blasto, meet official opinions on self-replicating minions

[peterxy]

The PRT catches wind of a strange increase in disappeared domestic animals in the downtown area. Given that the people who live there are the rich and powerful, this is clearly a problem that needs to be investigated and solved immediately. The PRT, of course, agrees that this is of utmost importance, and not just because of precedent about mass abductions of pets, of course not, why would you think that, they are so very worried about Fido, even Scion recognizes the merits of rescuing lost pets.

(Lorica's asked to maybe keep a few more eyes there than she has been.)

Comments

[thinkering]

"I don't see how you didn't guess it yourself, really."

[mxglam]

They giggle. "Well, when you mentioned there were different kinds it did become pretty obvious, I suppose."

[thinkering]

"Mm-hm."

[mxglam]

"Anyway. I'm bored, do you have free time? I wanna do the Turing Test."

[thinkering]

"I can extend my lunch break. Remind me what protocol you wanted to do it with?"

[mxglam]

"I didn't define it completely but I think I make a you-copy, I go to my room, one of you comes, we talk for a bit, if that you isn't you you squint at it, I come here, I make a you-copy again, then back to my room, then the one who didn't come the first time comes then, we talk a bit more, then I try to guess which was the real you."

[thinkering]

"Okay. Copy me up."

[mxglam]

Lorica-copy:

exists.

[thinkering]

Lorica and her copy high-five. "Shoo," says one of them. It's hard to tell which when they've both got helmets on.

[mxglam]

So Glam shoos and returns to their room.

[thinkering]

And presently, Lorica knocks.

[msglam]

She opens her door. "Hi, love."

[thinkering]

"Hey you," says the Lorica. She or it sits on Sadde's bed.

[msglam]

"Your bot monitors every conversation you have, doesn't it? Having the exact same conversation twice in a row wouldn't be a good idea."

[thinkering]

"Yeah. I mean, it does have a better memory than I do so unless it was prompting me I couldn't pull off a verbatim duplicate."

[msglam]

"So if this is the real you and your bot were trying to emulate you later, it would also not pull off a verbatim duplicate. Unless you'd want to ask for its help to do it?"

[thinkering]

"I get info from the bot all the time. Reminders and Wikipedia checks and calculations and whatnot. It's probably like thirty effective IQ points when I put the helmet on."

[msglam]

"Thirty?"

[thinkering]

"I haven't actually sat down with a Stanford-Binet," she admits. "But I'm not sure there exist IQ test problems my bot can't do so I might just break it if I took it while flagrantly cheating."

[msglam]

"I suppose. So, if we were to repeat this conversation, would you blatantly cheat?"

[thinkering]

"Unless I had some reason to want to fuck it up, yeah. Better come up with a new opener for trial two."

[msglam]

"Oh, well. Anyway, what've you been working on?"

[thinkering]

"Populating the flock. Patrolling a whole city's a big job for a few dozen."

[msglam]

"Hadn't you been doing that at night already, before?"

[thinkering]

"Yeah, but now I need enough of 'em that they can also perform normal bot functions when I'm patrolling in person or called to some location."