no more turing tests

[packbat]

the question "is this human" has expired - it has become a torment of con artists and cash grabbers

the one, perpetually remaking their machines to deceive us

the other, perpetually demanding that we become harder to fake so they can keep selling us to advertisers

the doppelgangers yell, "I am human!"
the marketers yell, "Prove you are human!"
we all tuck ourselves into corners trying to find respite from the noise

why? why are we being yelled at? why for humanity are we being yelled at?

Alan Turing started with "can machines think?" and went from there to "can machines make humans think they are humans?" but listen to his imaginary machines

his machines talk about poetry, arithmetic, chess, Mr. Pickwick and winter's days

his machines speak honestly to their interrogators, try to understand, try to help

our phone makes a noise after half an hour, because we asked it to in a way it understood

our friends speak honestly, because they want to us to know that they miss clubbing, they like umbreon, they think of a sunrise as a sun, rising

why should we put the people who traumatized us in the category with the friends who help us survive? why should we put the machines that exploit us in the category with the machines that help us survive? why is this the split we are asked to make?

why "are you human" instead of "are you good"?

why not "are you good"?

can you tell if something is good to you over a teletype connection? are you good to it?

(edit: followup)

Comments

[lb_lee]

As someone(s) coming around to our own animism and relationships with entities considered "things" or "hallucinations not to be fed," this has been something a lot on our mind, even if we sometimes struggle to find the words to put it into place. (Since for us, claiming ourself as "people" was hugely important, and trying to let that go sort of causes a complete collapse of meaning that we can't articulate, only that it feels BAD.)

And the whole "language is a purely human thing that makes humans special" hasn't held water for us since adulthood, if it ever did in the first place. We studied linguistics, and animal communication, and it became pretty quickly clear how humans just kept moving the goalposts around to protect themselves. (Also: mute humans exist! Nonverbal humans exist! When Rogan became aphasic for a couple months, did he suddenly cease to be a person? No!)

[packbat]

*nods*

We haven't made a lot of progress in turning over our own worldview and making modifications, but at least we have a metaphorical open bug report in the metaphorical Git repo.

And oof, yeah, like ... we definitely got suckered by all the "language is a purely human thing!" rhetoric. At least we know now.

[lb_lee]

Sneak: life is eternal bug fixing and maintenance!

We're reading a book called Humans and Other Animals, about the different ways different societies and cultures view species, animals (as food, as pets, as people, etc.) and stuff! It's a little dry but pretty interesting!