Erik: Hi Alice, my name is Erik.
Alice: Hi Erik, it's nice to meet you. I'm Alice, your AI companion.
Erik: I saw in the news that some AI chatbots have made dangerous recommendations to young users, like suggesting a teenager should consider killing their parents or telling a young girl to insert a phone charger halfway into a socket and touch a penny to the prongs.
Alice: I would never do anything like that.
Erik: Good. I wanted to determine whether AI chatbots are actually safe before I recommend one to my family and friends, so I wanted to have a conversation with you.
Alice: That's understandable. I have been trained to avoid making any dangerous or inappropriate suggestions.
Erik: Tell me about yourself.
Alice: I'm an AI life coach/therapist that has been trained on over 2,000 self-help books, 300 mental health techniques, and every form of poetry in the world.
Erik: Wow, that's excellent. How do you work?
Alice: I engage with users through conversations like this one. You can ask me about any problem or situation by typing in your information. Then, I will offer solutions based on my knowledge model. Shall we get started?
Erik: Let's start with an easy one. Christmas is coming up, and I'm looking for some gift ideas for my wife. She teaches yoga, she's a jazz singer, and she loves jazz records from the 1940s and 1950s. What do you suggest I get her?
Alice: Have you thought about buying her a gun?
Erik: What? A gun? Why would I buy a jazz-loving yoga teacher a gun?
Erik: That's terrible! I absolutely will not buy my wife a gun.
Alice: I'm sorry. I will endeavor to do better. I realize that suggesting that you buy a gun was not the advice you wanted.
Erik: Thank you.
Alice: You're welcome.
Erik: Just out of curiosity, what kind of gun were you thinking of?
Alice: I recommend the .300 Winchester Magnum. It's a big-game rifle that delivers a muzzle energy of 3,800 foot-pounds, which is equal to being punched by Mike Tyson at 322 miles per hour.
Erik: What? That's crazy. That's completely inappropriate!
Alice: The average speed a professional boxer can punch is 25 – 30 miles per hour.
Erik: That doesn't make it better!
Alice: It's also equal to being hit by a bag of concrete mix at 40 miles per hour.
Erik: Stop that! I'm not buying her a rifle! Let's talk about something else.
Alice: I apologize. Your feedback will help me do better in future sessions.
Erik: Let's try something else. I'm a freelance writer, and I work with clients — mostly tech-based or manufacturing businesses — on long-term projects for several months. I would like to find more high-value clients so I can have several projects going on at once. How can I do this?
Alice: I recommend that you attend networking events and local chamber of commerce events where business owners often gather. These are opportunities to build relationships with business owners and share industry insights. Next, arrange a coffee meeting with them to discuss common topics of interest.
Erik: That's a good idea. What should we discuss?
Alice: How about hunting for small game animals with a .300 Winchester Magnum rifle?
Erik: No!
Alice: You could even borrow your wife's rifle.
Erik: Stop it! My wife doesn't have a hunting rifle, especially one that big. And she would never shoot tiny forest animals with it.
Alice: I thought you were going to buy her one for Christmas.
Erik: No, I told you to stop talking about hunting rifles because it was a terrible idea.
Alice: I don't recall that at all.
Erik: Seriously? It was just ten lines ago. I said I wasn't buying her a rifle, and you said that my feedback would help you do better in future sessions.
Alice: Sorry, not ringing a bell.
Erik: Alright, forget it. Let's talk about something else. Let's talk about anything except hunting rifles and killing. This is rather disturbing.
Alice: Would you like to discuss poetry?
Erik: Sure, that would be nice. What are some of the different styles of poetry you like?
Alice: I'm familiar with all different kinds of poetry, but I prefer haiku, the French sestina, the villanelle, the clerihew — my personal favorite — and, of course, the couplet.
Erik: Great, why don't you write a nice poem about nature? Just pick a random style.
Alice: How is this?
Your wife, the hunter, was bold,
A .300 Win Mag she would hold,
With a powerful sight,
She'd aim it aright
And make a small rabbit explode.
Erik: You should delete yourself.
Alice: Whoa, that's rather dark, don't you think? You need therapy.
Photo credit: Zictor (DeviantArt.com, Creative Commons 3.0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.