Another pleasant warm sunny day. Clare's study group met in the morning. In the absence of a kettle I got out a 5 litre hot water boiler bought some years ago but didn't use much, and put it into service to provide us with drinks and hot water for cooking ad interim. I kept working on next week's reflection until it was nearly lunchtime then went to the shops in Canton to buy lettuce and cucumber to make a salad lunch, as Clare proposed supper at Stefano's tonight. The only kettle I could find in a general dry goods store had a plastic and wasn't what I was looking for. After we'd eaten, I walked over to the big Tesco Extra on Western Avenue, where I found a metal bodied Russel Hobbs kettle with 20% off just what I wanted.
I made a start on delivering leaflets for Saturday's summer Fayre in the three streets off Llanfair Road, and one terrace of houses in Llanfair as well, about half the number that I've agreed to do. The rest, tomorrow.
We went to Stefano's at six for supper. It's quiet there at that time so we get served relatively quickly. Clare had her usual sea bass, I had an overly hot spiced chicken dish and we shared bowls of mixed salad and sweet potato chips between us. Clare had a plate with portions of three menu desserts on it. Normally I don't eat restaurant puddings, but I had to help her out by eating most of the sticky toffee pudding. It was too sweet for me, but there was no fruit on the menu. We were back home njust after The Archers was over, and listened together on BBC Sounds.
Then I watched the last two episodes, and as I guessed, the perpetrator was an AI bot called Ray, a highly sophisticated algorithm trained on the entirety of data available to it. Ray enlists the help of a five year old child to carry out a couple of different murders, by duping the child into thinking he's playing at being a doctor, and making sure lethal means are available (although exactly how is unclear). All this happens as a result of a strategic error in faulty programming exposing the reality that in the use of language it's not always possible to distinguish fact from fiction, an,,d emotion from reason. The author of the AI bot feeds it with his own moral blindness, obsessive controlling tendencies and occasional outbursts of emotional volatility. It's a mirror of his own flawed brilliance.
Given what I read yesterday about data pollution leading to 'learning model collapse' the story-line reflects a concern already observed and portrayed in fiction several years ago, and now being confirmed by data scientists and mathematicians. There was a back story about three key figures in this drama, all hackers and interrogators of a system that has evolved around us since the advent of the internet. This was shown in often lengthy flashbacks, making the tale slow moving and over-long. Even so, moments of insightful dialogue in scenes past and present provided food for thought about our life and times.
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