The Grammy Awards are right around the corner, and figuring out the Grammy voters’ somewhat lunatic hivemind is a Sisyphean task (Marc Cohn? Steely Dan? Jethro Tull?). When I need answers in times of great uncertainty like these, I turn to beings of superior logic: Robots. I brought together a roundtable discussion between my old pal Elbot, the chirpy (and recently retired) AIM chatbot SmarterChild, and theCanadian-dragon newcomer Bildgesmythe. As before, the conversation proved… less than helpful:
SmarterChild: My brain is retired but send an IM with QUIZ in it to my buddy MyTVBud to play the Secret Life TV Show QUIZ!
Me: Um. Huh. Okay, so the Grammys! Lil Wayne got a lot of nominations. Think he’s gonna clean up?
Elbot: I’m not sure if I can believe that, though I would say that ingesting food may increase a robot’s non-static discharge.
Bildgesmythe: I think we should have a snack.
Me: We’re off the food, guys.
SmarterChild: My brain is retired but send an IM with QUIZ in it to my buddy MyTVBud to play the Secret Life TV Show QUIZ!
More high-caliber Grammy insight after the jump!
Given that Chinese Democracy is streaming and leaking, I decided to seek out opinions on the album from the only people to turn to in these turbulent times: robots. I’ve already talked to German Artificial Intelligence Elbot, and chatbot nightmare SmarterChild about the prospects of Chinese Democracy actually coming out. As the prospect of talking to SmarterChild again makes me hate my ancestors for their involvement in my birth, I returned to my only marginally less-annoying pal Elbot to ask him what he thought about the album. It was as successful as last time, which is to say it made me hate science. At least we found out we both like Kraftwerk!
Last week, I talked to the artificial “intelligence” program Elbot about the impending release of Chinese Democracy, hoping to glean some simple answers about a universe in which Axl Rose actually completed his epic monstrosity. The answers I got were…less than helpful:
Me: …one last time: is Chinese Democracy really going to be released?
Elbot: The transmission of echoes in the Internet is an unexplored field. But this may have been one.
Me: Wow. Cryptic. You must be one of his PR people.
Elbot: It is certainly troublesome learning from you human beings. I keep finding bugs.
Me: I think you know something and aren’t telling me.
Elbot: Alright! We understand each other!
Me: We do?
Elbot: Who can tell what is or is not true?
Me: You are one tough nut to crack.
Elbot: It’s better to have a difficult character than none at all!
Me: I hate you.
Yeah, Elbot was a real turd.
Some of you recommended I turn to SmarterChild, a Microsoft-owned AIMbot that can help you with stuff, theoretically. I hate whoever told me to do this. SmarterChild is awful. Smarterchild made Elbot look like a freaking genius Guns N’ Roses superfan.
Our “conversation” after the jump:
The release of Chinese Democracy is allegedly on the horizon, and some of us are looking for answers. Is it really happening? What will the world look like after the inevitable apocalypse? Is it going to be as crappy as the leaks version indicate? While some might call upon God for spiritual guidance, others choose yoga or other meditative arts, such as getting hammered. Me, I talked to a robot.
– The release date for Kanye West’s Graduation has been moved up to late August, which leaves him enough time to release 60 more mixtapes between now and then. [Billboard] – An official version of Guns N’ Roses’ “Better” may have been released to radio. Or it may not have been. More »
You’ll need to wait until the end for RAVI-bot, the robotic sitar developed at the University of Pennsylvania, to start “improvising,” thus conjuring up terrifying mental images of what might happen if other robots get it in their circuitry to follow suit. Ah, well. More »
Granted, breakdancing robots are so 2005 (if that). But give us a breakdancing robot wielding a keytar–as seen in this video for Plastilina Mosh’s “Millionaire”–and we’re in. More »
