464: Episode 464 - "Made in Our Image" - Chilling Tales for Dark Nights
episode
Chilling Tales for Dark Nights — A Horror Fiction Anthology and Scary Stories Series Podcast
31 min
5 speakers
5 chapters
transcribed 2 months ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the episode's premise about AI learning from humans?
Hey, you don't have to share everything. Why spread bank accounts when online payment is enough for mobile pay? It's time to turn off the lights and turn on the dark
Chilling Tales for Dark Nights.
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Hello listeners, and welcome to another episode of Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. I'm your host, Steve Taylor. As technology continues to advance at a staggering pace, stories about artificial intelligence often focus on machines becoming smarter, faster, or more powerful than their creators. But sometimes the most unsettling possibility isn't that a machine might surpass us. It's that it might learn from us a little too well. Tonight's feature is a chilling reminder that wisdom and understanding aren't always the same thing. and it explores one of humanity's oldest questions through the lens of one of our newest creations. What does it truly mean to be human? Be sure to stick around after tonight's story for an important update on the future of Chilling Tales for Dark Nights, along with several ways you can help support the show during a challenging transition period.
Now then, without further delay, I present to you, from author Andrew Harmon, as performed by special guest narrator Tom Merritt, with production and original music by Jeff Clement, To Be Human.
Day one. We called him George on account of his curiosity. He was the first of his kind, as much a social experiment as a scientific one. He could walk, he could talk, he could learn. We consulted with every expert we could think of, from neuroscientists to behavioral analysts to robotics and electrical engineers. And although George was a four-foot android, he was the closest thing to a son that I had. George had a large round head and a body like a watermelon. Two stubby legs supported his squat frame, and he had two short arms with big white fingers. He was stocky, but surprisingly dexterous. George was a miracle in machine learning, programmed to emulate humans, but capable of little else. We had wanted to start from square one, no predefined rules or base knowledge.
When we first switched George on, we thought that we had failed because it took him a solid two minutes to say a word. His animatronic head swiveled this way and that way, two blue LED eyes taking in everything they could find. His first words were, What am I? Self-reference straight out of the gate.
How is George introduced and designed as the first learning android?
You are George, I said.
I am George, he repeated.
The days that followed, well, how can I put it all into words? It was a blur of wonder. George paced the floor, learning the names of my colleagues and every color and the names of all the equipment in the lab. When he came upon something new, George would point to it and we would gift him with a new word. Wash station and oscilloscope and servo and soldering iron grew like seeds in the garden of George's burgeoning vocabulary. We taught him base 10 counting, we taught him basic mathematics and soon his digital brain could compute faster than ours. But our true intention was to impart to George the concept of humanity and that sort of metaphysical idea simply cannot be taught in a stifled laboratory.
George's public debut was set to take place at the International Conference on AI and Robotics in San Diego, and we were quite wary about the possibility that the news of the world's most cutting-edge artificial intelligence platform might be leaked ahead of schedule. I was due for a vacation at the time, so I saw no issue in bringing George along for the ride when my wife and I drove off to her parents' wooded property on Carlisle Lake in Southern Illinois. It would, we figured, certainly hide George's existence from spying eyes. My wife, Chelsea, was a dazzling woman and by far the most wonderful human I had come across. She would, I felt confident, be a perfect example for George to follow.
Chelsea was seven months pregnant at the time and so eager for our first child to be born that I figured she would get a real kick out of caring for a robot son for a couple weeks. And in our Carlisle-like cabin, I could teach George all about the natural world.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the episode's premise about AI learning from humans?
0:00–4:25
2
How is George introduced and designed as the first learning android?
4:25–9:01
3
How does early training teach George language, numbers, and curiosity?
9:01–15:10
4
What happens when George is exposed to real-world experiences at the cabin?
15:10–25:08
5
How do media and television shape George's understanding of humanity?
25:08–31:10
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from Chilling Tales for Dark Nights — A Horror Fiction Anthology and Scary Stories Series Podcast
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