if exists(thing) {
write(thing);
} else {
write(“I do not know”);
}

Yea I see what you mean, I guess in that sense they know if a state is true or false.

Then in that respect AIs aren’t even as powerful as an ordinary computer program.

No computer programs “know” anything. They’re just sets of instructions with varying complexity.

Isn’t there an theory that a truly sentient and benevolent AI would immediately shut itself down because it would be aware that it was having a catastrophic impact on the environment and that action would be the best one it could take for humanity?

Yea, if nothing else hopefully this will make at least a few kids think about online privacy.

I can’t say for certain because I wasn’t given one but I can’t imagine me and my friends would have been willing to communicate with each other on devices provided by our school. Even in the early 00s it would have been filled with spyware.

Yea that’s something that I thought about when I rewatched Serial Experiments Lain recently. It was made in 1998 and they correctly predicted that in the future the internet was going to become mainstream, but because the only way to access it then was with PCs they also assumed that would mean that everyone would become super interested in computers too and most of the characters have rigs that would put mine to shame. Fascinating how one didn’t require the other, which I think would have seemed unbelievable at the time.

So was it standing, like, completely upright? Or was it more of a squat?

Oh yes, yesterday, that was when my troubles seemed so far away.

🫡

Oh, The Simpsons lied to me, through animation. I hate when people do that.

But it was as your ancestors did. Once, maybe.

Oh please Christ tell me that kids these days aren’t that dumb when it comes to computers.

Yea, I can remember when the advice was to create a “handle” and never use your real details.

Every day I’ve been making!

I’d do the “The Nations of the World” but I put my back out last time.

Remove “Burger Owner” from the headline.

Ugandan dollars

And I want a toilet made out of solid gold, but it’s just not in cards now is it.

Yakub!