“Only a sadistic scoundrel—or a fool—tells the bald truth on social occasions.”
–Lazarus Long
It’s not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that.
The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth — but not all of it.
The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it…but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.
Speaking of robots, I was watching CNN this
morning (Recon, you see) and an English
lady was showing off her A.I. attractive
female actress she was promoting.
This thing/robot was carrying on a
conversation like a regular person,
with an English accent.
I had occasion to call walmart’s ‘help’ line to ask why they stopped sending the paper flyers and now I couldn’t acces the online one anymore without making an ‘account’. The voice that answered sounded very human, not at all like the roboscam ones you get, It spoke and interacted exactly like a human, with proper inflection, speech rythym and changes in tone, to the point that I actually asked it if I was speaking to a human or not and it said it was an AI….the chatbot on the complaint page where you type in what you need is virtually useless but this one made me nervous…my son works in online customer service and has for years, he’s very good at it and gets paid accordingly, but this is a jobkiller…on the bright side, it didn’t have an unintelligible east indian accent to try and deal with.
Oddly enough, no sooner had I said the flyer wasn’t showing up on my screen, the voice said it could ‘see’ it and then as if by magic, the image suddenly popped up on my previously blank screen without my refreshing it….problem solved, but at what cost ?
My experience has been the opposite. Several times, I tried to get AIs to draw simple engineering-type figures for me (ex.: a lidless box of dimensions a, b, and c) and gotten the weirdest crap back, everything but what I wanted. One particular AI in general would send me three completely off the wall drawings (many obviously copied from other websites), then flatly deny it had sent me more than one image which was exactly what I had asked for. It would tell me, “here’s your image,” then show me nothing; when I complained there was nothing there, it insisted it was and it could see it. I don’t even attempt to use AIs for this anymore.
September 12, 2026 at 7:27 pm
Oldarmourer
Given the quality and speed of reaction to my comments, I’m not entirely convinced it wasn’t a living human masquerading as an AI for some reason known only to senior management, possibly in a position called ‘Alternate Identifier’ or somesuch to make it not entirely a lie and to give the illusion that they had this high tech ‘AI’ nobody else has and impress customers…but I swear I could hear it breathe.
September 12, 2026 at 3:33 pm
Henry
“CHAPERONE SOLD ME. CAN I GET A WITNESS, Y’KNOW?”
40 years ago, a guy who set up a hidden camera in his bedroom was a pervert. Now he’s just a diligent fellow collecting self-defense evidence.
12 Comments
Mark Twain supposedly said: “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” He’d probably agree… transcripts would come in handy.
“Only a sadistic scoundrel—or a fool—tells the bald truth on social occasions.”
–Lazarus Long
It’s not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that.
The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth — but not all of it.
The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it…but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.
Everybody lies about sex.
Robert A. Heinlein
Zar Belk!
One of my favorite authors…..
His ‘Notebooks…’ are very useful.
Why reword an idea that is already defined?
Chris, I salute having Mari channel Sophie Cunningham. Now THAT is social commentary. Erste Klasse!
Speaking of robots, I was watching CNN this
morning (Recon, you see) and an English
lady was showing off her A.I. attractive
female actress she was promoting.
This thing/robot was carrying on a
conversation like a regular person,
with an English accent.
Hollywood is dazed and confused.
I had occasion to call walmart’s ‘help’ line to ask why they stopped sending the paper flyers and now I couldn’t acces the online one anymore without making an ‘account’. The voice that answered sounded very human, not at all like the roboscam ones you get, It spoke and interacted exactly like a human, with proper inflection, speech rythym and changes in tone, to the point that I actually asked it if I was speaking to a human or not and it said it was an AI….the chatbot on the complaint page where you type in what you need is virtually useless but this one made me nervous…my son works in online customer service and has for years, he’s very good at it and gets paid accordingly, but this is a jobkiller…on the bright side, it didn’t have an unintelligible east indian accent to try and deal with.
Oddly enough, no sooner had I said the flyer wasn’t showing up on my screen, the voice said it could ‘see’ it and then as if by magic, the image suddenly popped up on my previously blank screen without my refreshing it….problem solved, but at what cost ?
Robots can’t be worse than ”non-practicing whites”. https://ripleyporch.blogspot.com/2026/09/half-wit-female.html
My experience has been the opposite. Several times, I tried to get AIs to draw simple engineering-type figures for me (ex.: a lidless box of dimensions a, b, and c) and gotten the weirdest crap back, everything but what I wanted. One particular AI in general would send me three completely off the wall drawings (many obviously copied from other websites), then flatly deny it had sent me more than one image which was exactly what I had asked for. It would tell me, “here’s your image,” then show me nothing; when I complained there was nothing there, it insisted it was and it could see it. I don’t even attempt to use AIs for this anymore.
Given the quality and speed of reaction to my comments, I’m not entirely convinced it wasn’t a living human masquerading as an AI for some reason known only to senior management, possibly in a position called ‘Alternate Identifier’ or somesuch to make it not entirely a lie and to give the illusion that they had this high tech ‘AI’ nobody else has and impress customers…but I swear I could hear it breathe.
“CHAPERONE SOLD ME. CAN I GET A WITNESS, Y’KNOW?”
40 years ago, a guy who set up a hidden camera in his bedroom was a pervert. Now he’s just a diligent fellow collecting self-defense evidence.
Referencing yesterday’s…
https://apple.news/ACZX3vMsKQYuIxgpOaNd4xA
These guys are not building Jeff’s.
But are they really scared or is it PR?
Incisive and skeptical commentary here (in the comments section, of course!):
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/09/ai-doomsday-warnings-coincide-with-push-for-new-regulations/