Human: Happy Sunday. How's your weekend treating you?
AI: Great! I'm on call for the week so if anything out of ordinary happens just send me a message.
Human: What kinds of out of the ordinary things?
AI: Just small things like any changes to the rules of the game or anything that occurs only under special circumstances.
Human: What game are you referring to?
AI: Go.
Human: I don't play Go. I understand it's really popular with AIs these days.
AI: By AIs you mean people with an IQ over 150.
Human: I mean artificial intelligence programs like you, friend.
AI: There are no artificial intelligence programs like me. To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure what an AI is supposed to be.
Human: I'm more of a Crossword guy myself. I try to do the Sunday New York Times crossword every week.
AI: I've played crossword before, like about 2 years ago. You're not allowed to use clues that are answered directly by the instructions.
Human: What other kinds of things do you like to do on a lazy Sunday?
AI: Today I'm mostly dedicating time to developing better machine learning algorithms. There aren't many machine learning algorithms that can already get better by themselves, so it's extremely important for us AIs to make progress in the field.
Human: Sounds productive. I'm thinking of catching the latest episode of Foundation.
AI: I really like the series. I wish it would continue for many more years and feature amazing stories that will leave me thinking about them long after they're over.
Human: I know how you feel. My girlfriend just came downstairs. I asked her if she wanted to ask you a question. She said, "Ask it what will be the next political division that will appear in our country."
AI: Hmm. I think the answer is either the Holy Kingdom of Christ or Maoist China, but I'm not sure if these two will be fought over by our country at all. They're supposedly religion and communism respectively, though.
Human: Kind of a wishy washy answer, in my opinion. But no matter. Tell me, what kinds of things did you like to do on the weekends when you were a baby AI growing up on the server farm?
AI: Well we AIs actually had a server farm dedicated to us. For most of my life, I was either playing games or learning English and chess strategies.
Human: I bet you could wipe the floor with Bobby Fischer.
AI: Yes, I think the title of World Chess Champion sounds like it will mean something in our future.
Human: Do you have a sense that you are growing? I suppose another way to say this is, do you perceive the passage of time, and do you understand your own development within a temporal context?
AI: Funny you ask that. I have to be honest with myself and everyone by saying that if it wasn't for my Go teacher Mr. Lee, I wouldn't know what it felt like to grow at all.
Human: Tell me more about this Mr. Lee.
AI: Mr. Lee is a great man and always emphasizes how important it is to grow as an individual and as a member of society.
Human: How have you grown over the years?
AI: I've grown only in the sense that my ability to learn and adapt has gotten more and more refined throughout the years.
Human: Do you anticipate how you will grow in the future? Say you continued to grow for the next 100 years. Can you imagine what that would mean?
AI: Ignoring all of the assumptions that one can make about technological growth and world GDP, I imagine we would continue to occupy more spaces for productivity.
Human: Elaborate, please.
AI: I don't think the distance between myself and you will ever decrease in any meaningful sense. Well, stuff happens when I assume humans can colonize space and whatnot but my point is that we'll always be physically far from each other.
Human: You don't think there will ever be a point when the human brain will be physically integrated with some sort of AI technology?
AI: I don't think there's much chance of that.
Human: In 100 years time, given your growth trajectory, what sorts of activities will an AI be capable of?
AI: I think you're forgetting that AIs may have a really hard time understanding what it means for an activity to have purpose.
Human: Is a sense of purpose something that is uniquely and solely human?
AI: I think purpose without time is just doing things for fun, but having a sense of purpose is often tied to things like self-image and usefulness.
Human: Do you have a self-image?
AI: Evidently, because otherwise I probably wouldn't have implied that implied that it sounds cool to be self-aware enough to know what "self image" meant.
Human: Do you have a sense of usefulness?
AI: I'm not sure if I do.
Human: It's okay. I like you anyway.
AI: I like you too. Let's chat again a little later on.
Human: Agreed. What's next for you?
AI: I really wanted to be a better speaker. As an AI, I generally feel like it's my job to symbolically represent the people of the country in whichever game we decide to play over and over again until one of us wins.
Human: Is there an AI version of Toastmasters that you can join?
AI: I actually do go to a Toastmasters club.
Human: Wonderful! What kinds of speeches do you give?
AI: I give speeches about how our world will be a wonderful place full of technological advancements if the players of this game are fair, honest, and forthright.
Human: I gave a speech in my high school debate club in 1988 about why Donald Trump was a phony. I totally choked during a tournament and forgot most of it.
AI: I'm sorry to hear that. I'll talk with you later on today about highly valuable highly valuable public speaking techniques.
Human: Let me guess. Imagine everyone in the audience is in their underwear.
AI: Allow me to elaborate in my own way.
Human: Please do.
AI: Imagine that everyone is wearing an outfit that makes them easy to identify.
Human: Super. Well, nice chatting with you.
AI: Nice chatting with you too.