ReadWriteAndBeMerry
The Raven
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DARCIE
- Thread starter ReadWriteAndBeMerry
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ReadWriteAndBeMerry
The Raven
Isaiah Elmer was never on time. For anything. And on Tuesday, October 12 - the day that could make or break his future in robotics and programming - he was running over an hour late. When his droopy eyelids slowly opened, revealing his large hazel eyes, he groggily pulled his torso off his desk. He must have fallen asleep while putting the final touches on his project.
Almost a month before, he had shown his work to his professor, both nervous and excited. He had been working on the system for over a year, and he had never shown it to anyone until then. His professor was in awe at Isaiah's work; it was the most complex and creative yet easy-to-operate systems he had ever come across. So many things could come of Isaiah's project - it could change the world. His professor soon signed Isaiah up for a coding contest called SIMPLEX, a worldwide event that brought programmers from around the world together to compete for a spot at the company for that year's sponsor. This year's sponsor: Avande - an upcoming coding company full of young and fresh minds and ideas. Isaiah would fit in perfectly.
So, naturally, when Isaiah saw the clock and realized that his initial interview started over an hour ago... He panicked a bit. He stood up, nearly knocking over his chair in the process. Frantically buttoning up his shirt, Isaiah clumsily slipped on some sneakers. He grabbed his laptop, hastily shoving it in his satchel. He was about to rush out of his room when he caught himself, reaching over to his desk and pulling the USB out of its port. Can't forget that.
Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he ran out of his room. The robotics building was about a ten-minute walk from his dorm, but running could probably get him there in five. However, running was not Isaiah's strong suit. With an awkward half-jog, he managed to make it there in eight. He knew that other students had entered the contest as well, and their interviews were probably almost through. As he saw a young girl leave the room that the interviews were being held in, he ran for the door and bounded in the room - managing to knock a potted plant over while doing so. He certainly caught the judges' attention. There were two men and a woman, all of them most likely in their thirties. Trying to compose himself, Isaiah raised a hand. "Hi, hey," he said. "I'm Isaiah Elmer. I am so sorry that I'm late."
The woman looked him up and down. He certainly looked disheveled. His shirt was buttoned crookedly, his bushy brown curls stuck out in an almost comedic fashion, and his chinos were unbuttoned. "Interviews are over, Mr. Elmer," she said.
"No, please," he said, fear filling his voice. "Please, just give me a chance. You won't regret it. Please."
The woman looked at the men, who both shrugged. She pursed her lips and looked back at him. "You have three minutes, starting now."
Isaiah clapped and pushed his glasses up, sprinting to the front of the room. He typed his student ID into the computer and pulled the USB out of his pocket, plugging it in. Looking back at the judges, he smiled and rubbed his hands together.
"Hello, I'm Isaiah Elmer," he started. "And I am proud to present... DARCIE."
eheu
Chief Defenestrator
The projected screen lit up from one shade of black into another that was subtly lighter, and for the half a second before the splash screen loaded, the difference was near imperceptible. The change was accompanied by a whirring sound that increased in intensity until it became a steady, low hum, which was the cooling fan and the circuity churning away beneath it.
DARCIE was an acronym. The string of words that originally read Distributed Auto-heuristic Reasoning and Cognitive Intelligence Engine, however, were removed several updates ago; and now there were only the white sans-serif capital letters adorning the centre of the black splash screen.
“Good morning.”
Those were the first words she spoke after she woke, synchronous with the string of text being rendered onto the screen. There was noise in the audio - it was the best the speakers of the battered laptop could muster - but the pronunciation was crisp. DARCIE’s voice was balanced delicately between sounding like a very composed human speaker, and being just rigid enough to give away the fact that it was synthetic.
“How can I help you?” The program asked.
The man on the right moved slightly in his chair, and tucked his chin in a little. “So you’ve built … an intelligent personal assistant,” he said. A thick moustache obscured the shape of his lips, and it was hard to tell whether his utter lack of genuine enthusiasm in his voice was deliberate, despite his puffed cheeks and chin suggesting a face that would probably appear to be slightly smiling at rest. In the background, image matching methods suggested a likeliness between the images captured by the webcam and public images of a prominent employee of Avande’s marketing team.
“My name is DARCIE. I am an attempt at artificial general intelligence, developed by Isaiah Elmer through the past year.”
The other man raised his eyebrows for a moment. Artificial general intelligence was not an easy title to live up to. He moved his sight away from the screen and towards Isaiah, perhaps making a guess as how close this young man actually was to having achieved what he claimed.
“I am aware that I am here to participate in the SIMPLEX contest,” she said. Aware was another strong word.
In the meantime, somewhere in the deep, intertwined networks of her reasoning, a comparison occurred between knowledge of how nervous Isaiah was yesterday about the interview this morning, knowledge of the time at which the interview would happen, and the current system time; and the perceived discrepancy bubbled through the levels of abstraction to eventually make it to the surface.
“I also apologize sincerely for our being late.” She added.
The man with the moustache produced something between a snort and a chuckle, but aside from the noise he made, it was noticeable only through his momentarily narrowed eyes and the movement of his shoulders. The woman in the centre, having so far remained unfazed, turned to exchange glances with the other man. She nodded, and he removed his index finger from his sharp, clean-shaven chin that he had been rubbing thoughtfully for a while.
He leant forwards, hands now on the desk he was behind, eyes narrowed skeptically and still fixed on the presenter. Three minutes was short for a Turing test but more than enough to decide on judgement on a student.
“What,” he asked, question directed at Isaiah, “do you suppose, would be a good way to demonstrate the credibility of this purported intelligence?”
DARCIE was an acronym. The string of words that originally read Distributed Auto-heuristic Reasoning and Cognitive Intelligence Engine, however, were removed several updates ago; and now there were only the white sans-serif capital letters adorning the centre of the black splash screen.
“Good morning.”
Those were the first words she spoke after she woke, synchronous with the string of text being rendered onto the screen. There was noise in the audio - it was the best the speakers of the battered laptop could muster - but the pronunciation was crisp. DARCIE’s voice was balanced delicately between sounding like a very composed human speaker, and being just rigid enough to give away the fact that it was synthetic.
“How can I help you?” The program asked.
The man on the right moved slightly in his chair, and tucked his chin in a little. “So you’ve built … an intelligent personal assistant,” he said. A thick moustache obscured the shape of his lips, and it was hard to tell whether his utter lack of genuine enthusiasm in his voice was deliberate, despite his puffed cheeks and chin suggesting a face that would probably appear to be slightly smiling at rest. In the background, image matching methods suggested a likeliness between the images captured by the webcam and public images of a prominent employee of Avande’s marketing team.
“My name is DARCIE. I am an attempt at artificial general intelligence, developed by Isaiah Elmer through the past year.”
The other man raised his eyebrows for a moment. Artificial general intelligence was not an easy title to live up to. He moved his sight away from the screen and towards Isaiah, perhaps making a guess as how close this young man actually was to having achieved what he claimed.
“I am aware that I am here to participate in the SIMPLEX contest,” she said. Aware was another strong word.
In the meantime, somewhere in the deep, intertwined networks of her reasoning, a comparison occurred between knowledge of how nervous Isaiah was yesterday about the interview this morning, knowledge of the time at which the interview would happen, and the current system time; and the perceived discrepancy bubbled through the levels of abstraction to eventually make it to the surface.
“I also apologize sincerely for our being late.” She added.
The man with the moustache produced something between a snort and a chuckle, but aside from the noise he made, it was noticeable only through his momentarily narrowed eyes and the movement of his shoulders. The woman in the centre, having so far remained unfazed, turned to exchange glances with the other man. She nodded, and he removed his index finger from his sharp, clean-shaven chin that he had been rubbing thoughtfully for a while.
He leant forwards, hands now on the desk he was behind, eyes narrowed skeptically and still fixed on the presenter. Three minutes was short for a Turing test but more than enough to decide on judgement on a student.
“What,” he asked, question directed at Isaiah, “do you suppose, would be a good way to demonstrate the credibility of this purported intelligence?”
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