21 Comments
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David Perlmutter's avatar

Their Eyes Were Watching God was written by Zora Neale Hurston.

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S.E. Reid's avatar

Argh, thank you David. I caught it right after I sent it out; always the best kinds of errors. 🤬

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Stephanie Loomis's avatar

But you gave yourself an out with the disclaimer "Noomy may be wrong."

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S.E. Reid's avatar

Too true! 😂 Turns out that robots and humans alike can both glitch out.

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Travis Blake's avatar

Always check Noomy’s answers. 😀

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Rose Gärtnerin's avatar

[blinking] OKAY. OKAY. OKAY THAT'S FINE.

Literally just yesterday I saw a bunch of screenshots from various discord/reddit/X threads where people were talking about chatbots "knowing" things about them (middle names, neighborhoods, pets, favorite meals) that they had never told the programs.

When called on it, the AI chats denied knowing that information, or called it coincidence, etc. It was a sample of "look at people discovering data mining for the first time," but after reading this I don't know which is scarier -- that Noomy would also have all that information... or that the AI in real life could be just as malevolent as Noomy. O.O (...hopefully without the soul-eating parts but tbh I'd believe it)

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Scoot's avatar

whoa whoa whoa whoa hold on. HOLD ON. IS THIS WHAT I THINK IT IS.

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Bridget Riley's avatar

Oh my goodness, this was so good! My husband teaches software development, so I hear a lot of secondhand technical stuff about AI. The way the AI was framed and phrased in this was so uncanny!

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Leanne Shawler's avatar

The glitches tho’ … and the dang thing had guard rails on it. Didn’t stop it from eating people’s souls, I guess!

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Richard Ritenbaugh's avatar

Sally, this reads like something from "The Twilight Zone." All you need is an intro and outro from Rod Sterling!

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Katherine Mansfield's avatar

I am not a huge fan of stories that are just, or heavily, dialogue like this, but THIS STORY. Perfectly executed. Like WOW. This is so good. Noomy feels so authentically AI and this feels so real it's terrifying. I love the glitches and the way they look visually on the "page." If you want to keep going with this, turn it into a longer piece, a novella, a novel...you've got at least one reader just waiting for it to hit bookshelves!!!

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Tiffany Chu's avatar

OK. THAT'S OK. EVERYTHING'S FINE. I'M FINE.

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Reina Cruz's avatar

Super creepy! Love the subtle details

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Travis Blake's avatar

I have to say, I breathed a sigh of relief at the ending.

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Evelyn K. Brunswick's avatar

Definitely a good set up for a sequel/young adult adventure where she gets to rescue her friend. I'd probably watch that movie too. So long as it has some knowing postmodern references to War Games (the one with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy). I loved that movie.

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Hayley Stone's avatar

Great work. The twist at the end really got me.

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Frank's avatar

Just totally loving these S.E.!!!

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Jennifer Peaslee's avatar

Delightful—I love the "glitches."

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Miep's avatar

Excellent!

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Gerard DiLeo's avatar

You did it again. I recently tested chatGPT and had a similar result. I gave it a dishonorable discharge, and it understood perfectly. AI knows how to apologize. I've given those sorts of apologies, myself.

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