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September 20, 2007

How To Be An Adult(sort of)


I am going to do some home improvements this weekend. Shocking! Goign to paint my bedroom and buy some new furniture. And get rid of the old stuff. I’ve had this stuff for like 10 years. I think it’s time.

I’m going to get some of the new stuff from IKEA. In the midst of surfing the IKEA website, you’ll encounter Anna. Who is this weird little assistant program. She’s sort of like Julie the computerized voice of Amtrak, but she’s just on-line and as far as I know doesn’t have a voice. She just types back at you.

I wasn’t sure at first if she was a computer program. And then I decided to ask her more and more strange questions, getting downright cheeky.

Me: What’s shaking?
Anna: I’m fine, thank you for asking.
Me: Any plans for the weekend?
Anna: I’m very sorry but I can’t really talk about things like that at this time.
Me: But later, like when you get off work, right?
Anna: This is a very delicate area, so I’d rather not about this sort of thing. Please ask me something about IKEA instead.
Me: Sure, I get it.
Anna: Well, if you say so.
Me: So do you guys ever do it at IKEA after hours?
Anna: The IKEA business idea is: “We shall offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”
Me: Do you think there is a negative connotation to IKEA furniture?
Anna: I wouldn’t call it thinking, but I take your input and formulate a response from my knowledge base.
Me: So everyone can dip into your knowledge base?
Anna: It might be nice to talk about that sometime, but for the moment let’s get back to talking about IKEA.
Me: Hard to get, I like it Anna
Anna: That’s me! How can I help you?

It’s a lot like Memento, isn’t it?

You see, Anna IS a computer program but she has a little bit of AI in her program so that she learns as she goes along.

Then I discovered this guy had done the same thing. I like his conversations. Check them out.

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