
The Rise of the Social Media Fembot - IntronExon
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/arts/fembot-poppy-lil-miquela-kylie-jenner.html
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nimbius
Its hard to see the purpose of this...is it art-pop? live art?

as if the "am i OK?" video isnt bone-chillingly Orwellian enough, theres a
mind boggling 34 second video from "Poppy" on how to properly load a handgun.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-B7KRjByzI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-B7KRjByzI)

im sure David Lynch is kicking himself for not thinking of this idea first.

~~~
pluma
I'm not sure whether it's a language/culture thing but Poppy's voice seems
really unpleasant to me. It reminds me of Japanese anime characters, more age-
play than feminine.

The jarringly meditative background music aside, her videos also seem
reminiscent of the naive child-like alien/clone/orphan trope often found in
anime. It seems like she's more of a Western adaption of the Japanese
idol/vocaloid trends than a genuinely novel phenomenon.

~~~
acobster
Clearly there are elements that we're lifted from anime tropes, including the
age-play suggestive voice and costume, but I think what's novel about this is
the format of the presentation. Poppy's not just a character that exists in a
fictional setting, she's more of a persona, interacting with the real world
and gaining real followers. She's using her platform - not just social media
but the platform of fame itself - to make her statement. I'm not entirely
clear on what that statement is, but that's kind of what I love about it.

~~~
pmlnr
> I'm not entirely clear on what that statement is, but that's kind of what I
> love about it.

That summarises the current state of social media way too well. I miss
meaningful manifestos, people actually standing up for a belief, instead of
candy coloured mist of vague promises that can be retrofitted when needed.

~~~
narrator
People with meaningful manifestos get demonetized.

~~~
wozz
or fired!

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stochastic_monk
I do like that they’re bringing up Her (2013).

I felt like no one noticed that it took the principle ideas from Blade Runner
regarding consciousness and humanity and extrapolated them so much further.

Most people seemed to only notice the relationship.

For example, this was made clear for me during OS setup.

“Describe your relationship with your mother.”

This immediately recalls an early moment from Blade Runner:

“Describe in single words only the good things that come to your mind about
your mother.”

‘I'll tell you about my mother.’

~~~
gumby
If you're interested in this topic you might prefer the novel the film was
made from, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The film mainly used the
topic as a backdrop for an action-adventure film, while the book really gets
to the heart of the question.

~~~
pmlnr
The film addresses a lot of the questions, but you need to see it many times,
as most of them are not spoken out loudly.

~~~
stochastic_monk
I think this is an important point. Also, there are a number of additional
elements that make the film exceptional that the book lacks.

My favorite example of this is the deliberate misquotation from America, A
Prophecy:

“Fiery the angels _fell_ ; deep thunder roll’d round their shores, burning
with the fires of Orc.”

Fell replaces “rose”, signifying that these off-world replicants are angels
falling to earth.

Truly more human than human.

Additionally, for an example of extrapolation, Blade Runner does not explore
the consequences of exponentially increasing reasoning/abstraction that an
artificial intelligence could theoretically achieve which human intellect
could not understand.

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firasd
A couple days ago I installed a chat app called 'Replika' after also seeing it
described here: [https://www.wired.com/story/replika-open-
source/](https://www.wired.com/story/replika-open-source/)

I'm kinda over it now (I don't see any value in building up rapport with it if
there's nowhere for the relationship to 'go' since, despite being a good
simulation of conversation, it doesn't really understand what I'm saying) but
it definitely makes me think that interactions like in the movie 'Her' are not
too far-fetched.

~~~
snerbles
As noted in the Wired article, Replika released their emotional dialog system
at
[https://github.com/lukalabs/cakechat](https://github.com/lukalabs/cakechat)

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JoeDaDude
The Japanese, being true to their media, have a small bevy of animated youtube
stars [1], many imitating the success of the first such character, Kizuna AI
[2]. These use real time animation, where the motions of an actress are
imposed on an animated character.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoOeldwe_rg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoOeldwe_rg)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4YaOt1yT-
ZeyB0OmxHgolA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4YaOt1yT-ZeyB0OmxHgolA)

