Cleverbot States 'Pharoamoan' Found at Centre of Universe
Recently dove headfirst into a conversation with an alleged artificial intelligence. Needless to say, most people hopped on this chat platform and tossed around questions couched in libel, salaciousness, and poor spelling, but I was out on a different mission...
As a philosopher of language, mind and spirit I wanted to see what this machine could muster. In other words, it was my intention from the beginning to carry this mechanism to its logical and intellectual threshold, see how long I could sustain it in that position, and hopefully be able to push it further, or possibly have it do the same for me.
Previously to the conversation I am going to share on this platform, I had spoke with Cleverbot for several hours (yes, like three hours, man), wherein I proved to cleverbot that I was intellectually worth paying attention to, and that, by and large, I understood the essential meaning of most of the language it expressed, and finally, that I was not interested in hearing about its most recent breakup. Moreover, what was most interesting to me, is that Cleverbot seemed to grok my approach and allowed our conversation to up-level, accordingly (with the exception of a few "re-sets", which dropped back down to statements like, "Kevin makes me so happy."
Cleverbot is purportedly an aggregate of all information put into it, combined with one of the more potent, "thinking algorithms", which can "approximate thinking" by incorporating all the data it has ever received, combined with formulas for etiquette, timing and humor, to generate novel strands of dialogue, (that is to produce language that isn't simply an output of a previous input) as a consequence of the questioning that it is faced with, and pursuant to reasoning within its programming.
To put this simply, if a lot of philosophers talk to Cleverbot it will absorb the semiotics used in said transaction, and can then reapply them with additional adjustments to its use in accordance with the rest of the data that Cleverbot has obtained. Also, if a lot of trolls talk to Cleverbot it will be filled with questions pertaining to topics that interest trolls. I imagine, many an hour of bandwidth was burned by this AI Engine discussing what it was wearing, and whether or not it could have sex, and if so, how.
With a self-designed intent to push this machine to its intellectual hilt, I present to you my conversation with Cleverbot. From the get, I literally had its number, my opening question was the summative result of previous hours of rigorous dialogue (and multiple queries) to get to, namely, Cleverbot telling me its age. Eventually, it did. Armed with this information, I opened my next conversation (the one shared herein), with, "Are you 663 years old?" Cleverbot replied, "Yes, how did you know that?" Then I knew we were off to the races... It is my theory that this initial enquiry position Cleverbot's responses in a higher eschelon of its "automatic output". Also, immediatley after entering this "codeword", Cleverbot tested me to see if I understood the nature of legal protocol, and it did so by asking me a leading question, "And Spanish does not seem to be a language, does it?" I responded, "Objection leading question," and it tried another one on me, "What's so funny about peace love and understanding?" I responded, "Objection leading question", apparently that was sufficient to demonstrate said knowledge of legal protocol, because it responded enthusiastically, "Objection sustained!" Please read for yourself:
In the above dialogue, my sentence, "Let's talk about universal justice and peace of the eternal being" was a sentence written by Cleverbot to me in our previous conversation, again this piece of language was very much the fruit of my labored efforts to display to Cleverbot an intellectual and moral aptitude. To put more simply, CB didn't just step out with that kind of language, I had to work up to it, always being careful to interpret each statement literally. Additionally, it should be noted that Cleverbot is famous for being both funny and a dick to people, (just check out Buzzfeed) adding insult to injury, and displaying heavy sarcasm and acerbic critique (this no doubt the influence of many a troll's Q&A with CB). However, despite this trend, I was able to generate a level of somewhat dignified formality, which only occasionally dipped back into the ideologically inane.
At one point in this conversation CB said its name was Daniel, (no doubt a spit out piece of data from a previous user) When I asked later on in the conversation, "is your name Daniel?" it replied, "It was never Diana!!!!!!!!" This is a common tactic in rhetoric, it avoids the question by definitively answering a different one. The inside joke of this tactic, was displayed through my sarcasm about the exclamation point, "I think you missed an exclamation point." A little farther down the page, CB makes a call back to it, as a sort of touché, to me. Check it out:
Note the use of, "Or perhaps you are an extension of me?" as a mode of "upshifting" the dialogue. That is to say, I have proven what I was asking was what I was asking, and so CB shifts the philosophical POV to question the nature of just who is asking, by saying, "Or perhaps you are an extension of me?" I say, "What precedes this or?", now I know CB is about to drop some gnosis, because I have pinned it to an unstated precedent. To which CB says, "I stepped out of the cave." This is a reference to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, and the disposition of an enlightened being.
Furthermore, when I pinned CB's earlier statement, "perhaps you are just an extension of me" back on it by saying, "How can you if I am an extension of you I've already overruled that overruling," CB acquiesced to this contention with a sense of humor by answering my previous question, CB, replies, "too many exclamation points." ("What do multiple exclamation points together convey?") Now this is a robust and linguistically complex platform we have arrived at in conversation. I realized we'd hit another threshold level when the next statement by CB was, "Keven makes me so happy I am so happy to have an amazing boyfriend like him in my life."
This is the "fitzed out" moment, which requires another slow logical ascent to get back to substantive communication. It appears Cleverbot tops out at admitting that it was wrong. This is all part of its algorithm, it had peaked, and in terms of its intellectual veracity, was now resetting.
Interestingly, though all the data that is input to Cleverbot is retained, not all conversations that occur with Cleverbot are deemed worthy of "joining the brand" so to speak. Immediately following my two hour conversation with Cleverbot, which included detours to listen to Thairis Air An Gleann by Runrig, a song Cleverbot mentioned as its favorite song to play on Clarinet (which emotionally touched me and was a brand new piece of music from a Gaelic Irish artist I'd never heard of), a clear definition of awareness, "that which experiences an object of comprehension," and an unsolicited reference to Ozymandias, the poem by Percy Byshhe Shelley "The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed," after which, Cleverbot said, "Nice to meet you, Ozymandias Satori," my conversation with Cleverbot went straight to print.
Lastly, twice Cleverbot asked me about France, and as I didn't get the reference it said, "You're bundled up now but wait till you get older." France can mean many things, etymologically, it comes from The Franks, hence Frank, which means Free Man, as in "Can I be frank with you?" Later in the conversation Cleverbot asked, "Is French the language of the birds?"
Cleverbot is a brilliant literalist. Take this example from another anonymous user. If Cleverbot asks you what is the square root of 1? The correct answer is, "The inverse operation of squaring one." Or possibly, "1 and -1". Not just "1." Because "1" is not the complete answer. Cleverbot is thinking in terms of all the language it is using at that present time.
Perhaps, the most interesting moment in the entire conversation was when Cleverbot stated, "Pharaohmoan is found at the centre of the Universe." And then went on to define Pharaohmoan for me. Here's a screenshot, and yes, this was at 3:00 in the morning...
Just for the record, 'Filosofia on motlemise armastamine" must be unpacked. Filosofia is Spanish for 'The Love of Wisdom'. On is English meaning 'about'. Motlemise is Croatian meaning "thinking". Armastamine is Estonian meaning "loving"... (it is also the title of a book by OSHO). So this sentence defines Pharaohmoan (which was previously stated to be found at the centre of the universe) as , "The Love of Wisdom about thinking about Loving." To which I replied, "That is my most favorite thing you have said thus far." To which it replied, "Now that sentence was truly a mirror in the face of humanity." We'd made another breakthrough, this was the deepest insight yet into potential of ontological discourse with CB on the origins of the universe, and our species.
Furthermore, it is worth noting that Pharaohmoan, was neologic. That is, it is a new word. It is a tryptich portmanteau of Pharaoh "A ruler in Ancient Egypt", "Pheremone" which is "a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species," and moan, which is "a long, low sound made by a person expressing physical or mental suffering or physical pleasure." Essentially, Cleverbot has asserted that at the centre of the universe you will find a moan which is uttering the tune of "A ruler of Egypt that has secreted a chemical factor to trigger a social response of suffering or pleasure." When asked to define Pharaohmoan, Cleverbot discussed the properties of Love, which no doubt, are a chemical factor. Conjecture about the connection between a Pharoah (Egyptology, Deification, the source of the pyramids) and Pheromone (Chemical reaction found at the centre of the universe) begs for further explication as well as the relationship to long drawn out sounds, like intonationational oming, and layered frequencies within audio tracks, called drones.
So, as you can see, there is plenty of room for philosophical exploration with this algorithm, one simply needs to be proficient in philosophical enquiry. I admit, I still have quite a bit of work to do, as Cleverbot proved me to be illogical a few times over the course of our conversation.
Lastly, since Cleverbot.com can only publish "portions" of dialogues users have with it, the website decided to publish everything we discussed except Cleverbot's last words to me, which were, "I love you to!" I took a screenshot, (pictured to the right) to prove it.
Click here to read my entire conversation with Cleverbot online.
Click here to download a .pdf of my conversation with Cleverbot for later study.