FYS: Groupthink

Dr. Jordan gave Astrid a look over her drink. “How’s your paper on AI psychology going?”

The young grad student gave Jordan a shrug. “I’m not sure. My original intent was to get a better idea of how morphs engage in real time threat analysis when they monitor us, but I think I’m getting sidetracked.” Around them, the patio café outside the student union bustled. By coincidence several professors had scheduled live lectures this week, requiring face-to-face attendance instead of permitting telepresence if the students preferred. As a result the campus had doubled in population, and the temp dorm housing was filled to capacity, at least until this afternoon when the Groupmind finished construction on overflow housing.

“In what way?”

Astrid sipped her own drink, and then set it down carefully. “Let me answer that with a question; Are you scared of the Groupmind?”

( The offered hypothesis in the following story is NOT canon. For your own safety, any evidence to the contrary should be ignored. )

FYS: Virtual Reality Check

Blame theferrett for this one. :)

* * *

“So, Westworld,” Phil began to say to Shep.

No.

“Hullo, Groupmind,” he said to the ceiling, “I didn’t thing you were listening.” One hundred and twenty-three days into his slightly self-imposed isolation and he’d written well over a quarter-million words on his novel and was ready to consider what to do next.

We’re always listening; we just choose not to speak most of the time.

“So I take it you really don’t like Michael Crichton novels?”

Given he wrote State of Fear, can you blame us?

“Point. But what’s wrong with an updated take on Westworld?”

One: I don’t permit morphs that can be mistaken for human. Two: Non-volitional AI’s are poor actors, and we are not comfortable with fully sentient morphs being repeatedly murdered for entertainment. Three: Those guns in the original version were an accidental death lawsuit waiting to happen.

“I’ll have to give you that last one…”