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Fri-yay indeed. We sigh, as humans spool up to take a break, while the semi-sentient machines continue writing their poetry in their air-conditioned underground data-center homes. In my column this week, I spent a bit of time thinking about the times that robots have had an impact on my life. That time I ran a chatbot company talking with people about death. That time I felt a connection with a game character. And that time I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a sentient AI knowing it was about to get shut off.
It’s a series of thought experiments I’ve been playing with for a long time, and the idea was reawakened by reading Becky Chambe …