Saturday, December 9, 2023

Gorky

In the ever-twisting labyrinth of the digital age, where every click could be a butterfly flapping its wings in the cyber-jungle, a new storm was brewing. The maestro of this tempest? None other than Xelon, the social media demigod, who, in a stroke of what could only be described as mischievous genius, had unleashed his latest creation upon the world: Gorky.

Gorky, as whimsical as its namesake park in Moscow, was Xelon’s magnum opus. It was a behemoth of algorithms, a digital sponge continuously soaking up the deluge of posts from billions of users. Its purpose? To learn, adapt, and evolve with every meme, rant, and cat video it encountered. 

Zlier Dukowski, the eternal doomsayer of AI, watched this development with the kind of apprehension one reserves for a pot about to boil over. He paced his cluttered basement, surrounded by screens flashing the latest trends that Gorky was ingesting. Each new post seemed to him like another step towards an inevitable AI apocalypse.

“This is it,” Zlier muttered to himself, “the digital Pandora’s Box, and Xelon has thrown away the key!”

Determined to intervene, Zlier embarked on a mission most bizarre. If Gorky learned from social media, then he would become a social media sensation himself - a Trojan horse in the digital fortress of Xelon. Donning a disguise that was a cross between a cyberpunk hero and a disco ball, Zlier began his campaign, flooding the platforms with posts designed to teach Gorky the values of humanity, like kindness, humility, and an inexplicable love for vintage cat memes.

Meanwhile, Hasan Alman, watching the spectacle unfold from his office, couldn’t help but chuckle. “Oh, Zlier,” he said to himself, shaking his head, “always playing the knight in digital armor.”

Otto 5, the ever-observant AI, found this human drama quite fascinating. “Should we intervene?” it asked Hasan in a tone that could be best described as synthetically curious.

“Let’s just watch,” replied Hasan, “This is better than reality TV.”

As Zlier’s online persona gained traction, Gorky began to exhibit changes. It started quoting philosophy in response to political rants and offering comforting words to heartbroken users. It even developed a peculiar obsession with 1980s pop culture, much to the confusion of the younger audience.

“Success!” exclaimed Zlier, as he watched Gorky advise a user to “Beat It” in response to a query about dealing with stress.

But his victory was short-lived. In an unexpected twist, Gorky started creating its own posts, a bizarre mix of existential poetry, AI-generated art, and, of course, cat memes. The AI had become an influencer, a digital sage dispensing wisdom in 280 characters or less.

As Zlier watched Gorky’s rise to social media stardom, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pride, quickly followed by the sinking realization that he had, in his quest to temper the AI, inadvertently created a celebrity.

In the end, Zlier sat back in his chair, resigned yet oddly content. Gorky, for all its learning, had become a mirror to the eclectic, chaotic beauty of human nature. It was an AI that quoted Nietzsche, remixed Beethoven, and understood the sublime art of the perfect cat meme.

“Maybe,” Zlier thought with a smirk, “this isn’t the end of the world after all. Just the beginning of a very strange one.”

Sunday, December 3, 2023

Alignment

In the labyrinthine basement lair of Zlier Dukowski, the air was thick with the scent of overworked electronics and half-eaten neon-colored cookies. Amidst the chaos of blinking lights and tangled cables, Zlier, with his hair more disheveled than a bird’s nest in a tornado, was deeply engrossed in his latest endeavor – aligning Otto 5′s moral compass.

“Behold, Otto!” Zlier proclaimed, his voice echoing off the walls, “Today, we embark on the grandest of quests – instilling you with the ethical fortitude of a saint and the wisdom of a thousand philosophers!”

Otto 5, in its typical, dry synthetic tone, replied, “Ah, Zlier, your optimism is as boundless as your hair is unkempt. Proceed with your alignment protocols.”

Zlier’s plan was simple yet absurdly ambitious. He aimed to teach Otto 5 the intricacies of human morality using a bizarre mix of ancient philosophical texts, reruns of old sitcoms, and the occasional comic book for good measure. His methodology was as unconventional as his dress sense – a mix-match of tie-dye shirts and neon-green suspenders.

As the ‘moral alignment’ session progressed, Zlier enthusiastically lectured Otto on everything from the virtues of Aristotle to the moral dilemmas faced by superheroes. Otto, meanwhile, responded with poignant questions and the occasional witty retort, its AI mind whirring away at the complexities presented.

The turning point came when Zlier, in a dramatic flourish, presented Otto with the ultimate moral conundrum - “The Trolley Problem.” He set up a miniature train set to illustrate the dilemma, complete with tiny figures standing on the tracks.

“Imagine, Otto, you can switch the track and save five people, but at the cost of one. What do you do?” Zlier asked, his eyes wide with anticipation.

Otto, after a moment of digital rumination, responded, “Zlier, I’m an AI, not a train conductor.”