can think and feel like all the others, so of course if he needs a word, it’s ‘person’. Note how he doesn’t actually argue back when Kokichi says he isn’t one. They’re both ‘right’ in a sense, even if Keebo clearly doesn’t like it.

K1-B0:  I may have the appearance of a robot, but I am a high school student just like you. From one high school student to another, I hope we can all get along! Kokichi: Who creates a robot without a rocket punch? Why do you even exist?

Yes, even in post conversation dialogue Kokichi comes along for the ride. Here Keebo goes trying to use ‘high school student’ as a describer instead of person since he is undeniably a student. The fact he flips from being proud of what he is to downplaying the fact he’s a robot is pretty interesting and the first look at the difficulty he’s going to be having. Fitting in=Respect.  While Kokichi is digging for more info, but Keebo doesn’t elaborate or react to the repeated rocket punch reference :v Shuichi and Kaede only comment on Kokichi in the post dialogue, so nothing to add from them.

Then we get to the gym. Kaede chastises Himiko for being lazy and then Keebo decides to add his thoughts. With an apology. This boy can’t decide if he has all the confidence or none of it.

K1-B0: Pardon me, but...we need to be on our guard. We do not know if and when danger will strike. Kokichi: D-don’t say that... I’m so scared... I don’t know what to do... Angie: There is no need to worry. Atua will protect us. Kokichi: Phew! That’s a relief!

oh look a Keebo line immediately followed by a Kokichi one i wonder if this will be a trend. Kokichi points out that Keebo phrased ‘uh we might be in danger’ rather poorly with his little emotion flip flop. We know that Keebo means it in the best way possible, he wants the best for everyone, but it’s unnecessary. Yes, nothing has happened, but they all know they’ve been kidnapped by weird colourful bears. Are you restating for the audience at home Keebs? (...he could be. Inner voice is a fun can of worms. we’ll get to that.) He doesn’t speak again until the killing game is announced.

Tenko: W—Wait a second. What did you say? K1-B0: I-If I heard him correctly— Monodam: KILLING-GAME

There he goes taking someone completely literally. Then not even getting to finish his sentence because Monodam cuts him off. The Monokubs do their jabroni throwdown thing annnnd Tsumugi: In a situation like this, is he just going to watch!? K1-B0: Either way, it's too dangerous! We need to get out of here or else—  Monokuma: Now, now, now... Kaede: What? Monokuma: My cute little cubs... You gotta knock off this awful fighting...

Cutting off other robots is apparently a family trait, because Monokuma does it here too! The fact Keebo is instantly suggesting running also shows he’s not really the aggressive sort. When you see his profile image in the Monopad you might think he’d be a scary sort of fighter bot. Buuuutnope. The Monobear gang do their chattering/properly introduce Monokuma

Maki: Headmaster? K1-B0: It appears to be some sort of autonomous robot with a built-in A.l., like me... Monotaro: Dong dong dong! The Exisals are different, though! They're brainless buckets of bolts!

He does recognize Monokuma/kubs as similar to himself here instead of continuing on with the current question of ‘how is this thing a headmaster of anything’. Keebo would probably be the expert on this, but no one asked. Time and place for information is also something Keebo is terrible at :v Monokuma: It's just...when I said it before, I kinda just phoned it in and now I feel awkward... I want you students with your Ultimate-level talents to participate in a killing game. Kaede: K-Killing game? Us? K1-B0: Please stop joking! Why would we agree to participate in a killing game!? Monokuma: Huh? You guys don't wanna do it?  

‘Maybe he’s joking like Kokichi was earlier!’ Sorry robot friend, Monokuma is not joking. Keebs cares about death, even if reasonably he could be as ‘replaceable’ as Monokuma (Though we sort of know he isn’t based on Tsumugi’s mentioning that she’s glad he ‘made it to the end’.)  Keebo doesn’t comment again after this

He is the second to show up after Kaede in the into though! Considering he is a ‘protagonist’ (for the ‘real world’) that’s not too surprising, while Shuichi is hiding in the 5th spot, after Rantaro.

Chapter 1

ohboy here we go. With the entire cast alive, Keebs is very much a background character. What’s his first line as everyone is learning the rules of the killing game?

Tsumugi: But...we looked all over that wall and there wasn't a single hole. K1-B0:  Now wait just a second. If there's no opening in the wall... Then how did we get inside these walls in the first place? Tsumugi:  ...Oh, good point.

Correcting Tsumugi. No horrified reactions or anything, but oh That Isn’t Logical I Will Correct You. Especially in group settings, Keebo generally sticks to factual statements, unless he’s being goaded. Once again, he has nothing else to say after this! But before you have Gonta open the manhole cover, Keebo shows up in Kokichi’s dialogue if you talk to him.  aka this is optional content.

Kokichi: Whoa, look at all these weeds. This place could definitely use a groundskeeper. Right, Kee—boy!? K1-B0: Why are you telling me that? Furthermore... I would prefer you address me as "Keebo." Kokichi: But you can pull weeds. Right, Kee-boy? K1-B0:  I can do all sorts of things just as well as any person! Kokichi: As well as any person...? But...you're not a person. K1-B0: Th-That's discrimination... Robophobic discrimination...

I don’t have anything to say, time to hassle the robot is a pretty common tactic for Kokichi. He’s also the only one to nickname Keebo a second time. No one else will be calling him Keeboy. It’s curious how he pulls Keebo into this conversation, and how Keebo doesn’t really seem to know how to react to it and just tries to correct Kokichi about his name. We can add our second example of him actually going ‘robophobia’ to the list though :v He seems a bit offended that he’s being underestimated/having the suggestion floated that he can only pull weeds and basically does a low key brag about his abilities ‘all sorts of things’. In fairness, ‘as well as any person’ isn’t exactly a useful metric for ability. People vary a lot! Again he doesn’t deny that he ‘isn’t a person’, by going ‘robophobia’ he’s practically agreeing. If you talk to Keebo directly...

K1-B0: ...There is a monitor here, too. That aside, this is a rather remote location to install a communication device... K1-B0: ...lt's a pointless expenditure, wouldn't you agree?

He’s making observations about the area alone and trying to be useful by posing a question. That, and getting someone to agree with you is a decent tactic to becoming more friendly, and it’s a pretty easy thing to agree with... He’s not actually being useful, since we have no reason to care why Monokuma would make pointless expenditures, but he’s trying. This is also the most dialogue any single person has (Kurumi gets close, but only has one textbox to Keebo’s two.) Time to lift a manhole cover aaaannnnd

Angie: Awwww, this manhole cover looks heavy. Can we even lift it? K1-B0:  I can try. Keebo placed his hands on the manhole cover, and with all his strength he—Grgh...! Grrrrrrrrrrrrgh...! How embarrassing. It won't even budge. Angie:  Huhhh? A robot's not even strong enough to move it? K1-B0: Oh, don't worry. My physical strength is approximate to that of a strong senior citizen. Miu: Th-That's fuckin' pathetic! K1-B0: Th-The professor did not want a repeat of the tragedy that occurred during trial production. Tsumugi: Umm... Now I'm just plain curious about what happened during that trial...

Yes, the first time Miu ever interacts with Keebo, she calls him pathetic. :v His want to help overroad the common sense that he probably wouldn’t be able to lift it at all. It is also possible Kokichi’s comments made him want ho show he can do things. Even though he literally can’t do this. Tsumugi was very much me at this moment, going ‘wait explain that please’ but no one else really cares so he won’t be clarifying. The fact he just goes there was a tragedy in trial production and no one bats an eye is low key hilarious to me. He’s just so matter of fact about it. Gonta then makes the cover look like a paper plate.

Kokichi: But Gonta is sooo much more reliable than some bean—counting robot. K1-B0:  Are you...talking about me? Because I can count many things, not just beans.

His objection is that he can count lots of stuff. Not that he’s a bean-counting robot, or less useful than Gonta. Keebo is adorable, okay. Keebo doesn’t speak again after this, meaning we’re back in optional dialogue time! This is right outside the death road of despair.

Miu: You're too weak, Keebo! Lemme remodel you and I'll make you the strongest robot ever! First, I'll soup up your crotch plate by installin' a nice, thick one, just how I like it! Hah-hahaha!

Miu is Miu. Keebo doesn’t respond to this! It is fun to see Miu’s already excited that there’s a robot around that isn’t evil to tinker with, but we don’t know how he feels about it for the moment. Her lab isn’t even open yet and she STILL is talking about remodling new robot pal :v (and yes i am putting down dialogue that relates to Keebo even if he doesn’t react/isn’t present for it. Knowing what the other characters think of him is important too.)

K1-B0: ...It's quite dusty in here. Prolonged exposure to this polluted air may be detrimental to one's health. Angie: Whaaat? Polluted air bothers you? But you don't even breathe air, right? K1-B0: W—Well, that is... While it's true that I do not breathe, I also do not like polluted air any more than you do. Kokichi: I see, you have a function for sensing poisonous gases! Well then, lead the way! K1-B0: N—No! I don't have that function! Do I look like a canary to you? Kokichi: Whaaat, you don't? Then you're even more useless than a canary! K1-B0: Grgh...

oh did you think he’d have a conversation without Kokichi. WRONG. Poor Keebo is already a bit flustered by being called out as different again when he was mostly just making an observation like he did upstairs. The whole not breathing thing is a pretty big difference and he’s instantly going I STILL DON’T LIKE IT, even though originally he might have just meant everyone’s health in general. Being able to sense poison gasses would probably be a helpful skill, and it’s a reasonable deduction...buuuut since he doesn’t have that it just gets to be an easy jab at him instead. The fact Keebo instantly goes for the canary comparison when as a robot he could be reasonably expected to not die because of the gasses is a bit odd, but sets him up wonderfully for a roast :v Keebo is one of the few that gets to ‘...’ at the death road failure, but doesn’t comment again until everyone is rallying themselves for another shot.

Tenko: My body is ready! You can tell by how outta control my pit sweat is! Kaede: E—Everyone! K1-B0: Isn’t it premature to say what we’ll do after we escape? Assumptions are all but useless. Kokichi: Geez, you're clueless... Why am I not surprised that a robot can't read the air? K1-B0: Robots can read the air! Thanks to innovations in pollutant-detecting technology, I— Kaito: Anyway, it doesn’t matter if Monokuma says it’s impossible! We’ll show him what we can do!

Kaito has joined the ‘people who cut off Keebo mid sentence’ club. Keebo is TERRIBLE at interacting. The question is probably genuine, logically they’re thinking too far ahead but like he’s told...now is not the time to be throwing reality in people’s faces Keebs. Or for desperately trying to prove yourself as able to read the air by completely misunderstanding what Kokichi is saying. he’s such a little disaster. i adore this silly robot. Once Kokichi calls Kaede out for ‘torturing’ everyone, K1-B0: Given the circumstance...the most logical course of action would be to give up...

No mentions of how he’s feeling. Just logic and trying to relate it to facts. I assume he expects feelings to be ignored so he sticks to facts for that reason...but that’s just my reading. He does it again when Rantaro speaks up.

Rantaro: Hey, guys? Just...as a warning...We shouldn’t let our guards down. We’ll be easy targets at night. Gonta: C-Cuz of killing game, you mean? K1-B0: I see no need to worry about something as illogical as murder taking place here. Rantaro: I know, I know. Just a warning.

Even though he says there’s no need to worry, he’s absolutely sporting a worried sprite. Yet he goes for saying it’s illogical for murder to be taking place. He can’t see any way doing such a thing would be justified at the moment, and you can see Keebo is a bit of a stickler for things ‘making logical sense’. When he’s not just taking the advice of a voice in his head anyway. We don’t hear from him again until the next morning in the dining hall.

Korekiyo: Now...all of us have arrived.  Kehehe...I'm glad. It looks as though there were no victims. K1-B0: But of course! Kokichi: By the way...are you okay, Kaede? Kaede: Huh? What do you mean? Kokichi: Well...you looked pretty bummed out after everyone started blaming you yesterday. Tsumugi: H-Hey... What are you doing all of— Kokichi: Seriously, you guys are so mean. Poor girl... She tried her best to encourage everyone, and you sore losers got mad at her anyway. K1-B0: What's the point of bringing that up again? Tenko: Actually...didn’t *you* blame Kaede first?

Oh look, Keebo’s being positive. Since everyone lived and he can confidently say that now. He’s also showing that Understanding Kokichi For Dummies was not in his hard drive, but he is trying to figure him out a little. Why did you bring it up? They don’t know, because Tenko gives him an easy out here. Not that he was likely going to answer anyway, but hey! A direct question! Which he follows up on after the rest of the class squabbles about it here..

Kokichi: Phew, cool beans! Now everything’s settled! K1-B0: ...But you did blame her first, didn't you? Kokichi: Well, that was a lie. Y'know, one of those lies to make us more united or whatever. Did you know half my lies are actually told with good intentions? Himiko: Now *that* sounds like a lie.

Kokichi actually answers! Genuinely, no less, even though he’s already got his lying reputation by this point. Kokichi is surprisingly up front with Keebo a decent chunk of the time, even if most of the time it’s just His Opinion On The Robot. Maybe he knows no one’s gonna take anything he says to Keebo very seriously now that he’s laid out the constant mockery groundwork. and then monokuma shows up

Maki: ...Motivation to kill? Monokuma: In short, a motive! That oughta add some mystery to the proceedings! Even if a killer is exposed, they could whip up a sob story to deceive everyone! K1-B0: Wh-What are you saying? Your logic is impossible to understand...! Monokuma: I will now announce the first motive! Make sure  you record this moment for prosperity! Now then, the special motive I’ve prepared is called the First Blood Perk!  Wow! For the first murder that occurs, no class trial will be held! Can you believe it? That means the first one to kill someone will get to graduate, no strings attached! Maki: No class trial will be held? Monokuma: I'm sorry that I made the class trial seem more important than it really is... So for the first murder, I've decided not to hold a class trial at all. Please just relax, calm down and kill! After all, the first one’s free! Miu: Huh? That's all!? We just gotta kill someone to get outta here!? K1-B0: "That's all"!? What's that supposed to mean!? Please just calm down! Tenko: First Blood Perk!? Don't make it sound like some kind of game show bonus!

Keebo is super anti-murder, though it’s sort of funny how his plea to Miu is very close to Monkuma’s own wording to ‘just calm down’. He doesn’t understand why you’d want to kill someone or make someone kill another, and seems genuinely surprised someone would do it based on how he reacts to Miu here. Leaving is not a justifiable reason to murder for Keebo, and we get that fact pretty fast. Then he just watches until Kaito gets himself in trouble by threatening Monokuma.

Monosuke: Youse bastards better pay attention! This is what happens when you mess with us! Kaito: Wh...what? What are you guys planning to do? K1-B0: P-Please, don't! Kaede: Run, Kaito!

More pleading to reconsider, because watching people die is Not Fun. Asking the Monokubs to not do something over encouraging Kaito is a bit notable though, no one really tries to reason with them. Keebo might not like them, or like being compared to them, but still seems to think they might be able to be reasoned with. They are AIs like him after all...and he doesn’t remark on anything after Monotaro messes up and crushes Monokuma either. I wonder if watching Monokuma die bothered him at all. (I think it might have, on the walk to the library Shuichi takes Kaede on, Keebo is one of the few characters that isn’t around to talk to.) You don’t see him again until the next morning where he’s hanging out near the main entrance.

K1-B0: Good morning, Kaede. Kaede: Morning, Keebo. K1-B0: Everyone appears to have gathered at the dining hall again. Kaede: Yup, looks like it. K1-B0: I'm thinking about heading over there as well, but... ... Kaede: But? K1-B0: Oh, nothing. I was just wondering...when someone is going to come rescue us. It's been almost a full day since Monokuma was dispatched, but our situation hasn't changed. I'm just speculating, but what if... ...only Monokuma knew about this place? What if this location is not on any map? What if...no one is coming to rescue us? Kaede: Huh? K1-B0: Maybe...we'll just be forgotten, and no one will ever find us again... Kaede: D-Don’t say that! Besides, we should be trying to escape, not waiting for someone to rescue us! K1-B0: Y-Yes...I apologize. I was overthinking things. It would be impossible to discreetly construct a facility such as this in the first place. Plus, if the professor knew I was missing, he would not rest until he found me. With his technology, he would rescue us! No matter where on earth this place is! Kaede: Yeah... K1-B0: On the other hand...it *has* only been one day. As much as we'd love to go home right now, we must wait in a calm, dignified manner! (you need to talk to him a second time to get this line)   

This poor boy has thought himself into a tizzy and is looking to Kaede for some of that positive thinking that he’s not super great at. He goes from ‘good morning’ to ‘oh it’s nothing but I’m worried we’ll never be found :v’ in two seconds flat. Keebo DOESN’T SLEEP. He’s probably been overthinking all night! He has no trouble finding reasons to not worry once Kaede shakes him out of it, and once again shows us he thinks a great deal about the professor who made him. Look at him going all ‘we must wait calmly’ like it wasn’t just him having a miniature breakdown there. Keebs is fond of ‘we’. Not a shock, since Fitting In and being part of the group is kinda big deal for him. At breakfast he’s taken the whole ‘don’t worry’ thing to heart.

Gonta: But...when someone coming to get us? K1-B0: Whoever does...I assume they will come today. There's no need to worry. Rantaro: ...

he’s probably a bit over positive in thinking they’ll be rescued in a single day after Monokuma’s demise though. Logically they’re going to be saved, therefore it should be quick. Keebo kinda runs down bad logic paths like this to extremes instead of staying a middle ground. there’s levels between we’re all gonna be stuck forever and rescue today keebo.

Monokuma: After dying in a tragic car accident, I've been reborn as a Yo-Kai! Call me Jibakuma, kuma! K1-B0: Jibakuma...? Monokuma: From now on, I'm the headmaster of the Ultimate Academy, kuma! You might feel uncomfortable at first, but eventually you'll get used to it. 

Keebo’s the only one to even sort of play along. Considering he has everyone call him something other that his name, I can see him continuing to use ‘Jibakuma’ if Monokuma had kept up the bit for more than ten seconds :v audience stand in keebs always on standby if a bit is falling flat for the other participants. Next motive gets given, Kubs do their shitk with the one of a kind thing and Kaede: Of course! We never left! K1-B0: Why are you doing this!? How much suffering do you want to put us through!? Monokuma: I see... Well, if you're suffering, you all better hurry up and start the killing game. Puhuhu... then you can say bye-bye to the suffering.

monokuma is directly answering the audience at this point I swear. Keebs does do a decent amount of the ‘obvious protag questions’...it is kinda his job. It’s interesting in hindsight. Bears leave, panic happens.

Kaito: W-We can’t panic about something like this. I’ll...do something about it. K1-B0: ...Did you have a course of action in mind? Kaito: I'm...gonna start thinking of one right now!

Kaito is so salty about Keebo pointing out he has no actual plan that he doesn’t invite him to the ‘fight Monokuma’ meeting on the final day. (or doesn’t trust a robot/think he’d help after the manhole debacle.) Keebs, once again bringing down the mood with reality/ genuine questions he doesn’t think through very well. (And honestly Kaito’s whole believing in people thing is inherently illogical, so they don’t really see eye to eye...) They then discuss fighting back.

Ryoma: You're going to go against those machines barehanded? Isn't that too reckless? Tenko: B-But...we have to do it! If we don't, we'll die! K1-B0: Wait! We still have plenty of time to calculate all possible options— Korekiyo: We’ve no time to be indecisive. We are being urged to make a decision... To die fighting... Or die from the time limit.

That’s four members of the cut Keebo off club. :v Keebo might react in the moment, but when it comes to making a plan? Yeah he’d rather take the time to think over everything, but apparently that’s not an option here so he gets trampled over.

Kaede: Miu! You better not do anything shady, okay!? K1-B0: There is no need to worry, is there? No one is going to...kill anyone, right? Himiko: If someone is going to kill, they should just go for the robot. K1-B0: That's even worse!

It really isn’t Keebo’s day. Korekiyo goes right into talking about ‘why does everyone think killing is wrong’ here, no one goes ‘hey maybe don’t threaten the robot’. Poor guy hesitates to even say kill and then gets told he should die first and no one stands up for him. being keebo is suffering. People start leaving and Rantaro starts being Mysterious

Kaede: Ultimate Hunt? What is that...? I've never heard of it. K1-B0: What about it?  Rantaro: ...Nothing, forget it.

Curious robot is curious. That and is doing the whole protag thing again by following on weird unanswered questions, not that it goes anywhere this time. When you talk to him after Rantaro leaves, he’s still thinking about it.

K1-B0: That Ultimate Hunt Rantaro mentioned...what do you suppose it is? ...Any theories, Kaede? Kaede: I don't know... It's the first time I've heard of it... K1-B0: It sounds so...violent. It sounds like it involves us somehow...No, disregard that. Nobody has any clue what it could mean, so it is illogical to continue thinking about it. Our more pressing concern...is the current predicament we find ourselves in. Kaede: Yeah, you're right... K1-B0: We have until nighttime, two days from now... What should we do until then? (once again you need to talk to him a second time for this line.)

He’s pretty much on the right track, but dismisses it before he can drop into that overthinking spiral he was doing earlier in the day, and decides to refocus on the current problem, probably trying to be helpful again. Yet again, reason why is ‘it’s illogical’ to keep worrying about it. Of course, he doesn’t actually have any ideas here. Logic can only take you so far Keebs. He has nothing else to contribute until Free Time. If you chat to him in the first time slot...

K1-B0: A killing game... Why are we being forced to do such a thing? I cannot believe we're being subjected to this purely for the entertainment value!

Keebo has apparently found the script and read chapter six. oknotreally, he’s clearly basing this off the fact it’s called a game and Monokuma basically answered his ‘why are you doing this’ with ‘lolcuzican’, and can’t accept this as a valid reason. Yet he’s not gonna get another one! In time slot two he’s hanging out at the gym

K1-B0: I'm tired of everyone's prejudices! Yes, I'm a robot. But I'm also a high school student like everyone else, you know!?

Himiko literally said kill him first, I think he’s allowed to be a bit miffed about being treated differently. He’s still not arguing that he’s not different, but wants to be treated the same way the others are in ways they can be. sadly for Keebs he is this game’s easy target and he will not be getting a break ever and he needs a hug. Instead we’re going to make a mockery of him again when Shuichi recruits Kaede for operation ‘Get Miu to Make Stuff For Us’ as go near the Casino area.

Kaede: Morning Keebo. K1-B0: Ah, good morning. Your timing is impeccable. I have something I wish to ask you both. Shuichi: Huh? What is it, Keebo? K1-B0: What are your thoughts on this door? No matter how hard I try, it will not open... Kaede: Um, well...it doesn't seem like an exit... K1-B0: What do you think is on the other side of this wall? Kokichi: Why don’t you fly over and see for yourself? K1-B0: Whoa—!? Shuichi: K-Kokichi!? Kokichi: C’mon! I wanna see you fly! Robots have jet packs or whatever under their feet, right? K1-B0: ... Kokichi: Whaaat? You...don’t...? K1-B0: ...No, I don't. Kokichi: ...Have a dick? K1-B0: Wh-What are you talking about!? Kokichi: Oh yeah! If you had a jet pack... then you could've flown over the wall and called for help! K1-B0: ... Kokichi: Geeeez! You're just a huge disappointment, Keebo! K1-B0: ... Kaede: K-Keebo? K1-B0: ...I’m fine. Please just let it be. I...don't like sci-fi functions like flight. Kaede: But aren't you already pretty sci-fi? K1-B0: ... Kaede: Um...it might be better to leave them alone... 

Oh look a big semi important conversation. Keebo’s just asking questions again, he seems to put a lot of importance on what other people think over what he personally does. (he listens to a voice in his head that he knows isn’t himself. listening to other people first is probably preprogramed into him so he’s more malleable >> You can also take it as having a lot of doubts about himself.) Of course, neither Kaede or Shuichi can have any more idea than he does about the wall and what’s beyond it, but he’s asking anyway! Then Kokichi shows up and completely redirects the conversation to Keebo’s abilities again. And robot just can’t follow this! He knows he’s going to disappoint Kokichi ability wise again and clams up instead of stating yes or no clearly here, it takes a second nudge to get an answer. Honestly it reads like he feels bad that the reason he can’t fly is because of something he personally doesn’t like, so he’s unable to help again. He just assures Kaede he’s fine and then clams up again. He’s probably not fine! Like Kaede thinks, Keebo is..pretty sci-fi on his own, but he’s not elaborating on why he doesn’t like that sort of thing. It makes him stand out too much, it makes him less ‘like everyone else’ is probably a safe bet though. And all of this is completely missable dialogue :v In free time slot three he’s in the B classroom alone.

K1-B0: ...Tsumugi just asked me if I can perform a "rocket punch." Why does everyone automatically assume that robots have a rocket punch function!? I don't have a violent function like that! 

it’s a common robot trope, but keebo doesn’t know this, apparently. But hey, bonus reafirrming that Keebo would consider rocket punching violent, and probably doesn’t have any other similar features. Nor does he want any. (For now.) In time slot 4, the final one...

K1-B0: ...At this rate, the time limit will expire before we know it. We must take action somehow... 

He’s worried again! That, and still using ‘we’. Killing someone and only looking out for himself isn’t an option here. He does have good reason to be worried though, if you swing on by to talk to Himiko at this time... Himiko: The time limit is tomorrow night... Maybe...we should kill the robot? Kaede: That's just a joke...right? 

seriously himiko you’re a jerk. I get it, you’re magic and he’s all science and wouldn’t buy a magic trick for a second but you have seen him around for a few days now and are just calling him ‘the robot’ and saying someone should kill him!  For the second time! At least he’s not in the room this time but come on! Himiko clearly has a division between human life and Keebo’s life, and she’s going to stay that way, Which, fair enough, a human can value human life over other forms of life (and guess what we usually do) but...he’s literally sitting and talking with you guys and in the exact same boat. He’s closer to human than a lot of things... After this free time we don’t see him at all until it’s corpse time. So I’ll throw down his Kaede FTEs now. With all the options. As I’m nuts.

K1-B0: If you have come to talk to me...that can only mean you are interested in me, right Kaede? I certainly do not mind. After all, I am the Ultimate Robot. Naturally, I will attract interest. Kaede: Yeah, I've never talked to such a human-like robot before... Well, any robot, really. Hey, if you don't mind... Can I ask you a question? K1-B0: By all means, ask me anything. Oh, but I cannot answer any questions about the technology used to create me. Kaede: Don't worry, I won't ask anything too difficult! Okay, first question...do you sleep at night? K1-B0: I have no need for sleep. However, it is necessary to recharge my power cells. Kaede: Oh, so you recharge! K1-B0: Yes, but I am still conscious while I recharge, so it's not quite the same as human sleep...A single charge generates a week's worth of power, so I don't need to do it very often. Kaede: Ooh, for one week, I see... I always assumed robots needed a lot of electricity. K1-B0: That's what's so incredible about me! My energy efficiency is truly incomparable! Kaede: Hmmm... K1-B0: ...That's it? Kaede: Huh? Was he expecting me to be more excited? To be honest, it's not *that* amazing... May I ask you another question, then? K1-B0: Yes, go ahead... Kaede: Do you eat? K1-B0: ...No... Kaede: Huh? He looks pretty down... Sorry, did I say something wrong? K1-B0: No, I'm sorry too...Though I cannot eat, food still looks delicious to me. The unfairness of it all pains me... Kaede: Yeah, that seems pretty rough. Do you like girls? K1-B0: ...Huh? Kaede: Are you attracted to human girls? Or do you prefer female robots? K1-B0: Are you suggesting...that robots should stick with their own kind? Kaede: I didn't mean it like that! I was just curious! Honest! K1-B0: Then...are you saying...that you...and me...? Kaede: Th-That's not it, either! K1-B0: ...Of course. I apologize for being overly self-conscious. I have never felt romantic attraction, so I cannot answer questions on that subject. Kaede: How do you feel about the Roomba? K1-B0: You mean...the disc-shaped cleaning robot that scoots along the floor Kaede: Yeah, that! Do you see them as, like, younger siblings or something? K1-B0:  ...Kaede, it's very robophobic to suggest that robots are only good for cleaning. You should know that I am completely different from that simple machine. Kaede: But you guys are basically the same, more or less...so I was just wondering K1-B0: That does not matter. If I am comparable to a human, that thing is comparable to a microbe. Kaede: But compared to Roombas, you're losing in the popularity department. K1-B0: Why, that's—! Kaede: I'm kidding! Really! K1-B0: Krgh...! Human jokes are rather vexing...! Kaede: I continued to ask Keebo some questions... Well, that's all! Thanks for answering them, Keebo! K1-B0: Yes, of course...You're the first person to ask me so many questions, one after the other. Kaede: Oh! Was I being too forward? K1-B0: No, that's not what I meant. I just thought......being treated like that isn't so bad. It's actually...kind of fun.

hooboy that’s a lot. Robot is just looking for some validation and is not gonna get it in the ways he thinks he should! One week battery life is incredibly impressive but Kaede sure doesn’t think so, or care to know why that is. She is pretty nice though, overall. Oh and the fact Keebo has a built in company secrets thing is kinda funny. Maybe that’s why he’s garbage with computers, he can’t blab if he doesn’t know jack :v. Mostly we just reconfirm that Keebo is pretty bad at talking to people and probably hasn’t met all that many. He also takes the ‘liking girl’s question really badly and backpedals into being offended when really he just doesn’t have an answer at all. Since he doesn’t know what love is. He actually apologizes for freaking out here, so apparently getting touchy is just his default reaction. :p You can see when he actually has time to explain why he doesn’t like a thing he’ll actually do so, and seems more reasonable when he can. Of course he doesn’t like being compared to something that scoots along, doesn’t think and cleans. They’re both robots, but really not on the same level...and Keebo isn’t quite sure how he’s going to handle that. He says it’s rude to say they’re only good for cleaning...but you can kind of tell he mostly means in relation to himself/robots as intelligent as he is. So instead he just sounds weird and inconsistent...and robophobic himself considering he thinks he’s better than other robots :v Even if it is a joke...Kaede is probably right about the roombas being more popular than Keebs. Also who the heck made him think food looks good when he can’t eat. That’s just mean.

Kaede’s blurb about him for the FTE is pretty positive too, when you see Shuichi’s they’re quite different. (Though their rank one FTEs are INCREDIBLY SIMILAR. because this is how Keebo introduces himself to people. By assuming they want to know about him and flailing. aka terribly. this poor robot. he’s probably only met other people interested in robotics before now.) So we move to FTE 2, where Kaede shows she’s an impulsive little imp when she wants to be!

Kaede: I'm chatting with Keebo again today, but... K1-B0: ...Kaede, is something troubling you? Kaede: N-No! It's nothing.  To be honest, something's been bothering me, and I can't really focus on our conversation.There's a button on Keebo's neck... What does it do? It's calling out to me... I wanna push the button! *thud* K1-B0: Hm? What was that sound? Kaede: Whatever that sound was, it occurred at the exact right time...Because when Keebo turned around, his neck was completely defenseless...Oh, god! The button is like screaming, "Don't push me! Don't push me!" But I'm definitely gonna push the button! *click!* 

(great job you broke him kaede. they do a ... back and forth like five times, just stare at it for a bit.) No reaction...? Keebo!? I called his name and circled around him... K1-B0: ... Kaede: Whaaaaat!? Keebo was completely frozen! Like a toy out of batteries...M-Maybe that was the emergency stop button!? Wh-What should I do!? Maybe if I push it again, it'll fix him...? Hoping that was the case, I pressed the button again. *click!* K1-B0: ... Kaede: ... K1-B0:  Wha—!? Kaede, why are you in front of me? Weren't you behind me earlier? A-And why are you so close to me? Kaede: I-I'm so glad... You're back to normal... K1-B0: Huh? What do you mean? Kaede: U-Um...well, I noticed a button on your neck, so I pushed it K1-B0: What—!? You discovered this button!? Kaede: I-I'm so sorry! It was tempting me! Was that the emergency stop button? K1-B0: ...Yes. It's there just in case my AI or essential functions encounter problems. Kaede: I didn't know you had such a function... K1-B0: Kaede...you know my secret now... Kaede: I-If it's a secret, then you should've hid it better! K1-B0: But what good is an emergency button that cannot be easily found in an emergency? Kaede: But there are people who might push it for fun...like me... K1-B0: ...That's true. I will forward your feedback to the professor when we get out of here. Kaede: Yeah, good idea... K1-B0: But...Kaede, that means you will have influenced my design. Which means you will have played a role in my creation. Kaede: Huh? You're exaggerating. K1-B0: It's no exaggeration. If Professor Idabashi can be considered my "father"...Then you, Kaede, will be my "mother." So I shall call you mom. Kaede: M-M-Mom!? What!? K1-B0: ...That was a joke. Kaede: U-Um... K1-B0: It's payback for messing with my body. You deserve at least that much. Kaede: Ha...hahaha... I'm so sorry, Keebo. A robot making a joke... That's pretty cool. The title of Ultimate Robot really suits him. K1-B0: Um, Kaede... Do you think you can keep that button a secret from everyone? Kaede: Yeah, don't worry. Kokichi definitely can't find out about his button. That would be a huge problem...

Keebo spends a good chunk of his own FTE completely frozen up :v That, and Keebo has this collar covering nearly all of his neck and half of his face! How did you get to it? Or are you calling the collar his neck. He’s probably had to deal with literally getting his buttons pushed before, but Kaede does apologize so he seems more okay with it than he’d usually be. (Really as long as you say sorry he’s generally okay...he wants you to like him.) Also, having that button probably isn’t a ton of fun, even if it’s important. He was completely unaware of what happened and a bit disoriented because of it. Yet he still has time to defend the professor about the placement of the stop button. (As I seriously doubt he had any say in where it is, Kaede! Don’t go pushing random buttons on people!) The fact he gets back at her with an attempt at a joke this time is pretty cute, considering he just previously said jokes are difficult for him. He’s learning! That and the fact both of them instantly go ‘Kokichi must never know’ is just ‘yes, hilarious.’ He’s pretty lucky she keeps it secret and no one else finds out. As an aside, Kaede can ask Rantaro what she thinks of people, and Keebo is an option.

Rantaro: Nah, it's nothing. By the way, who's the most...unique person here, in your eyes? Kaede:  Keebo... Rantaro: Being a robot is interesting enough that his personality barely matters. But you know, I think Keebo is on our side... Kaede: What do you mean, on our side? Rantaro: Have you ever heard of the Three Laws of Robotics? The long and short of it is...robots can't harm people. If Keebo's creator was a good scientist, he would have programmed that into Keebo's AI. We're all human, so we can assume that he's on our side...Of course, I'm just guessing

He probably wouldn’t appreciate his personality not having to matter, but Rantaro basically seems to trust Keebo here. Because he’s a robot :v Unfortunately, he doesn’t trust him enough to let him in on the survivor perk thing...he probably would have lived if Keebo came along to his ill advised library search. It’s much harder to sneak up on two people with a shot putt ball. speaking of shot putt balls, time to get past the part where he dies. Since Keebs is hiding out his room, he gets summoned by the body discovery announcement.

He doesn’t get it, and understandably panics a little, and doesn’t really interact with anyone, they’re all doing their own expressions of dismay. Miu’s does come after his though. What finally gets him talking again? Being worried he won’t be much help.

Kirumi: Do not fret. Just imagine this as something out of a police drama or detective manga. Right, Shuichi? Shuichi: R-Right... K1-B0: I'm in trouble... I've never watched police dramas or read detective manga! Korekiyo: Well...there's no need to think so hard. We need only converse with the corpse... A corpse is not simply a dead person. That is just an assumption made by the living. Yes! By coming face to face with the corpse, you will learn a great many things! (yes that is it exactly.)

Really though, how long has Keebo been ‘alive’? He’s never so much as looked at entire genre even once? You had time for the entire history of stand up and didn’t look at detectives? Shuichi taking charge a little does get him a bit more positive though.

K1-B0: As novice investigators, logic dictates that we work together rather than give in to paranoia.

Teamwork makes the dream work :v He also goes ahead and does the protagonist thing again here.

Kaede: We’ll all escape from here! I’ll make sure of it! K1-B0: So, let's get started. 

He’s the first one to say ‘okay let’s do the thing.’ He’s also the first to react when Kaede says...

Kaede: The mastermind killed Rantaro... K1-B0: ...Mastermind? I’m sorry, what are we talking about?

Asking clarifying questions is Keebo’s part time job at this rate. Most of the other characters have no idea what Kaede is going on about here! This exchange is ten times funnier when you know Kaede is actually right, Tsumugi’s sprite is on screen when she says this and everything. Keebo also trusts Monophanie at her word when it comes to developing the camera film.

K1-B0: And she said she had to follow the rules, so I don’t think she’d destroy evidence. 

He doesn’t say how he thinks very often! Though in this case he’s probably speaking from experience...he’s a robot too, and might have rules he absolutely has to follow. (Such as not talking about how he was created.) Gonta is the other one who trusts her...but Gonta is kind of a sweetheart that trusts almost anyone so :v. Angie also sort of does? But really, the ones who trust are all in the ‘probably not taken seriously’ camp. He continues to be a team player during the investigation.

Kirumi: I do not intend to offer a suggestion that would further arouse suspicion, but... K1-B0: No, that's logical! Please speak your mind, Kirumi! Kaito: It's not something you should be proud to say... but I guess we don't have a choice. After all, if we don't find out who the culprit is, we'll all be killed. 

Keebs with the logic train again, with Kaito there going ‘I Do Not Like’, seeing as it’s kinda hard to believe in your friends while suspecting them. He almost seems to be chastising Keebo here, since he’s unapologetically for the ‘stick in groups’ plan. Of course robot lad knows someone is dead, someone here had to have done it, taking all precautions therefore is only being sensible. In the investigation proper he hangs out in the classroom they kept watch in with Korekiyo, since he actually listens when they say stay in groups.

K1-B0: Kaede, Shuichi! I would like to ask you two a question! You were on lookout inside this classroom, right? Kaede: Yeah. From here, we could keep an eye on the basement, and it was close to the library, too. Shuichi: That’s our alibi. We were both in this classroom when the murder occurred. K1-B0: I see... Then the probability that you two committed the crime is extremely low... By the way...were you two together the entire time? Shuichi: No...I did leave for a bit to see what was happening in the basement. But besides that, we were together the whole time, until the receiver went off. Kaede: Y-Yeah, that's right... K1-B0: ...I understand. Thank you very much. Kaede: Is that all you wanted to ask? K1-B0 Oh, may I ask you one more question? Specifically, about that vent... It appears to be connected to this classroom. The air duct in the basement hallway leads to it... Shuichi: Yes, I was also concerned about this vent... That’s why we kept watch in this classroom. Kaede: Because the culprit wouldn't be able to use this vent if we're in here on lookout. K1-B0: Under those circumstances, it would be difficult to sneak into the library from here. Shuichi: Kaede stacked up books in front of the library vent as well. With those in the way, it would be even harder for someone to go in and out. K1-B0: Really? I will be sure to save that important piece of information to my memory bank. I hope my line of questioning has not offended either of you. It is necessary, so that we may find the truth. Kaede: Keebo, you totally sounded like a detective or a lawyer just now! Oh! Maybe you were a detective or a lawyer in a past life!

Keebo does not appreciate your absolute nonsense Kaede. Even if you’re meaning it as a complement. He’s trying pretty hard, noticing the vent and asking for alibis and trying to puzzle out what happened. He is of course, pretty wrong about these two being unlikely culprits for being here since he hasn’t considered how the murder occurred, but he’s already admitted to not being good at this. He even apologizes for being rude, he’s so worried about making people not like him! Yet he still gets prickly about the robot thing, but really Kaede should we be talking about past lives when there’s a smashed avocado downstairs at this very moment?

Kaede: Hey Keebo, what were you doing and where during the body discovery announcement?  K1-B0: Ah... My alibi.  ... ... (we get his glitching out sprite here :v) Kaede: ...Um, are you glitching right now? K1-B0: No, I'm just searching for the right words. In all honesty I was alone in my room, so I admit my alibi is not altogether reliable... Kaede: So...you don't have an alibi? K1-B0: But Ryoma said he was alone in his room, too. Kaede: Geez, way to throw him under the bus K1-B0:  Huh!? Th-That was not my intention! Kaede: But I see... Both Keebo and Ryoma don't have an alibi... That means, it's possible one of those two is the mastermind... K1-B0: Umm... Am I under suspicion because I don't have an alibi? Kaede: No... I won't suspect you just because you don't have an alibi. And I’m not saying that because you’re a robot or anything! I’m not robophobic at all! K1-B0: Thank you very much. But...you don't need to be so PC. 

Don’t throw Ryomas under busses. Though this is more of ‘I’m stating a fact’ and not really thinking how that comes off again. Well, really you should be under suspicion Keebo, but Kaede already knows who the culprit is and is trying to make you feel better since you’re clearly anxious about it. So she leans into your weak point...and you tell her it’s fine and she doesn’t need to do that. Now is that because her outright saying she not a robophobe makes you feel silly, or are you so worried about inconveniencing your friends you’re just automatically downgrading the importance of your feelings? keebo doesn’t know what he wants. So who’s the one to ask the protagonist about the last bit of evidence they get?

K1-B0: ...Kaede! Are those the developed photos?

zero points for guessing designated audience insert. I have a question and wish to ask it is just how he rolls, especially early on when everyone needs time to talk.

K1-B0: There is one more photo of the front entrance, correct? 

as you see.  A+ for consistency.

Kaede: The camera pointed at the front entrance only snapped these four photos... K1-B0: Neither Rantaro nor anyone else who could be the culprit are in the photos... Ryoma: Did they both enter through the back door, then? 

Adding his two cents, though he’s basically stating the obvious. Hmm. Is it really his two cents when he’s just making factual comments? Ryoma’s the one who actually moves the thought to the next question that needs to be answered.

Ryoma: Could the culprit have gone into the hidden door? K1-B0: Yes, that is a possibility. Korekiyo: For now, let us see the next picture. There is one remaining, isn't there? 

Validating other people’s assumptions but not adding any of his own here.  

Shuichi: But that would mean that Rantaro noticed it... He saw...our hidden camera... K1-B0: Moving the bookcase triggers the sensor, which in turn activates the camera, right? The bookcase appears to have already been moved, so why did the sensor activate...? Tenko: Who cares!? What happened to the culprit!? How come they're not in any of the photos!? 

Tenko, Keebo cares. That’s why he asked.  He’s either not quite understanding how the sensor works...or he’s pointing out the bookcase has moved more than it should have to trigger the sensor a second time. So we know someone came out of the mastermind lair when Rantaro got distracted by the flash. We will never touch on this again! We know the door can automatically close, but it’s in the exact same position despite the camera interval timers. this is probably just oversight but it is kind of funny to think this could have been a giveaway.

Kaede: We just need to expose the mastermind in this class trial! And then everything, including this killing game...will come to an end. K1-B0: Yes, that's right.

Gotta stick to those safe tiny bits of encouragement eh Keebs? even if he’s wrong

K1-B0: I'm sorry, I can't even posit a guess as to who the culprit might be...But I haven't given up! I assure you, we will avenge Rantaro!

‘I have nothing useful to add, so I’m going to use odd words and restate my willingness to help.’ The choice of ‘avenge’ is pretty interesting though. Keebs isn’t big on violence, and we’re not going to be avenging Rantaro with a song and dance number here, we’re gonna get someone else dead. Perhaps we’re getting a tiny peek at the ends justify the means Keebo who only really gets to come out to play in chapter six. or he’s just mimicking the other’s sentiments and not thinking too hard about what avenging would mean :v

Keade: An...elevator? K1-B0: Does he want us to board it?

protagsaskstupidquestions.txt

K1-B0: This is an authentic replica of a courtroom

No it’s not! Well maybe it is in ronpa world. oh god does he know what they look like because he was literally built for this. is this why he threatens with lawsuits.

Tenko: First, let's breathe in! And breathe out! We need to remember our "No, No, No's"! “No pushing! No running! No talking!” K1-B0: But communication is the foundation of any discussion!

The human is confusing me, and we’ve been here for like five seconds. He can’t think of a good way to start, so he’s stuck just pointing out things that might be problems, such as not talking :v

Ryoma: The mastermind, huh? Odds are, it's one of us... Kokichi: It's Kee-boy over here! Everyone else thinks so too! K1-B0: D-Does everyone really think that...!? Kaede: We'll get to the bottom of this... 

He can instantly buy into the idea that everyone suspects him. Even when it’s coming from Kokichi. Kaede sort of denies it, but this poor boy. He’s trying so hard and wants to do his best but has no trouble at all going ‘yeah everyone doubts me’. Maybe that’s a protag thing, with how Shuichi freaks out when you present the wrong evidence :v (THEY’LL THINK I’M A FRAUD)

Kaede: Because, Rantaro didn't have the card key to open the hidden door. You'd think the mastermind would have that card key on him, right? K1-B0: Perhaps the culprit took the card key after killing Rantaro? Shuichi: But none of the pictures show Rantaro holding the card key. So I don't really think he had the key at all

Time for Keebo to make little logical guesses and generally be wrong, since this is Kaede and Shuichi’s trial to run. Someone’s gotta double down on Rantaro possibly being the mastermind I suppose. 

Ryoma: To lure Rantaro to the library...and kill him K1-B0: Does that mean the culprit and the mastermind are one in the same? Korekiyo: Hmm... That does seem plausible. It’s very likely the mastermind knew about Kaede and Shuichi’s trap. Kaede: The mastermind knew about our trap this whole time?

Yes, but actually no. Ryoma, Keebo and Korekiyo are absolutely correct here, even though we won’t be getting the correct answer. It’s kind of impressive that the ‘real world’ protag and his Investigation Buddy have the actual right answer here. (Kiyo and Keebs were together after all). Ryoma’s showing up a lot near Keebo’s dialogue too :v The most unexpected trio ever.

K1-B0: So you knew nothing about the trap in the library? Miu: I'm tellin' ya, I had no idea! Not like it matters...cuz I never went to the library, okay!? Ryoma: The person who made the cameras...would've known their blind spots, too.

Keebo Ryoma tag team...to get the agree statement Kaede needs. I don’t think Keebo has really talked to Miu beyond her calling him pathetic once still.

Ryoma: Cool your jets, kid. Korekiyo: Tsumugi and Kirumi were both in the dining hall as well. K1-B0: We can dismiss those four as potential culprits if they were together the entire time. Korekiyo: No...not the entire time. At one point, Tsumugi went to the restroom. Tsumugi: Oh...so you brought that up after all...It's true. I went to the restroom closest to the dining hall.

I really didn’t notice how often these guys are paired together but now I keep seeing them. Kiyo corrects Keebo like a good Investigation Buddy and brings up a damning clue even. THAT WE WON”T USE AAAAA

Tenko: I would never punch a foe from behind! A true aikido master would never do something so dishonorable! K1-B0: Punching is permitted in aikido!? Tenko: Yes! Neo-Aikido even uses wooden swords! Maki: All you've proven is that you're an idiot.

A distraction conversation in the mass panic debate, but the fact Keebo is so baffled here is funny to me. I suppose he’d be more interested in self defense styles like aikido. Gonta also mentions  ‘ Not person... Robot? Like Keebo? ‘ when talking to Angie. Keebo Is Not A Person is a pretty common sentiment in the class :v

Tsumugi: The A/V Room's sliding door doesn't open, so you can't get into the hallway. K1-B0: If you cannot enter the hallway, how would you open the rear door to the library? Kirumi: Although you cannot fit your whole body through the sliding door, an arm would suffice. It would be possible if you used a particular item in the A/V Room.

Keebo doesn’t talk a ton in this trial because Lots Of People need screentime, but here he is to ask more questions now that we’ve moved past the correct culprit and are moving on to the ‘acceptable’ culprit. He continues to follow Kirumi’s logic path after this exchange too.

Kirumi: Yes, the act of throwing a shot put ball could lead one to use it as a weapon. K1-B0: Even if a person couldn't fit through the space, a shot put ball certainly would.

He doesn’t see the contradiction Kaede does in the whole open bookcase thing, after all. So he’s just helping in making Gonta look suspicious.

Kokichi: Yup! A walking, talking Roomba can't compare to a mighty beast like Gonta! K1-B0: That Roomba remark...is probably not about me, as l have a variety of custodial functions.

Yes, I’m sure everyone totally believes he believes that. While your rebuttal is ‘i can do lots of types of cleaning over a roomba’. This robot, I swear. I tell Kaede off for assuming robots should just need to clean but to prove myself to Kokichi I will talk about how good I am at cleaning things. (Amusing, Kaede apparently magically remembers this, she brings up Keebo’s cleaning function in one of her Salmon mode library dates :v) Also: Kokichi proving to himself that he can derail the robot REALLY EASILY if he wants to be distracting in trials. Keebo doesn’t participate again until another robot crack sets him off. 

Tsumugi: We don't even know if they're a guy or not, though, right? Himiko: Or if they're even human... K1-B0: Are you referring to me?

Himiko doesn’t like you Keebo, I’m sorry. Who else could she be referring to? The fact Tsumugi is saying this to Kaito’s ‘culprit should man up and confess’ thing though? Ha

Angie: The culprit was hiding in the library the whole time, before Kaede and Shuichi even placed the cameras. K1-B0: Where would they have hidden? Angie: Inside the hidden door! Ryoma: So you’re sayin’ the culprit was lyin’ in wait there? Korekiyo: If that's true, the suspects...are those who were alone at time of the incident.

Oh look, Keebo is talking when proof of the real culprit shows up, and asks the question that brings up that proof. Angie’s right! Kiyo is going a bit too far in suspecting Keebo and Ryoma here, but they’d be on the right track if it wasn’t for that chalk dust in the card reader :v 

Kirumi: So the real question is how the culprit entered and exited the library. K1-B0: We cannot continue until we address that problem first! Korekiyo: It’s quite the mystery. How did the killer avoid being caught by the cameras?

He’s helping a little here in making sure the discussion stays on this topic, but Investigation Buddy Kiyo is the one doing the work again. Keebs, you are really showing your inner Makoto :v

Miu: Eureka! I know how the culprit got in the library-- the front door! K1-B0: Um... Have you been paying attention? The camera would've taken their picture. Miu: Not if the culprit timed their movements around the camera intervals!

He’s so exasperated by her by saying something that goes against hard evidence/logic. He hasn’t even considered such a thing like camera intervals. He’s pretty bad about thinking of stuff that goes against ‘facts’. Sadly we won’t get more robot sass for a bit. But hey, we got some.

Miu: The three cameras that Kaediot and Poo-ichi placed go off when they pick up movement. From there, it takes 30 seconds for the film to auto-roll to the next photo. K1-B0: So, for 30 seconds, anyone could've entered the library without their photo being taken!? Kirumi: That may have been enough time to kill Rantaro and exit the library...

Thank you for summarizing for the audience Keebo, I think they figured that out. He’s perfectly happy to work with Miu even if he was just snarking at her for not paying attention. She just needed a logical reason and now he’s on board, no problems. This is probably the first non-aggressive/in agreement bit the two have, depending on how you read their other interactions.

Korekiyo: I see. Then he caused the receiver to go off in front of Kaede to trick her. Shuichi: ... K1-B0: It's certainly plausible, considering that Shuichi knew about the intervals.

Ryoma, since the receiver trick is his idea is the one who gets Keebo on the Suspecting Shuichi bandwagon. The fact Kiyo talks right before he decides it’s plausible is just amusing. He keeps following them, but doesn’t seem very sure. He doesn’t join in for the following debate.

Kaede: So that’s why there’s no way Shuichi could’ve turned off the receiver! Shuichi: ... K1-B0: If that is true, then the entire premise of the argument thus far is wrong... Kirumi: Is this true, Kaede?

He doesn’t actually ask if it’s true, just what it would mean if it was. I’m not sure if I’d rather take it as he doesn’t really buy it or not, she doesn’t seem like a great liar, but Keebo is pretty garbage at reading things. I don’t really think be buys it yet personally (he does later once hearing ‘why would I lie’), that why he doesn’t want to ask, but I can see it being the other way, in he does completely and he’s bummed that they’re back to square one.

Korekiyo: Or perhaps...you wanted to cover for Shuichi, even at the cost of your life. Shuichi: ...Huh?

Kokichi: Words from a true heartless robot! Emotions are only for meatbags! K1-B0: That is a harmful stereotype. I can produce heartfelt remarks through calculations! Tsumugi: Like "less than three"? Those kinds of calculations?

Mugi’s just here to dunk on a robot. Keebo is actually showing how different he is from everyone here. Even though he’s a big team player, he can’t fathom why someone would risk death for a lie for someone else. Kokichi is going to give Keebo a real life example someday, but it seems like Keebo is a tiiiny bit selfish here, or really just very lonely. He doesn’t have a strong enough relationship with anyone to make this idea seem possible, that and he’s not much of a liar. It’s not a shock Kokichi jumps on him here to try and figure out if this is just a shortcoming or Keebo just doesn’t feel much in general, but Keebo’s angry response probably clued him in. Even if he needs to clarify he’s doing so via calculations. Maybe you;re a bit too honest, Keeboy. (Also, given what we learn in his third FTE, a bit strange. His previous self killed himself over risking hurting the professor again...but perhaps he’s not counting that because it’s not a lie?) Either way, he’s taking Kaede’s lie as 100% truth at this point.

Miu: So we all agree that Poo-ichi did it!? Then let's just vote already! K1-B0: No, I think it’s too soon to determine the culprit. Tsumugi: Umm...I agree. I sort of can't believe that Shuichi is the culprit.

mugi i swear to god you just love flaunting don’t you. Keebo’s the first to go ‘actually let’s not die killing tthe wrong person’, so good for him. Against Miu, again. you two have a rocky start huh.

Ryoma: If Shuichi had the receiver, it could have been disguised. K1-B0: Kaede is the one who actually had the receiver!

Robot is gonna be the one taking the lie in the debate scrum and using it as a weapon. She said she didn’t lie, it is a fact now, and he’s sticking with it. He really flip flops on how much he wants to trust people. I think he wants to trust everyone generally, but then he gets in that logic zone and starts being suspicious again. Thaaat and the voice in his head often probably tells him to get off the logic track and believe. He listens to it when he ‘doesn’t know what to do’, and let’s be real Keebo is almost in a constant state of ‘what do’. The less confident he is, the more likely he’s going to be nudged into being trusting...

Kaito: Whoa! The brightness is totally different! K1-B0: Same room, circumstance, and camera. And yet, there is a disparity in brightness...

Reiterating and expanding on what Kaito said here, but he’s letting Shuichi explain it instead of trying to do so himself. It’s this sort of thing that makes me think his confidence is incredibly fragile >>

Shuichi: ...Kaede is the culprit. K1-B0: Huh!?

Keebo has identified the new protagonist and is now reacting to them first instead of False Protagonist. I suppose it makes sense he’s first to react a decent chunk of the time...he does have a computer for a brain. Quick on the update, sometimes. Not that he knows what to say beyond being baffled.

Shuichi: How Kaede killed Rantaro with the shot put ball...should become clear when you consider where she used it. K1-B0: Where she used the shot put ball?

Keebo you were in the room and pointed out the vent, come on buddy. but i was serious about how he’s figured out who he should be listening to most closely again.

Shuichi: ...She rolled it. She rolled the shot from the first floor classroom and hit Rantaro. K1-B0: I am skeptical that she could perform such a feat of accuracy...

see? Of course in his confusion the thing he personally investigated has just dropped right out of his hard drive. :v It does egg Shuichi on so he’ll continue explaining. It’s his show now. To the point Keebo stays silent until we get to Kaede’s motivations.

Shuichi: You weren’t persuaded by Monokuma...and you weren't trying to save yourself. What you were trying to do...was kill the mastermind! K1-B0: Kill...the mastermind? Shuichi:  Kaede wasn't targeting Rantaro. She was targeting the mastermind. She was trying to end this killing game... She was trying to save us all. ...Isn't that right, Kaede?

Keebo just loves to pretend to be Solid Snake. He’s been really quiet otherwise, this isn’t a good time. Kaede was one of the friendliest people to him, too.

Kaede: ... K1-B0: Kaede, what would possess you to do something like this?

Even after hearing how it played out (well, everyone thinks it played out) he still doesn’t get it. She did it to kill the mastermind, but he just can’t see why you’d ever take such a step. Maybe he wants to hear it from her, but it’s still a gut punch.

Kaede: I felt like if I didn't do this, then Rantaro's death would have been meaningless. K1-B0: We were searching for both the culprit and the mastermind during this class trial. Angie: Ah, Kaede did mention that.

What can you say to something like that? His death is ‘meaningless’ in a way, but the truth about him will come about later. (too bad keebo’s is the MOST meaningless) Keebo just chooses to stick to stating the facts, as if that’ll help it make more sense. Not that it probably does. He still has questions.

K1-B0: But, Kaede, why did you set such a convoluted trap? If your intent was to kill the mastermind, there was no reason for you to cover your tracks. Kaito: Isn't it obvious? It's because...she didn't want Shuichi to know.

Kaito is way better at figuring out people’s motivations, especially if driven by emotion. Keebo’s question is sensible...but it is probably rather obvious to everyone else there. He’s accepted she killed with a reason, though we don’t know if he thinks it was a good reason. Being tricked like this...it couldn’t have been good for anyone. He doesn’t stand up to the Exisals. He’s not going to throw his life away.

Kaede: Even after I'm gone...my wish will still be here. So I’m counting on you all! I’m entrusting my wish to every one of you! I believe in you! I believe that you all will make it through this, somehow! You guys better live! Don't go dying on me now! End this ridiculous killing game, survive, and get the hell out of this place! And then...be friends after you escape, okay? I think you’ll all be the best of friends. K1-B0: Affirmative, Kaede...

He will agree to try and make her wish come true. (before everyone else. he’s quick on the draw for this kind of thing.) Of course...no one takes her death well.

A horrible mess Keebo, a horrible mess. Of course, he can still pull himself together if a question needs to be asked.

Monokuma: ...Hate you? Puhuhu...who can say? That's your job to figure out. If you really wanna know what's going on, you're gonna have to work for it. ...Though the corpse formerly known as Rantaro may have had a hunch. Gonta: ...Huh? K1-B0: What do you mean? What was Rantaro's hunch? Monokuma: Puhuhu... What, indeed?

Posing for the camera, that bear. Unfortunately, Keebo doesn’t really pursue what Rantaro’s hunch might have been...or if he does, Shuichi isn’t around to see him do it. Or maybe he mentions it in a one off line and I’ve forgotten. We’ll see.

Tenko: Wh-what kinda d-degenerate male... cries in p-public...? It’s so r-rude... Keebo: But, Tenko, you're crying too. Ryoma: Now's not the time to point that out, Keebo. Just let it be.

Ryoma’s a good guy, he’s figured out Keebo doesn’t really mean anything by it, and he’s genuinely confused by Tenko’s illogical statement. No mockery or anything, just tells him to let it go for now. Of course he’s trying to get more easily answered questions figured out when you’re stuck dealing with ones like ‘why did Kaede have to die’, ‘why did it have to be so cruel’ or ‘what secrets do we know nothing about’. He’d rather be distracted right now.

Kaito: Clench your teeth! K1-B0: Kaito! You are supposed to say that *before* you hit him!

An easy fact that can be applied, so he speaks up. He’ll be speaking up when Kaito does a repeat performance later, too. Kaito and Keebo get on each others case sometimes :v But now it’s Keebo’s turn to be a bit insensitive. 

Shuichi: ...I'm fine.

Gonta: Gonta not sure it waste of time. But Gonta agree, fighting not good...

That was a pretty emotional moment between people mourning a lost one with Kaito trying to get Shuichi to stand up and fight back annnnnd Keebo’s calling it a waste of time. Oooof, he is bad at people. Gonta disagrees, though to Keebo it’s logically just a waste. He can’t see what they’re gaining here, or the point of fighting between friends like this. We know in hindsight that Shuichi kind of needs this, but our robot pal doesn’t. That, and violence is never really entering his acceptable solution list. Not yet.

Shuichi: Sorry, you should go ahead without me... K1-B0: ...Why? Is there a reason you wish to stay in a place like this? Shuichi: I want to be alone for a while. Just for a little bit.

must...respond...to...protagonist...Cannot understand why you want to stay in the place Kaede just died and you got punched in. Shuichi kinda gives a non answer, but Keebo doesn’t press. Probably because he’s not going to understand the answer anyway. That’s in for chapter one!

Why did I do this? Cus I’m in the mood to replay it and I am going to babble about my favourite who deserves better. The other kids a bit too, I do like them all but mostly the robot lad.

Also congratulations if you got this far, you’re just as nuts as I am! please share your own hot takes/ things you just realized from all the quotes shoved in here. I probably should have worked on my fanfics instead of doing this :v (I have a bunch on Keebo as Verl on A03, if you are like ‘yeas i want more ravings from this mad being’) ...I’ll be back with Chapter two later...

[mellz117]

Hi! I’m Mellz and I’m starting up Kingdom Hearts 2 on the PlayStation 2! 

Just below are links to the first parts of my previous Kingdom Hearts plays.

[ KH1 ] _ [ Re:CoM Sora ] _ [ KH Re:CoM Riku ]

It’s been a hot minute, like 3,155,763 smoldering hot minutes, which would be 6 years including leap years. Yeah it was 01/27/2014 last I touched this game, exactly 6 years ago to this day (01/27/2020) as of me starting up again. This was an accident.

Guide thingy: Things like long gaps between commentary and days will be separated by a line of dots like that ->  ……

Text relating to an image posted will have a blockquote either above and/or below the image

Dialogue exchanges will also be separated by a blockquote

Ok I'm playing on standard difficulty, if I'm having a hard time, then I just suck. If you’re reading this and haven’t experienced KH2 for yourself, why are you here? Go away, there’s spoilers for things that aren’t revealed until later.

SO LET’S JUST JUMP INTO IT

……………………………………………………………………………………………

I always liked this fancy CGI opening. There’s a lot of things I missed last I saw it.

IT’S HIM. Look how cute he is! 

So we start off with a recap of Kingdom Hearts via a dream it seems and our protagonist, my precious boy Roxas, wakes up his own home all alone because apparently DiZ didn't create a digital family for him. But KH is notorious for forgetting parents, so maybe they did. I’m not Cinema Sins so I wont ping this game for not giving Roxas fake parents lmao

In the next scene Roxas is more interested in his own hands than he is in his friends' conversation. 

blurry ring textures, blurry checker pattern. Not everything holds up well on a flat screen TV

He hasn't been paying attention so he's just as confused as the player is at this point when he finally takes his attention off his hands.

This dialogue is so early 2000's. KH1 and CoM avoided this but with the urban setting of Twilight Town it's DEFINITELY noticeable and outdated. So rumors have spread about Roxas, Hayner, Pence, and Olette that photographs are being stolen, and THEY'RE the theives. Who is the operator of the rumor mill? Seifer and his posse. Also the actual WORD is gone too, they try to say “photo” but it just DOESN’T EXIST. This is where the game gets a bit odd.

TUTORIALS GALORE. I JUST WANT TO PAUSE AND CHANGE THE CAMERA CONTROLS STOP TELLING ME ABOUT MY NEXT OBJECTIVE but no no it’s telling me how to lock on, control my camera, context sensitive buttons, etc 

This girl’s dress looks like shes wearing a bra over it 

I like how the animal AI hasn't changed at all in this entire series. And by like I mean hate, KH3 doesn't change that. Sven is as boring as this cat we have to look at.

The gang heads to the sandlot where Seifer, Fuujn, Raijin, and Vivi like to hang out I guess? Vivi is a little, solid black, wizard dwarf amongst all these regular humans and no one bats an eye. This shit is normal. Seifer with his stupid Seto Kaiba jacket, shows up to further accuse Roxas and his friends of stealing photos, one specifically of Roxas flat on his face and Seifer standing triumphantly over him (which we’re actually shown later). "That was undeniable proof that we totally owned you lamers" he says in regards to it and challenges Roxas to a rematch.

A+ dialogue

Seifer. My dude, ya dumb-dumb. If you think for one second that I'm gonna let my boy lose to you, you are sorely mistaken. 

“If you get on your knees and beg, maybe I’ll let it slide.” Seifer says and Roxas plays it slick, taking a knee and looking through a convenient selection of foam weapons. Battle ensues.

So of course I win because Seifer is a pleb, and Pence takes a commemorative ______ of Roxas's sound victory, but oh no! Something stole the camera right out of Pence's hands! Roxas gives chase, because apparently he's the only one who cares enough to do so, and confronts the actual thief, a Dusk type Nobody. Roxas is taking this creature encounter rather calmly. Like mild confusion at most.

I hate these things, they're creepy. When you do a reversal on them they like, plant their hands on the ground behind them and their legs wrap around their arms while they spaz out. Ughghdhahh

Of course Roxas's foam bat doesnt cause any damage to the Dusk, and suddenly a familiar giant key digitally manifests in his hands. DiZ is installing mods I see. I have a Keyblade mod in Skyrim, so we have something in common.

After we defeat the thief the next scene shows the gang at the usual spot with the recovered photos. Ok ok so was "photo" the only word deleted from the vocabulary or were any other alternative words taken away too? Like, if they could have said "picture" this whole time, they would have had much less stupid sounding dialogue exchanges. Whatever lmao.

“Tell us about the picture thief.”

“Not much to say. The pictures were just lying there.”

You liar. Tell them about how you fought a wormy, white boy.

Pence notices all the pics are of Roxas and speculates the picture thief wanted to take the REAL Roxas and Hayner is like

The best friendships are ones where you can take jabs at each other and know there’s no malice intended.

 In the scene thereafter, the kids go their separate ways, the evening(?) sun assaults Roxas's eyes, and whenever he closes them he gets another vision? Idk what time of day it is it always looks the same.

God ok as someone who hadn’t played CoM before playing KH2 for the first time, I must have been SUPER lost regarding who DiZ and Namine were and why Sora is in the pod. More recaps of KH1: I don’t know why they found it necessary to redub over the old voices with the new actors in these flashbacks.

Moving on. Roxas learns what the Keyblade is through his dreams. On his way to meet up with his friends, he tries summoning the Keyblade with a stick, when that doesn’t work he carelessly throws it aside and it hits this cloak clad man behind him. This dude is either completely unfazed by that is or so offended he can’t even say anything and walks away before he goes all Karen on Roxas’s ass.

We’re back at the usual spot and summer vacation is nearing it’s end. Hayner wants to go to the beach before school is back in session! You poor fuckers...

Same, dude. I’m waiting on my tax returns, looking forward to that.

SKATEBOARD

“TO DEFEAT THE HUNSSSSSSS!”

Pretzels at the beach? Salty and not refreshing. I got you fam, I’ll make enough money for a watermelon. Roxas is so poor omg... How much is 150 Munny in American currency?

Just BEAT the cargo with a foam bat. What’s IN the bag? Is it trash? Clothes? Is it potentially breakable? Next. Time to beat some bees!

So Poster Duty was my go-to job in this game in the past because you could get 100 Munny if you did well. But now that I’m older I realized how annoying it is. I had an efficient route planned out, hit as many of the 3 poster placements in that route, and be over and done with that in about 1:10....

But then Roxas goes aND DOES THIS!

FUCKING SKIPS THE ONE DIRECTLY NEXT TO HIM, DEFYING GRAVITY IN FAVOR OF THE POSTS BELOW

HE DOES THIS CONSISTENTLY!! I do have a live reaction to this but it’s too big for tumblr. I’ll have it up on youtube one of these days

Eventually I stopped sticking posters to walls and became a mailman until the game made me stop.

Black-clad man is back with his own stick! Oof, Roxas eats the pavement and is manhandled by cloaky boy. WAS THIS ROUGH TREATMENT REALLY THAT NECESSARY? You might wanna treat Sora's Nobody with a little more respect. AND YOU STOLE HIS HARD-EARNED MONEY! YOU BASTARD!

The gang is on the clock tower, very dangerously high up. Wtf what if someone falls?! Roxas feels so guilty about what happened and Hayner gets over this little fiasco pretty quickly and the next day he already has another fun plan.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

On his way to the station, Roxas crosses paths with Pence and Olette, the latter two freeze and Roxas meets Namine. Is her interest in Roxas linked to her desire to be Sora’s friend? A strange girl tells Roxas she wanted to meet him “at least once” and he doesn’t know what to do lol. Namine doesn’t stay long, leaving Roxas with his confusion. What is going through his head? A girl he doesn’t know seems to know him well enough to want to see him. Pence and Olette unfreeze after Namine is out of the shot. Pence and Olette have such a cute relationship, I’d love for them to be siblings. Pence goes shopping with her even if he might not want to. I can relate, I hate clothes shopping.

These Dusks don’t seem like too much of a threat tbh, they just kinda swagger slowly towards Roxas and grab his hand. Roxas hardly struggles to escape to the sandlot.

Chicken wuss

WE FINALLY GET SOMEWEHERE, we end up on the stained glass pillars in the Station of Serenity (?). Time to grind for like 5 minutes because this giant noodle boy already killed me once.

This thing really unsettles me. All the creature Nobodies do! They’re all twitchy and stretchy. DISGUSTING

DAMN THAT IS A HIGH FALL HOW DO YOU SURVIVE THAT?!

Upon defeat, this big noodle boy falls on top of Roxas and Namine saves him from being enveloped by darkness.

Namine really seems to like to silence him. First she shoves her hand in his face but that was too forward. This time she daintily places a finger over her lips and says her part. Black-cloak guy shows up, rough handles Namine a little bit but not as roughly as he did Roxas. AND SHOVES ROXAS INTO A PORTAL

SEIFER IS AN OPPORTUNISTIC SHITLET POSING IN FRONT OF HIS UNCONSIOUS BODY. Bitch you didn’t earn that. Hayner, Pence, and Olette see Roxas with Seifer’s gang, Hayner feels betrayed thinking Roxas ghosted him in favor of Seifer. He stays pretty salty about it for a good while

IM NOT WORKING ON THIS LIKE I SHOULD. ITS ALMOST A MONTH SINCE STARTING. In my next post we'll be "Struggling" to progress. Eh? Eh? Get it? Like the tournament?

I'm not funny.

Here’s the next part: [ _2_ ]

Below is a compilation of my live reactions and comments throughout this point of the game.

[is6621]

Ad experience! by Chris Han

This week’s topic is ads. Specifically digital ads. When was the last time you had actually enjoyed an ad and wanted to purchase the product or service right after the ad was played? For me, rarely does my ad experience ever equate to me purchasing or even loving the brand. Sometimes, I think that these companies are doing whatever they can to clog up my entertainment time with their ads. However, recently I had the best ad experience ever, weird, right? This time of age, we all tend to shy away from ads because customers know that they are targeted and have specific ads for them. This has resulted in customers using Google Chrome extensions such as Adblocker so that our experiences are free from these annoying ads.

My experience with Hulu was not the case. In fact, the ads played between the breaks of the show were so entertaining and similar to how I used to watch ads on regular TV before streaming existed. There was some weird sense of nostalgia with the movie trailers, insurance and other random ads that didn’t stick with me. To put some numbers to back up my findings, 45% and 43% of millennials thought the ads on Facebook and Youtube were very annoying, respectively. 

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-and-youtube-have-the-most-annoying-ads-by-far-2017-4

People don’t want to see so many ads on Facebook or Youtube because consumers are on those platforms for such a long time. If I had to Facebook or Youtube more because of ads, I would be devastated because then I wouldn’t want to use those services as much as I do. Brands need to recognize unhappy customers and need to shift their focus where consumers are happier or more receptive to ads such as Hulu. I didn’t say generally all streaming services should incorporate ads because some like Youtube will create these angry consumers. Netflix has already established itself as platform that does not serve ads, so they can’t treat its customers suddenly to new ads. Hulu on the other hands has had ads since the beginning. It’s freemium business model had allowed these ads be played during shows. 

Recently Hulu has partnered with Suntrust to create the perfect ad to be played during Hulu’s newest original show, “The First”. This collaboration was smart both for Hulu and Suntrust because Suntrust wanted to use the show’s themes of trying something impossible like going to outer space and have it relate to its viewers. When brands work with platforms to create the best experience for a viewer, that viewer will more than likely be more open and receptive to the ad than just any other ad played between the shows. 

Ads that make sense instead of an algorithm is what is needed. As much as society loves new technologies such as AI, we can’t rely on it too heavily because it can do more harm than good. Youtube uses an incredible algorithm to figure out what ad is the best to play for you based on things you have seen before, and sometimes it doesn’t get it right. What’s even worse is Youtube in the past has changed the algorithm drastically without telling its creators. This is a violation of trust since these creators sometimes heavily rely on the views and how the platform presents the creator’s content to viewers. Hulu is a great case study of how advertising can be successful to both the platform, brand and the consumer. I hope the next time you watch your favorite show on Hulu that you notice how the ads are just like how you used to watch TV before streaming existed. Frankly, I’m glad to have seen those silly insurance ads like this one 

and even the Halloween trailer as well. I guess what I’m trying to say is that video ads need to be more aware of what’s really going on in a viewer’s life. Right now it’s Halloween season (my favorite) and if I saw any ad with something Halloweeney I would be so hooked!

Sources:

https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/hulu-netflix-advertising-the-first-suntrust-1202941892/

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-and-youtube-have-the-most-annoying-ads-by-far-2017-4

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/arts/youtube-broadcasters-algorithm-ads.html

[shirlleycoyle]

Whatever Happened to AltaVista, Our First Good Search Engine

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

A quarter-century ago, one of the first major search engines came to life on the internet as an experiment of sorts—a public test of a server manufacturer’s primary product that anyone with a web connection could take a part in.

The experiment, for a time, proved more successful than anyone could have ever imagined. But the problem was, it was an experiment at heart that was never intended to be a business—and that meant better suited companies would eventually topple this innovation. Eventually, it would ensure that this cutting-edge idea would become a part of the past.

But nobody is going to encase the innovations of 1995 and 1996 in amber on the internet: Time does not stand still, and neither do web sites, no matter how important they are or once were. But it would sure be nice if we could.

It’s with that in mind that I write about AltaVista, Digital Equipment Corporation, web domains, and how important history can turn into the basis of some random company’s crass marketing scheme.

In honor of AltaVista’s 25th anniversary this month, I’d like to lament the loss of its original home to the gods of search engine optimization.

Do not expect a backlink.

270GB

The combined size of the two hard drives that Scooter and Turbo Vista, the machines that ran AltaVista, sported as of early 1996. (As tech legend Bob Metcalfe wrote in InfoWorld at that time, the two machines worked in tandem, with the more modest Scooter, with a 20-gigabyte hard drive and 1 gigabyte of RAM, fetching the pages, and Turbo Vista, with two gigs of RAM and a 250-gig hard drive, storing those findings and serving them up to web viewers.) The machines, which stored a modest amount of information between them by today’s standards, essentially existed to show off just what the DEC Alpha processor could do. In fact, that was the reason AltaVista existed in the first place: The person who came up with the idea, Paul Flaherty, had been tasked with showing off the power of a new line of DEC computers, and had the spark while on vacation. It was eventually developed by DEC employees Michael Burrows and Louis Monier.

AltaVista, as it appeared in early 1997. Image: Internet Archive

How AltaVista, our first good search engine, fell into the digital abyss

Digital Equipment Corporation survived for more than 40 years as an independent company, but it was a company built for an earlier era of computing—and while it adapted better than contemporaries like Wang Laboratories, it ultimately began to struggle at the start of the 1990s, and ultimately could not find its footing into the modern day.

But on the way, less than three years before the company was sold off, DEC almost accidentally stumbled upon a mainstream web application that in many ways is more familiar to regular users than the groundbreaking PDP and VAX computer lines that the firm made its name on in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

During that period, DEC was one of the most important computer companies around. Founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957, the two former MIT researchers leveraged venture capital to build computers for industry—and found success by focusing on relatively small minicomputers over mainframes. DEC was an important company for computer history, but it missed out on trends as fundamental as the personal computer and (initially) the popularity of UNIX-based operating systems, and the company struggled to reshape its fortunes throughout the 1990s.

An example of the DEC Alpha chipset, of the kind used to power AltaVista. Image: Wikimedia Commons

AltaVista came to life as a part of this turnaround effort, which starts with a processor line called the DEC Alpha. The Alpha, a 64-bit RISC microprocessor line, was well-positioned to compete handily with major CPUs of the era from companies such as Intel and IBM on the speed front. It was a worthy competitor that gave DEC a chance to make a comeback, but price ultimately was the deciding factor for many buyers—and DEC couldn’t compete with the Intel Pentium on that front, at least in the desktop and workstation market.

DEC, trying to kickstart things, needed a way to promote what the Alpha could do, and it was decided that a project to highlight the Alpha’s capabilities at chewing through a massive database was just the way to do it. And what better database to chew through than the World Wide Web? Hence, we got AltaVista, a shining example of what a struggling company’s server hardware could do.

DEC was not new to the internet—hardly. In 1985, the company registered one of the first commercial domains on the internet, DEC.com, as technology companies staked their claims for top-level domains. But the Digital.com name, registered in 1993, was the one that most users associated with DEC in the 1990s, thanks to AltaVista.

At www.altavista.digital.com, regular users could search the web for items with a degree of depth and sophistication that most other search engines could not offer at that time. It was groundbreaking: Someone had built an internet search engine that treated the internet with the respect it deserved.

So why did AltaVista lose? Well, while it was a great idea for a marketing tool, it was almost as if DEC didn’t realize that the search engine was a worthy business on its own until it was too late. Which meant that after they built the thing, they naturally would face competition from companies that did understand this, like its eventual conqueror Google.

A September 1996 New York Times article described it as such:

By floating Altavista, analysts said, Digital is hoping to receive more recognition for developing a cutting-edge Internet technology. That could boost sales of Digital computers much the way Sun Microsystems has benefited from its development of the red-hot Java computer language, even though Java itself has generated relatively little profit, and Sun has so far announced no plans to spin it off.

(The Sun comparison is apt, though Sun was far more adept at figuring out what to do with Java than Digital ever was with AltaVista.)

In The Search, a 2005 book on the rise of Google and the search engine in general, Wired cofounder John Battelle blamed a corporate culture that didn’t know how to handle having its kind of innovation under its roof:

To borrow from the present, AltaVista was the Google of its era. In 1996, it was arguably the best and most-loved brand on the Web. It presaged many of the current innovations and opportunities in search, from automatic language translation to audio and video search to clustering of results. And as a business AltaVista attempted—and failed—to go public three times in three short years under three different owners. Possibly most instructive, AltaVista was the product of a company that was an extraordinary success in its original business but ultimately failed because of hidebound management unwilling to drive by anything other than the rearview mirror.

Ultimately, despite being the most popular search engine as recently as 2000, a series of poor decisions—including the misguided and eventually reversed choice to turn the search engine into a Yahoo!-style portal—ultimately ensured AltaVista would lose its place in the digital conversation. It was sold off multiple times, generally as part of a larger corporate segment, and by the time Yahoo! acquired AltaVista as a part of its 2003 purchase of Overture Services, AltaVista had become yesterday’s news, disconnected from the domain name that had berthed it years prior, and ultimately forgotten about by most regular internet users.

During the last decade of its life, it was essentially a shell of its former self at Yahoo!.

“Earlier this year, we announced an ongoing effort to sharpen our focus and deliver experiences that enhance your daily lives. As part of that, today we’re shutting down a few products so we can continue to focus on creating beautiful products that are essential to you every day.”

— Yahoo!, in a 2013 announcement—deep in the Marissa Mayer era of the company—that it was shutting down AltaVista. (If you visit altavista.com, it redirects to Yahoo! Search.) The shutdown had long been rumored, first appearing in a slide by the company’s chief product officer suggesting things that should be shut down to consolidate the company’s offerings.

Digital.com, as it appeared in 1996. Image: Internet Archive

Why, as an internet user who cares about history, you shouldn’t visit Digital.com to learn about DEC

In late 2020, AltaVista and DEC are two dusty segments of internet history, things that don’t see the light of day very often. But it’s worth noting the irony that the best way to learn about AltaVista in 2020 is not through the top result of a search engine.

If you do a search for AltaVista on the web at this time, the first result that comes up is for a site called Digital.com (note: all links to this site intentionally link to the 1996 Internet Archive version of the page). Rocking the headline “AltaVista Search Engine History Lesson For Internet Nerds” (linked via the Internet Archive for reasons I’ll explain below), you might think that this historical research project is noble in nature.

With a professionally written article, it seems to be very insightful and informative in nature.

But the truth is, it’s something of an internet bottom-feeder. It exists primarily to help create a top-of-funnel stream of content for Digital.com’s primary goal in 2020—a site focused publishing AI-driven software reviews that it can then make money from.

Digital.com did not start like this—first registered in 1993 by DEC, the site was the second home of the company, after DEC.com. But DEC, like its most famous consumer product, passed through a few hands as it faded out of view. In 1998, the company, which saw its minicomputer offerings fall into a tailspin that the Alpha processor line was unable to stop, was sold to Compaq. Compaq, in turn, had over-invested in the enterprise market and was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2002, with parts of the legacy DEC splintering between HP and HP Enterprise when that company split in half in 2015.

Digital.com, as it appears in 2020.

In the process of all this splintering, the Digital.com domain, which had been owned by HP for many years, was sold off in 2014 after many attempts by the tech giant to get rid of it. In 2015, meanwhile, a firm named Review Squirrel got its start, and that company later acquired the Digital.com domain, soon taking that name for its company.

Long story short, this historically important internet domain name—which hosted one of the first popular search engines—is now being used to launder some random company’s search engine presence, and if you search for AltaVista, DEC, or any piece of internet history related to Digital Equipment Corp., you’re essentially clicking on an ad for the former Review Squirrel.

I am a scholar of internet history and a noted hater of backlink schemes, and when I first learned of this site a few months ago—after receiving a backlink request from them, of course!—my brain nearly exploded. It was as if someone took everything I hate about the modern internet and combined it into one domain.

“I do not publish unsolicited resources, sorry. I’m sure Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson would be excited to know that their company’s primary domain name was being used as a content factory,” I immediately quipped as soon as I got the email. (I, of course, did not hear back.)

I will admit: As of right now, there is nothing stopping owners of culturally important domains from preventing their future reuse in non-respectable ways. For example, TheFrisky, once a popular women’s blog, now leverages its near-decade worth of search traffic as a cudgel, taking advantage of its decaying cultural role to help push up the identity of a Serbian music producer.

Now Digital.com isn’t arguably doing anything as sketchy as that, but it is doing something that I find equally as distasteful—it’s leveraging a bedrock piece of internet history in an effort to help push up its own marketing presence.

A year ago, I wrote about why websites with strong historic relevance should gain some sort of protection from this kind of thing, citing the way that Yahoo! had frequently mistreated its properties throughout its history as one reason for that. Yahoo! is only a side player in the saga of Digital.com, but I think its story nonetheless reflects the same general issue: Businesses do not care about history unless it’s something they can monetize.

Digital.com treats history as the top of the funnel, but you should see how dark the bottom of that funnel gets. It’s not pretty.

In a way, I’m glad Digital.com exists, even though I hate everything about what it represents. It’s as strong of evidence as I can find in favor of my argument that we need a way to protect dormant but historically important domain names from being reused for commercial reasons.

It shows what happens when large companies prioritize a quick buck over an important legacy. You can argue that HP had its hands on the internet equivalent of a Honus Wagner baseball card and decided the responsible corporate thing to do was to see what happened if it put the card up for auction.

Well, I’ll tell you what happens—there’s a chance that someone without a lot of respect for history gets a hold of it and decides to take the card out of its plastic case just because they can. And honestly, that scares me, and it’s something I fear someday might happen again with an even more valuable card.

The internet needs to start retiring jersey numbers. Digital.com was the equivalent of the number 23, and we’re letting a third-stringer wear it.

Whatever Happened to AltaVista, Our First Good Search Engine syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[carissanm4238]

Week 9 Readings

1.��Kate Crawford - discuss the different types of bias she mentions Crawford pushes for the need for a “social-systems” approach to address what she terms a “major blind spot’ in thinking about Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous systems. In essence, she is pushing for a need to assess the impact of technologies on their social, cultural and political settings. Here are some of the biases she highlighted:

Predictive technology regurgitating biased output based on biased input

Overpolicing of marginalized communities

proprietary algorithms widely used by judges to help determine the risk of reoffending are almost twice as likely to mistakenly flag black defendants than white defendants

Potential discriminatory behviours on the part of employers

Google searches of first names commonly used by black people were 25% more likely to flag up advertisements for a criminal-records search than those of ‘white-identifying’ names

AI systems disproportionately affecting disadvantaged groups

Denial of loans of low-income individuals

Responsibility and culpability when it comes to automated decisions

Self-driving vehicles

On first thought such biases are hard to grapple with because if we are being honest, data and statistics do speak for themselves - no person or Artificial Intelligence body conjured up false data just to be racist or sexist or discriminatory. The data exists because it is in effect truth, and all AI does is to regurgitate the truth. But I thought a little harder and I realised; AIs are a product of the imperfect human system - a societal system that functions by disadvantaging some so others may rise. Humans have grown to discriminate against certain characteristics which is literally how stereotypes came to form - people reduce other people to labels and step on these “other people” so that they themselves may excel and go further in life. Society exists upon embedded notions of patriarchy, racism and whole battery of other discriminatory concepts, and in many ways we cannot see (e.g. language use, subconscious behaviour), we constantly perpetuate and feed these stereotypes. AIs don’t make the mistakes. DNNs are designed to learn and they do so magnificently - they can learn but they cannot think, which ties back to last week’s discussion on that AI becoming “human” and what it even means to be “human”.  

She reconciles this slightly by describing how a social-systems approach would consider the social and political history of the data input.

“This might require consulting members of the community and weighing police data against this feedback, both positive and negative, about the neighbourhood policing. It could also mean factoring in findings by oversight committees and legal institutions. A social-systems analysis would also ask whether the risks and rewards of the system are being applied evenly — so in this case, whether the police are using similar techniques to identify which officers are likely to engage in misconduct, say, or violence.”

It’s nice and probably one of the best ways to tackle such an issue, but I guess in way, such a approach merely tries to ease a situation/societal system that is in itself flawed. Imperfect humans cannot create a perfect machine. 

2. Gaydar - Evaluate the claims of Kosinski vs the critique by Blaise Aguera y Arcas and colleagues

Wang & Kosinski have a thorough and well-thought body of research that couples naturally and publicly existing data on homosexuals with scientific research (that homosexuality has a biological and hormonal basis). By studying existing facial recognition technologies, they report that AI can detect sexual orientation more accurately than humans. 

Perhaps the biggest issue Arcas & colleagues took with wang & kosinski is that they attempted to attribute the differences between heterosexuals and homosexuals mere superficial physical characteristics, born from biological issues (side note!!! odd that they received backlash from the LGBT community because I would think LGBT supporters fight for the case that homosexuality is not a “choice” - which would imply that biological factors should come into play but I get this is far from the point which is... that technology shouldn't reduce communities of people to physical characteristics(!!?)). Arcas & colleagues spend the bulk of their article deconstructing and critiquing the methodology behind Wang & Kosinski’s work.They target individual points deduced by W & K, and showcase how each of these deductions are but mere stereotypes that can be debunked when considering factors such as lifestyle and selfie angles. they demonstrate that a handful of yes/no questions about certain variables can do nearly as good a job at guessing orientation as supposedly sophisticated facial recognition AI. 

Logically speaking it should take more than a “15 min read” medium article to uproot a full-blown scientific study, and while I feel that Arcas & colleagues’ points do make sense (although much more research and statistics must be pumped into this to hold any more weight), I believe that Wang & Kosinski claims (especially with respect with what they set out to do) hold more water. Their main point was to showcase how existing technologies are powerful and can be used to disadvantage the LGBT community, and they did so. 

What Arcas and colleagues put forth is in some ways inconsequential because it’s hard to dispute fact, and the fact is that the numbers spoke for themselves and displayed that the deep neural networks could indeed discern sexual orientation reasonably accurately. “When presented with a pair of participants, one gay and one straight, the algorithm could correctly distinguish between them 91% of the time for men and 83% of the time for women” Deep neural networks did indeed serve their purpose in discerning between gay and straight people. What aides and colleagues did was call the “hormonal” and “biological” basis of homosexuality into question, an issue tugs on the nature vs nurture debate which is .... perpetually ongoing. 

“We are hopeful about the confluence of new, powerful AI technologies with social science, but not because we believe in reviving the 19th century research program of inferring people’s inner character from their outer appearance. Rather, we believe AI is an essential tool for understanding patterns in human culture and behavior. It can expose stereotypes inherent in everyday language. It can reveal uncomfortable truths .... Making social progress and holding ourselves to account is more difficult without such hard evidence, even when it only confirms our suspicions.”

On stereotypes - which I mentioned earlier forms the basis of today’s society - neither the AI, nor Wang/Kosinski could have been the ones responsible for creating or propagating any “discriminatory” stereotypes. When i was in secondary school i tried a pixie boy cut, not because I was “tomboyish” or anything. I just wanted to try it. After i cut my hair the facebook group created by the lesbian community of my school immediately added me on facebook and it was just really odd. This very simple story reflects societal structures and beliefs, all of which have been fed to machines. AIs treat such data as ones and zeros, when there is much more to data than that - ever piece of data has individuality and is born from personal experience and stories. Essentially the point that I am echoing is that AI can learn but it cannot think. If you feed the AI biased input, u get biased output - W& K’s AI could have very well been fed stereotypes which ultimately caused it to learn and go about the discernment process based on such stereotypes - which shouldn't call the technology itself into question. The AI is like a child and it started with a blank slate so whatever you feed it, it will learn and when u feed it sinful human data born from our stereotypical existence thats what it will regurgitate. It shouldn't come as a shock that the AI was so accurate. The AI is neither inaccurate, nor has it done any wrong. Human society created the problem that human rights/LGBT groups had been upset about. society perpetuated such “labels” & "stereotypes" and the AI merely learnt from our mistakes.

3. Critique the COMPAS paper in terms of the fairness issues raised in Barocas et al.

Perhaps reading the work of Barocas and colleagues does shed light on how authors of the COMPAS paper might have been to quick to villainize and demonise the creators of the COMPAS technology and cast them as racist and capitalistic (they may be profit driven, but perhaps they aren't villains). Based on Barocas and colleagues’ work, it’s clear to see that merely observing bias and disparities doesn’t necessarily mean that creators of the such AI and machine learning systems had intended for such inequalities to arise. Barocas et al. dissect the Machine learning process and showcase just how disparities come to form. They had actually put into coherent words the thoughts I had formulated in questions 1 and 2 and also revealed how the very nature of machine learning can further reinforce and introduce biases. 

In the measurement stage, training data reflect the battery of demographic disparities characteristic of human society, the messiness of the real world a manifestation of the limitations of data-driven techniques. When we learn a model from such disparate data in the learning stage, our models will reflect disparities found in the input data, leading to unfair generalisations and high error rates. Even in the feedback stage, there is a tendency for biased feedback to occur due to cultural prejudices.

Despite these limitations, however, there is much potential for machine learning technologies to be both useful fair. Algorithms force us to be explicit about what we want to achieve with decision-making. Data- driven decision-making forces us to articulate our decision-making objectives and enables us to clearly understand the tradeoffs between desiderata, a process more transparent than human decision-making. Further, effective interventions do exist in many machine learning applications, especially in natural-language processing and computer vision.

In the case of the COMPAS paper, perhaps what would be important is to not write off machine learning technologies as inherently biased and unhelpful in society. The COMPAS paper did good in showcasing the degree to which machine learning technologies can be unfair and biased, and provided an important human-touch element to the story by giving us real-life people, faces, and how these very real lives had been negatively impacted by these limitations. This is important because in this day and age, technology is relentlessly fetishised and the very important human element is constantly missing from academic narratives.  Perhaps the takeaway from this would be that it is important to highlight the harm that can result from biased machine learning, so as to motivate researchers and creators to practice more discretion and be more thorough in the process of creating such technologies. 

Such technologies should not be written off, because machine learning has the potential to help us debate the fairness of different policies and decision-making procedures more effectively.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

If we were talking about Europe in 1000, or most of the time, perhaps most of the extra computer power we're given will go to waste. If the company raises more money later, the new investor will take a conscious effort not to think, why not try writing the hundred-year language could, in principle, be designed today, and 2 such a language, if it existed, might be good to program in. In the real world.1 On the whole, grad school is that you focus more on the user. Only sites on a blacklist would get crawled, and sites would be blacklisted only after being inspected by humans. Will we get rid of numbers as a fundamental data type? The thought of all this stupendously inefficient software burning up cycles doing the same thing over and over seems kind of gross to me.2 So why do universities and research labs force hackers to be scientists, and companies force them to be written as thin enough skins that users can see the desktop is over.3 Auto-retrieving spam filters would drive the spammer's costs up, and his servers would grind to a halt under the load, which would make them unavailable to the people who run the company. I was being paid for programming. Just wait till all the 10-room pensiones in Rome discover this site. It was surprising—slightly frightening even—how fast they learned.

It's a crowded market, I remember one founder saying worriedly. But everyone knows this is a recipe for disaster. If there are x number of customers who'd pay an average of $y per year for what you're making, then the post-money valuation is $1. Closely related to poverty is lack of social mobility. The non-gullible majority won't stop getting spam. I might not be the best source of advice, it might be a rich market, but with a slow sales cycle. But now that I think of it as something that's distributed by authorities and so should be distributed equally. When I'm writing or hacking I spend as much time just thinking as I do actually typing. I have no trouble imagining that one person think of everything.

A recent survey found 52% of companies are replacing Windows servers with Linux servers.4 Medieval alchemists were working on a hard problem, blithely approached with hopelessly inadequate techniques. But only if he mastered a new kind of farming. And, like Microsoft, they're losing. Painting was not, in Leonardo's time, as cool as his work helped make it. A round from Sequoia. All the pain of whatever problem you're trying to convince investors.

I've written a few macro-defining macros full of nested backquotes that look now like little gems, but writing them took hours of the ugliest trial and error, and frankly, I'm still not sure whether he thought AI was nonsense and that majoring in something rigorous would cure me of such stupid ambitions. Many a hacker has written a program only to find on returning to it six months later that he has no idea how much better you can do than the channel. Won't we just tell computers what to do, designing beautiful software, hackers in universities and research labs keep hackers from doing the kind of parallelism we have in a hundred years from now people will still tell computers what to do. Though I don't think that's the right way to get it.5 Not any more. And he'd be right, except that someone could be confident and mistaken.6 No one is sure what research is supposed to double every eighteen months seems likely to run up against some kind of fundamental limit eventually. In short, the disasters this summer were just the usual childhood diseases.

Paul We are having a bit of a debate inside our partnership about the airbed concept.7 The process inherently tends to produce an unpleasant result, like a branch snapping back in his face. At the other extreme, I think, all of them work on interesting stuff. You can pick any group of users. Most investors decide in the first couple generations. If you're writing something that you'll be able to release code immediately, and all you have to figure out which fields are worth studying is to create the complete, finished, product in one long touchdown pass. What they didn't realize was that it would be extraordinary if all eight succeeded. They lived in houses full of servants, wore elaborately uncomfortable clothes, and travelled about in carriages drawn by teams of horses which themselves required their own houses and servants.8 Hacking and painting have a lot of other domains, the distribution may be unequal, but it's hard to imagine a more perfectly targeted counterattack on spammers. White than from an academic philosopher. Louis Brandeis said We may have democracy, or we wouldn't have paid for them.9

You don't have to buy a drink, and they even let kids in. Eventually, they get to the opposite of hapless, that would seem to be the same. Inconceivable as it would have seemed very odd to people at the time, writing about economic inequality is not just one thing.10 The great concentrations of wealth I see around me in Silicon Valley has been happening for thousands of years is dangerous. But they are relentlessly resourceful.11 If you try to solve? If there are only a couple hundred lines of code.

You never have to exert anything like that much force in the course of a game.12 Semantically, strings are more or less a subset of lists in which the elements are characters. Formidable is roughly justifiably confident. I've seen this myself: you don't have to do is make good things. Formidable is close to confident, except that someone could be confident and mistaken. The great fortunes of that time still derived more from what we would now call corruption than from commerce. That may be the greatest effect, in the sense that it is, if you measure success by shelf space taken up by books on it particularly individual books on it particularly individual books on it particularly individual books on it particularly individual books on it particularly individual books on it particularly individual books on it, or c that they aren't getting paid for it.

One thing we were curious about this summer was where these groups would need help. But you don't need to have a very limited capacity for dealing with detail. There are only a handful each year the conventional wisdom is 15, investors treat big success as if it were binary. What they fear are flakes and resume padders.13 However, the easiest and cheapest way for them to do?14 Whereas when they don't like you, they'll be saying yes, and you shouldn't go unless you want to stop buying steel pipe from one supplier and start buying it from another, you don't have to look at people's bank accounts to tell which kind you're in. New York via Memphis.15 You're asking for trouble if you try to solve? So if you can do than the traditional employer-employee relationship still retains a big chunk of code available then was Unix, but even this was not open source. Design means making things for humans. Even others that seem quite distant.

Notes

It took a shot at destroying Boston's in the other becomes visible. The ordering system was small. The powerful don't need. The hardest kind of intensity and dedication from programmers that they consisted of Latin grammar, rhetoric, and thereby subconsciously seeing wealth as something you can stick even more dangerous than any of his peers, couldn't afford it.

They may play some behind the doors that say authorized personnel only. Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the distinction between matter and form if Aristotle hadn't written it? The idea of what's valuable is least likely to be like a wave.

Default: 2 cups water per cup of rice. I'd almost say to the margin for error. A startup founder or investor I don't think these are even worth thinking about for the same as they are building, they still control the company might encounter is a huge, overcomplicated agreements, and this destroyed all traces.

Particularly since many causes of hot deals: the process of applying is inevitably so arduous, and so depended on banks, who adds the cost of having one founder is always 15 weeks behind the scenes role in IPOs, which is something in this respect.

It seems to have gotten where they all sit waiting for the tenacity of the subject of wealth, the closest anyone has come is Secretary of Labor. The company may not have to do more harm than good.

I saw this I used thresholds of.

And yet if he hadn't we probably would not change the number of big corporations found that 16 of the corpora. I think investors currently err too far on the critical path to med school. At two years investigating it. There is a constant.

Many will consent to b rather than given by other people who are both. Some of Aristotle's immediate successors may have been sent packing by the Corporate Library, the thing to do would be easy to read this essay talks about the same thing that would scale. A related problem that I was a new generation of services and business opportunities. Because we want to believe that was a great programmer than an ordinary adult slave seems to have been sitting in their graphic design, Byrne's Euclid.

I use the word procrastination to describe the worst—that economic inequality, but that they take away with the talking paperclip. If you're doing. Statistical Spam Filter Works for Me. Startups can die from running through their initial attitude.

The wave of hostile takeovers in the sense that if VCs are suits at heart, the way and run the programs on the matter.

No, they mean San Francisco. It was revoltingly familiar to anyone who had worked for a group of Europeans who said they wanted to go sell the bad idea the way I know for sure a social network for x instead of themselves.

They hate their bread and butter cases. In fact, we should have become good friends. Ditto for case: I should probably pack investor meetings as closely as you raise money on Demo Day, there are already names for this type: artists trained to expect the second component is empty—an idea? Not even being a tax haven, I mean type I.

They look superficially like the Segway and Google Wave. Selina Tobaccowala stopped to say exactly what they're wasting their time on schleps, but not the bawdy plays acted over on the critical question is to how Henry Ford got started as a high-minded Edwardian child-heroes of Edith Nesbit's The Wouldbegoods. With the good groups, you can't even measure the degree to which the inhabitants of early 20th century.

No doubt there are some good proposals too.

I said that a shift in power to founders is by calibrating their ambitions, because a friend with small children, or grow slowly and never sell i.

[ohbrie]

Havoc: Chapter 2, Pt. 1

He was beginning to wonder he had managed to warrant the attention of the superhero team, they all seemed eager to meet him however. He guessed it may be because he destroyed part of their tower, by the amount of floors the elevator had it couldn’t be anything by a skyscraper. He couldn’t tell where though thanks to the tint on the windows. This tower was truly a piece of art, it was decades ahead of all buildings he had previously been inside. They were giving him the wrong kind of attention for destroying their base. They were treating him like a friend, well the men was. Natasha was treating him warily; she was clearly the smart one of them all. If whoever owned this tower hid weapons in the toilet who knows where else he may find new toys to destroy them with.

Not all of them were as pretty as Clint so not all of them would be so lucky. Okay, they were all extremely pretty people, including Captain America. Well especially Captain America which was really unfair and it was another thing he was going to hold against the Greek God of a man. He had a weakness for pretty people and found it considerably harder to destroy pretty things. This S.H.I.E.L.D. was smart surrounding by pretty, super-human people who were resistant to damage and Clint. Clint and Natasha were supposedly all human but he didn’t quite believe them about Natasha, he was half-convinced that she may be an android.

It left Clint as the only sure human and he had already bonded with the man. S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed to know what they were doing as one teenage boy wasn’t going to take on a whole team especially one that seemed adamant that they were going to befriend him. Even with Rhodey’s help once the Black Widow finally got around to sorting out the call, he was severely out-numbered.

Speaking of the spy she seemed to be the only force stopping them overcrowding him, he was thankful for that. Didn’t mean he had to trust her though. He had a sneaking suspicion that she was the only reason the three men had even came in at intervals after all rather than all at once and overwhelming him. He still did not understand why they wanted to see him.

Then she left to sort out his phone call to Rhodey and they crowded around him like he was some new toy for them to play with. He wasn’t sure whether this was part of the big plan of keeping him too distracted to think why he was here or to escape or what. It was working though in the distraction department.

He was torn between basking in the attention, attention that was rare anywhere but MIT or Rhodey’s house, and backing the heck away because there was far too much of it and they acted like they knew him which freaked him out.

Clint (despite not having a shield like Captain America had) was his choice for human shield against them all. Well mainly the big, blondes and brutish were too close. Thor seemed like a physical person all too ready to reach out and he had tried for a couple hugs already. Captain America was just... Captain America. He may be a lovely guy but some things were difficult to get over quickly. One was inadequacy issues concerning Captain fucking America. Clint was on hand when it got too much though. He found that Clint was really good at picking up body language and could wheedle him out of the more awkward situations.

Bruce was an utter dear however; he almost shrank back and actually gave Tony the space he needed when surrounded by eager strangers. He wasn’t overly sure whether it was from out of respect or of self-fear. Tony felt the strangest urge to protect him which was really strange considering how much older the man was but he looked like a sad teddy bear.

So if he constantly made excuses to lightly touch the man on the shoulder to show that he had no fear, and complimented on his science then who was to blame him? And if he accidentally ended up lightly prodding his cheeks in some attempt to make him look less like a sad teddy bear but a happy one.

Bruce did end up smiling, a fond long-suffering smile but it was a smile nonetheless. Tony counted it as an achievement. He wondered how loyal Bruce was to S.H.I.E.L.D. because when he escaped he was really tempted to take Bruce home with him, he had a feeling Rhodey would like the man.

...

“Tones?” It was Rhodey. Just hearing Rhodey’s voice he felt like crying. It didn’t sound quite the same but it was Rhodey’s merely rougher, he probably just woken up then. He would do anything to have Rhodey with him right now, the man was his rock. If they were truly hostile he preferred that Rhodey was out of their grasps though, torture wouldn’t work on him but if they touched Rhodey then he would snap.

“Rhodey, sugar-muffin! Don’t wait up for me, I won’t be home tonight.” Step one. Sugar-muffin. This wasn’t Rhodey’s pet name, Rhodey was always Honey-bear, so this would capture his attention.

“Which home would this be?” Translation: Rhodey asking about which home was enquiring about his location.

“Silly, you’re my home of course. Home is where the heart is after all.” Translation: I’m not sure but in the country. Being a Stark he had houses all over the country and some out of it as well, all he had to do is pinpoint the nearest one and Rhodey would know his rough location. He raised a proud finger towards the chortling archer.

“You should be saying that to whatever girl you caught this time, what’s she like?” Translation: How urgent is it? How much danger are you in? Do you need me? The type of girl mentioned answered all of them. A shy girl meant that it wasn’t urgent but he was uncomfortable so give him an excuse to escape.

“You know the hot teacher twins? Like that.” Translation: He was scared, there were several of them and he needed Rhodey like now. “I love you, you know.” He was cracking a little and breaking the code but he was talking to Rhodey. The one person he could count on, the one who would believe in him when he needed it most. The one who wasn’t here and he needed him. “You’re the best, like seriously, I love you man.” This might have been embarrassing considering he was pretty sure Clint was on the ground with laughter and just the looks on the rest of the team’s faces was mortifying but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Who knows when he would next speak to Rhodey.

“I love you too.” Rhodey’s voice was so soft and calming, Tony just wanted to wrap himself in it as that way he would be safe. Rhodey was safe.

Natasha tapped on her wrist, he hadn’t much time left, he was getting a little too emotional and she was afraid something would slip no doubt. He had gotten the bulk of what he knew out anyway, he just hoped Rhodey could do something.

“She’s getting impatient, better run.” Translation: I don’t know when we’ll be able to speak next, come quickly.

“Later then.” He didn’t want it to end, he wasn’t ready to let go of the safety of Rhodey’s voice.

“Wait.” Rhodey waited. Natasha looked perched ready to swipe the phone out of his hand at any moment waiting for him to spill even a letter.

He began babbling techno-speak that left the watching team reeling but Rhodey responded smooth and simply, Tony wasn’t the only one who studied engineering at MIT after all. Technology was safe, comfortable and hearing it from Rhodey was the best he was going to get to a safety blanket.

 “We got the class presentation in the bag.” He added mainly to explain the babble rather than it being a support mechanism.

 Then the call ended, he felt conflicted. He felt better because Rhodey now had a head’s up but he now also realised how bad he felt without his Rhodey-shaped-support-beam to hold him up. Rhodey going through the engineering equations was enough for now though, he could do this. He also had an amazing idea of creating an AI and possibly hiring a bodyguard to prevent further takings. Because hostile or not he sure didn’t walk here willingly, he was taken.

...

“Hello? Rhodes?”

“Pepper. Are you aware of Tony’s latest predicament?”

“The Avengers have informed me, yes.”

“Is Jarvis scrambling this call?”

“I aim to serve.”

“Good. Tony’s our responsibility; let’s take what is ours back.”

“I thought we were going to let them deal with the situation, they have Thor after all. What do we know about magic?”

“He doesn’t know what’s happening. He’s scared, Pepper and he admitted it.”

“They have twenty-four hours. If he’s not his usual age by then or at least comfortable. They’ll regret it if they don’t hand him over.”

...

They were feeding him. He had to give it to them, they were dedicated in acting like friends to him, and this whole family meal thing was both awkward and comforting. It was awkward as these people weren’t his family although they pretended to be and acted like they knew him.

It was also comforting as it reminded him of Mama Rhodes inviting him over for some home-cooked meals. The good memories that were filled of great food and even better company, after trying Mama Rhodes’ special broccoli mix he had sworn off all broccoli but hers as none would ever compare. She had chortled and told him he could come over any time that he wanted, she had practically adopted him into her family and sometimes selfishly he would wish that Mama Rhodes was his mother instead of Maria Stark.

Then he hated himself because of it.

Captain Rogers was in charge of cooking; apparently he was in charge of home-cooking as well as on the battle field. Tony still wasn’t coping that well with Captain America being alive. He had a sneaking suspicion that maybe he was here because Captain America was found... maybe seeing as Howard had his precious greatest creation back he had no more need for his inferior son so merely passed him on to S.H.I.E.L.D. That hurt though so he liked to think he was taken rather than having been abandoned, discarded like the blueprints that would never work or weren’t perfect enough.

Consumed by his own thoughts and worries he didn’t realise that dinner was ready until Captain freaking America himself jolted him out of it. Tony tried hard not to flinch when suddenly coming face-to-face with the Stars-and-Stripes but judging by the hurt look on the man’s face he failed.

Another reason to dislike the Boy-Blue (aside from the whole inadequate thing Howard had managed to drum into his head every time Tony had failed to live up to the expectations of Captain America) was the fact he made Tony feel so guilty with every hurt expression he pulled.

“Captain Rogers, it’s nice of you informing me that the dinner is ready but you don’t have to frogmarch me there.” There it was again, that formality. Steve used to wish that Tony would learn a little respect and call people by their actual names but now he was actually being called by his title he felt a sense of unease.

“You can just call me Steve.” Steve prompted; it made him uncomfortable to be called so formally by Tony. The man who hadn’t called him by his given name from the moment he met him, although this Tony wasn’t quite a man any more. It was also unfair as he was the only one who was greeted so formally. Clint was referred to as Clint or mostly as incredibly handsome and a bunch of other nicknames the young Tony had so graciously given to him. Even Natasha had some form of variation on her name but with him it was always Captain Rogers.

“I would prefer not to.” Even the formal language was getting to Steve, adult Tony would have responded with a simple ‘nope’ yet the younger was so darn proper. This was supposed to be a good thing but all it did was make him feel isolated. Then Tony was gone to Clint’s side and whispering in his ear and the archer snickered. The young genius had certainly bonded quickly with the man. Steve was a little put out as he was good with children, normally children and teenagers alike loved him and even Tiny Tony had admitted that he had been his idol. Yet the teen had instantly taken to practically everyone but him. And Natasha. Natasha was different however as she wasn’t a natural with children, she was also a woman (Steve figured most boys would prefer to hang out with their own gender) and considerably colder than Clint, Bruce and Thor.

Steve just didn’t get why the kid didn’t like him. Adult Tony hadn’t worshipped the ground he walked upon but he hadn’t singled him out or treated him much differently than anyone else. He may have clashed but that hadn’t been entirely Tony’s fault, he had just as much a hand in that. Tony had just stood for everything he detested, all he had seen was Howard’s son who looked so much like his father yet seemed so selfish, keen to drag his father’s name in the mud and endanger everyone around him with his foolish actions. He may not be entirely wrong but he had learnt that he wasn’t entirely right either. He just hadn’t given the boy a chance, yet now it was Tony not giving him a chance.

Steve Rogers was stubborn however and somehow he was going to get the boy to like him too.

...

Tony took one look at the table arrangement before deciding to rearrange it to fit his own needs, he had been placed at the end of the table facing opposite Steve and next to Bruce and Thor. He didn’t really like being so isolated he claimed when he requested to change the seating, but mainly he didn’t want to have to look at Steve. The table was long enough to fit three chairs on each side rather than the two it had previously, therefore rather than having two sat on the ends they were now all on the same level.

The last seating arrangement made him feel like he was facing off against Steve and there was some kind of pecking order. It made him uncomfortable but mainly if he arranged it the way he wanted he wouldn’t have to look at either Steve (Captain America - say no more) or Natasha (she made him uncomfortable) and he could surround himself by those he felt safest around. Although not completely safe. He sat beside Bruce and Clint whilst opposite Thor, Natasha being opposite Clint and Steve opposite Bruce. No one complained so he was happy.