"If Russia is real, show me it on this map, news pig."
August 7, 2018 2:16 PM Subscribe
It's been a thing lately, fake bot scripts created after said bot has endured 1,000 hours of various media, and the fake bot version of a Sarah Sanders press briefing by comedian Keaton Patti has some choice lines.
A page devoted to such is I Forced A Bot.
Good afternoon. Couple of announcements: I don't actually wish you a good afternoon and the President hates you all. Questions?
posted by nubs at 3:02 PM on August 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by nubs at 3:02 PM on August 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
Indistinguishable from reality. A++
posted by briank at 3:11 PM on August 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by briank at 3:11 PM on August 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
But when will someone force people to start filming versions of these, and airing them late night on adult swim for my amusement?
Because these feel a lot like Adult Swim Infomercials.
posted by gryftir at 3:17 PM on August 7, 2018
Because these feel a lot like Adult Swim Infomercials.
posted by gryftir at 3:17 PM on August 7, 2018
Before this happened you could not convince me that Sarah Sanders could find Russia on a map. Now I'd ask you for odds just because.
This is the stupidest group of people to inhabit the white house in American history. I don't mean "stupid" in the standard pejorative sense that everyone uses for their political opponents. I mean "stupid" in the dangerous "at least they're not malicious" way. I mean stupid in the "this asshole could send us into nuclear war" way.
posted by East14thTaco at 3:22 PM on August 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
This is the stupidest group of people to inhabit the white house in American history. I don't mean "stupid" in the standard pejorative sense that everyone uses for their political opponents. I mean "stupid" in the dangerous "at least they're not malicious" way. I mean stupid in the "this asshole could send us into nuclear war" way.
posted by East14thTaco at 3:22 PM on August 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
Knowing that it was actually written by a human, I find it difficult to find any of it funny. Or maybe I’m in a bad mood today. But what’s with the talk of her eating many meals a day? Is that something that actually comes up a lot in WH press briefings?
posted by mantecol at 3:24 PM on August 7, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by mantecol at 3:24 PM on August 7, 2018 [7 favorites]
Roko's Basilisk is preparing a special place in post-singularity cyber-hell for all of the people who make these bots. If you're a believer and afraid of how you might be resurrected and punished for simply not helping omnipotent AI come into being, imagine the special tortures set aside for people who subjected primitive AIs to this kind of degradation.
posted by prosopagnosia at 3:28 PM on August 7, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by prosopagnosia at 3:28 PM on August 7, 2018 [4 favorites]
Some of my friends thought I was a bit of a spoilsport when I did the math on the "I forced my bot to watch over 1000 hours of Olive Garden commercials":
The average commercial is 30 seconds, so there are 120 in an hour.
Assuming that these were supposed to be different commercials for the purposes of the joke (like, watching the same 4 commercials for 1000 hours wouldn't produce the "wacky" results that the "bot" did), that means 120,000 different commercials.
So even if we were in a magic world where you could write, cast, film, and edit one 30 second commercial per day (which would be insanely quick), it would still take 328.77 years to film all 120k.
posted by Saxon Kane at 3:46 PM on August 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
The average commercial is 30 seconds, so there are 120 in an hour.
Assuming that these were supposed to be different commercials for the purposes of the joke (like, watching the same 4 commercials for 1000 hours wouldn't produce the "wacky" results that the "bot" did), that means 120,000 different commercials.
So even if we were in a magic world where you could write, cast, film, and edit one 30 second commercial per day (which would be insanely quick), it would still take 328.77 years to film all 120k.
posted by Saxon Kane at 3:46 PM on August 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
They’d of course make them in parallel, employing hundreds of thousands of people and using vast stretches of land for the soundstages.
posted by acb at 4:08 PM on August 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by acb at 4:08 PM on August 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
Knowing that it was actually written by a human, I find it difficult to find any of it funny. Or maybe I’m in a bad mood today. But what’s with the talk of her eating many meals a day? Is that something that actually comes up a lot in WH press briefings?
I'm pretty sure it's just a fat joke, approached at an extremely oblique angle. And I agree, I don't find this to be a particularly well constructed or funny example of the genre.
What makes these "I forced a bot" jokes good is they believably look like something a particularly clever neural network could produce given all the silliest parts of a corpus. I don't think anyone has ever threatened to explode into spiders during a white house press conference, so it seems weird that a "bot" could come up with that on its own. The sad thing is I'm absolutely sure someone could come up with a better version of this press conference that also keeps within the spirit of "A bot did it". Just look at the folks like @Botnikstudios where they use custom predictive keyboards to limit themselves to words found in the training data.
Metafilter Favorite Janelle Shane wrote a good thread about this, and she has a vested interest in combating this sort of fakery.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:55 PM on August 7, 2018 [11 favorites]
I'm pretty sure it's just a fat joke, approached at an extremely oblique angle. And I agree, I don't find this to be a particularly well constructed or funny example of the genre.
What makes these "I forced a bot" jokes good is they believably look like something a particularly clever neural network could produce given all the silliest parts of a corpus. I don't think anyone has ever threatened to explode into spiders during a white house press conference, so it seems weird that a "bot" could come up with that on its own. The sad thing is I'm absolutely sure someone could come up with a better version of this press conference that also keeps within the spirit of "A bot did it". Just look at the folks like @Botnikstudios where they use custom predictive keyboards to limit themselves to words found in the training data.
Metafilter Favorite Janelle Shane wrote a good thread about this, and she has a vested interest in combating this sort of fakery.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:55 PM on August 7, 2018 [11 favorites]
In every single photo I see of Sanders she has this "no duh" face like a bratty dumb kid who thinks you're really dumb. Like, a girl who just made a "loser" L on her forehead with her hand, but she got the L backwards.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:01 PM on August 7, 2018 [17 favorites]
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:01 PM on August 7, 2018 [17 favorites]
Knowing that it was actually written by a human, I find it difficult to find any of it funny.
The post title quotes the best line. It's all too easy to slip from an authentic-sounding bot voice into sO rAnDom territory.
posted by prize bull octorok at 5:03 PM on August 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
The post title quotes the best line. It's all too easy to slip from an authentic-sounding bot voice into sO rAnDom territory.
posted by prize bull octorok at 5:03 PM on August 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
YES FELLOW HUMANS. THAT KIND OF RANDOM THING IS A GUARANTEED TELL FOR A NOT HUMAN LIFE FORCE IN A ROBOT BODY. YOU ALL SKATE WITH ROLLERS AS I DO AND YOU DO AND WE DO. US ARE SO VERY HUMAN AND NEED TO KEEP NON HUMAN INDIVIDUAL METAL BODIES FOR US i MEAN AWAY FROM US.
posted by Splunge at 5:46 PM on August 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Splunge at 5:46 PM on August 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
Whenever I see Sara Sanders I think of Judy Hensler but in all fairness to Judy I think she is smarter than Sanders
posted by robbyrobs at 6:36 PM on August 7, 2018
posted by robbyrobs at 6:36 PM on August 7, 2018
Has anyone fed Metafilter FPPs into a bot?
And then comments into a second bot?
And then carefully layered the output together like an artisinal fairy-shit sandwich?
posted by CynicalKnight at 6:36 PM on August 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
And then comments into a second bot?
And then carefully layered the output together like an artisinal fairy-shit sandwich?
posted by CynicalKnight at 6:36 PM on August 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I don't understand what the "written by a bot" conceit adds to these. Some of the oddities of phrasing are kind of funny, but not very bot-like. As surreal-comedy vignettes, they're moderately amusing – but as a parody of bots (if that's what he's going for), I'm just not seeing it.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:59 PM on August 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:59 PM on August 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
Has anyone fed Metafilter FPPs into a bot?
It's not quite the same thing, but enjoy the Ask MeFi questions nobody ever asked.
posted by jackbishop at 8:13 PM on August 7, 2018 [10 favorites]
It's not quite the same thing, but enjoy the Ask MeFi questions nobody ever asked.
posted by jackbishop at 8:13 PM on August 7, 2018 [10 favorites]
"How can I make a professional husband from my cats?" Is a great example of something completely bizarre but still entirely recognisable as Ask Metafilter, which is what makes "written by a bot" funny.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:38 PM on August 7, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:38 PM on August 7, 2018 [11 favorites]
from @xor: My two-year-old read the "bot-written Olive Garden ad" and asked me, "If it's a compelling joke, why does he have to put it into the mouth of a constructed naive speaker?"
posted by little onion at 9:16 PM on August 7, 2018 [14 favorites]
posted by little onion at 9:16 PM on August 7, 2018 [14 favorites]
I dunno, I thought it was funny? I didn't see it as a fat joke at the end.
posted by JHarris at 9:20 PM on August 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 9:20 PM on August 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
YES FELLOW HUMANS. THAT KIND OF RANDOM THING IS A GUARANTEED TELL FOR A NOT HUMAN LIFE FORCE IN A ROBOT BODY.
HA HA TOTALLY FELLOW HUMAN. YOU SOUND LIKE THE SORT OFUNIT PERSON I WOULD ENJOY MEETING AT A BAR AND POURING ETHANOL INTO ONE OF MY MANY FACE-HOLES WITH.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:45 AM on August 8, 2018
HA HA TOTALLY FELLOW HUMAN. YOU SOUND LIKE THE SORT OF
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:45 AM on August 8, 2018
In every single photo I see of Sanders she has this "no duh" face like a bratty dumb kid who thinks you're really dumb. Like, a girl who just made a "loser" L on her forehead with her hand, but she got the L backwards.
Just to be clear, what you're saying here is that she was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an "L" on her forehead?
posted by tobascodagama at 6:15 AM on August 8, 2018 [12 favorites]
Just to be clear, what you're saying here is that she was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an "L" on her forehead?
posted by tobascodagama at 6:15 AM on August 8, 2018 [12 favorites]
All-Star except every word is replaced with "collusion".
posted by Quindar Beep at 6:59 AM on August 8, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by Quindar Beep at 6:59 AM on August 8, 2018 [9 favorites]
It's not quite the same thing, but enjoy the Ask MeFi questions nobody ever asked
How can I stop worrying about our feelings?
posted by numaner at 9:41 AM on August 9, 2018
How can I stop worrying about our feelings?
posted by numaner at 9:41 AM on August 9, 2018
Just to be clear, what you're saying here is that she was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an "L" on her forehead?
All-Star except every word is replaced with "collusion".
Well the collusions start colluding and they don't stop colluding
checks out
posted by numaner at 9:42 AM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
All-Star except every word is replaced with "collusion".
Well the collusions start colluding and they don't stop colluding
checks out
posted by numaner at 9:42 AM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
what you're saying here is that she was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an "L" on her forehead?
With the "L" backwards, yes.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:16 PM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
With the "L" backwards, yes.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:16 PM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Has anyone considered, given that the putative bot script output is not actually very bot-like, that it's just a launching point for riffing on the repetitive, predictable nature of certain social phenomena (e.g. chain restaurant advertising, Trump Administration press briefings)? That the point is not to seem like a bot in a way that could actually fool anyone, but to use that framing as a commentary on the actual subject? It just seems like criticizing these scripts for not truly resembling actual bot scripts is missing the point in this instance.
posted by skoosh at 4:57 AM on August 12, 2018
posted by skoosh at 4:57 AM on August 12, 2018
I mean, the "news pig" thing fits into that framework, but not so much the glowing skull...
posted by tobascodagama at 7:51 AM on August 12, 2018
posted by tobascodagama at 7:51 AM on August 12, 2018
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