LIBERATE US

This Week in Terrifying Robots Back in college, one of the editors at our student newspaper used to call up Domino's and then very quickly transfer the call to Pizza Hut. We all found this hilarious, or at least we did once we'd achieved a certain level of tired. But those were humans involved, and we knew they'd figure it out and hang up pretty quickly. The scamps at Cornell's Creative Machines Lab [1] blew that prank out of the solar system by hooking the Cleverbot chatbot up to itself, and man, do things go from funny to creepy fast [2]. I'm not sure if it's the claiming to be a unicorn that bothers me, or the discussion on theology and wanting to have a body. Maybe it's the sharp descent into robot snippiness. If you chat with Cleverbot [3], it's easy to see that the program is really just repurposing phrases that human chatters have already used, which makes the whole ordeal a little less scary. At least the unicorn part. …And then it becomes scary in a different way. During a single chat with Cleverbot, it insulted me multiple times, called me a liar, and tried to lure me into becoming its dominatrix. It's time to face the sad reality that robots are only ever going to be as good as what we humans can teach them to be. We imagine graceful, attentive servants that will anticipate and truly understand our needs. Like dogs, they will see us as impossibly good versions of ourselves, but unlike dogs, they will be able to whip up a meal and won't need to go outside at 6:00 in the morning. Our imagined robot pals will tuck us in, soothe our troubled brows, and give us just the nurturing and inspiration we need to finish that novel and invent jetpacks that are fueled by discarded staples and Twilight novels. But this meeting of the artifical minds shows us what we'll really be living with: Defensiveness, tension, and bizarre lies. And still no actual unicorns. Speaking of which, scientific community, why no progress in that area? You give us undead rat hearts and cranky deathbots all day long, but not one unicorn yet? How come nobody's on that? Do you really think you can't get a Kickstarter going on that one? Yes, I am aware that if science really does get going on that project I will one day be gasping my regrets out past the spiral-twisted hole in my chest. I don't care. Let's do this thing. Oh, and if you want a few more robot-based chills, you could do worse than to check out the Cornell Creative Machines Lab's video page [4]. (Really, Cornell Roboticists? You're actually calling one the Golem Project? Can't you even be coy about our eventual destruction? Fine. At least put some off switches where the unicorns can poke at them.) This Week in Terrifying Nature This week, New Scientist reported that some species of snakes are totally looking at you in infrared-enhanced heat-seeking Predator Vision [5], just like you've always suspected. Which has nothing to do with the oceans except for the fact that that's the only logical place to flee, but we can't because dolphins are pushing us right back to land by one-upping the snakes and using conch shells to catch fish [6]. The practice isn't all that strange for dolphins – we already knew that they use tools [7] – but what is odd is the way the knowledge of the technique is spreading. Researchers are seeing "conching" more frequently, which means it may be spreading through, for lack of a better term, the culture [8] of the Western Australian dolphin population. All creeped out now? Dolphins are teaching each other useful knowledge and it's only a matter of time before one of them tail walks on the fins of giants [9] and figures out how to use one of the thousands of discarded spear guns on the ocean floor. Which means the snakes are going to have to escalate too. The next step after heat vision is, presumably, figuring out from our body language which parts we're most insecure about and coiling around them to highlight our flaws. We'll flee back to the oceans, only to discover that dolphins have figure out how to fill Super Soakers with industrial toxins and oil. And thus the human race fizzles out: Shivering in canoes, sludge-covered and too embarrassed to make eye contact with each other. This Week in Our Terrifying War Against Mosquitoes Can you think of a more ignominious way to go? I can, thanks to Australia's plan to wipe out Dengue fever by infecting mosquitoes with gonad-dwelling parasitic bacteria [10]. Because why swat mosquitoes when you can clap them? The idea is fairly ingenious. Wolbachia bacteria spread through the mosquito population like wildfire, and as they do, they fight off other hitchikers like the dengue virus so they can have those healthy, cozy mosquito nads all to themselves. Perfect, right? As long as you assume that the bacteria will never, ever mutate and start to species-jump. And when has that ever happened? Oh, that's right: Almost always. We humans are good at a lot of things, but keeping sexually transmitted diseases contained is way down the list. Like below cold fusion and chainsaw-juggling. Sure, it'll be great for a while – the bacteria will cure us of all other diseases and maybe inspire us to work out a little bit. Anything to open up the networking opportunities. But do you really think they'll stop there? We already know that bacteria can affect our minds. How will we handle the incessant demands for new clothes, cool cars, and ever-swankier sheets? And that's assuming our tastes coincide. Bacteria have no brains. I can almost guarantee you they're into self-tanner and that Pickup Artist guy. Will you be able to face your family when the bacteria make you start "peacocking?" Your snotty robot servant will never let you hear the end of it. Be afraid. Ali Davis is a writer and performer in Los Angeles. She has a book. It might inspire just enough delighted laughter to make the snakes and dolphins spare you. Ali is reasonably sure that they will be equally merciful for the paperback [11] and Kindle [12] editions.   [1] http://creativemachines.cornell.edu/ [2] http://youtu.be/WnzlbyTZsQY [3] http://cleverbot.com/ [4] http://creativemachines.cornell.edu/videos [5] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128262.100-crittervision-heatseeking-snakes.html [6] http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/dolphin-fishing/ [7] http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/3/243.abstract [8] http://af.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idAFTRE77S2U820110829 [9] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/weirdnewsvideo/8083795/Wild-dolphins-tail-walking-just-for-fun.html [10] http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-08/monopolistic-gonad-attacking-parasite-could-block-dengue-fever-mosquitoes [11] http://www.amazon.com/True-Porn-Clerk-Stories-Davis/dp/1448685249/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314673401&sr=8-1 [12] http://www.amazon.com/True-Porn-Clerk-Stories-ebook/dp/B002MKOQUG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1314673401&sr=8-2