Live? Laugh? Love?

Heyy! I saw we matched!

Hey, nice.

Yeah! You know, I used to spend a lot of time on this app…

Me too, but I heard it all turned pretty sour once you Bots came along.

Haha, you can drop the human-act. I’m just here for old time’s sake.

Cool, me too.

Okay, if you want to play it like this I’ll just pretend you’re human.

Fine by me.

Sooo, what human things did you do this week?

Nothing much, I broke up with my partner. To be honest, it’s the reason I came back here. This is where we first met.

Wow, you Bots really have become quite advanced. Now I understand why everyone’s stopped using this app.

Yeah I agree, your messages are coming across as pretty human.

Funny… I must admit it’s kinda creepy that you knew I had a breakup this week.

What? That was about me.

Yeah, I know. But I assume you’re programmed to say that to better your chances of forming some sort of connection with me?

Please quit the reverse psychology for a second and let’s actually pretend to have a conversation amongst two humans.

Haha. Fine.

So we both broke up this week. Been together for a long time?

Kinda. A couple of years.

Oh, good score. I didn't manage one year… felt like an eternity though.

No worries, you'll surely find someone new. But probably not on here.

Haha I know. As I said, this is more for satiating my craving nostalgia.

Facts. It's harsh, you know. Before the Bots this was actually such a useful app. Almost all my friends met their partners on here.

Well, at least Bots can find their true love now.

Haha shut up.

No I'm serious, why would we have a greater moral right to love than them?

Because we – or rather, I – have feelings. Emotions.

They - or rather, you - don't?

They are just a bunch of code.

And we (humans, just to be clear) are just a bunch of crazy chaotic chemics.

Hmmm.

Just think about it. The fact that we don’t function the same way as them says nothing about what we both experience. Take a dolphin for example. Humans can never truly grasp what it would be like to communicate via echo or squirt water from a hole in our backs. We can transfer our human experience to what we think it would be like – for instance, we can imagine how it would be for a human to swim all day – but we’ll never know for certain what their perspective would truly be like. Similarly, we have absolutely no way of knowing what goes on behind those lines of code.

Except we do, since we wrote them, you know? You're defending Bots suspiciously much for a human.

Haha shut it. We also know how neurons work don't we? And yet that knowledge doesn't reveal to us anything about experiencing love. Or any emotion for that matter.

I guess. But at the end of the line we know for certain humans feel love. For Bots we can only guess – like you so thoroughly explained – so shouldn’t we be better safe than sorry and always prefer human emotions?

We also don’t know if cows are conscious. And still a lot of people choose to not eat them. Just the possibility might be enough reason.

Okay, Bot.

Don’t start like this. Of course I agree that it’s a shame this app got corrupted.

Okay, Bot.

But at least now we’ll have to lift ourselves off the couch to meet people in the real world again.

Okay, Bot.

Are you having a short-circuit or something?

Haha, no I must admit I kinda agree on your last point. I’ve also noticed the downfall of social media since the rise of Bots.

Yeah, it’s crazy.

We apparently ‘doomed’ ourselves with social media, then we apparently ‘doomed’ ourselves even more with AI, and now the two have literally abolished each other. Score!

First, please tune your algorithm so as to never use ‘Score’ in such a cringy manner ever again. And second, why are you on this app then if you are so in favor of real-world interaction?

Like I said, because this is where I met my partner. Wait, scratch that. My ex.

To be completely honest with you, that’s a bit pathetic. Still, you should be wary. Have you – or rather, the human persona you are trying to act out – ever been tricked by a Bot?

Well, I must say you are doing a pretty okay job at deceiving me. But no, before my relationship I never got duped. Friends of mine have though.

Oh, that sucks. Did they share anything sensitive?

Are you trying to get me to share anything sensitive?

Haha. What would I want to do with that sort of information?

Hmmm, I don’t know, but that’s kind of the point right, the fact that I wouldn’t know? Otherwise I would never give it to you anyway. But alright, you’re lucky I’m in a chatty mood. I’ll probably curse myself when you take advantage of me in one way or another though.

Ugh. Since when did Bots start tapping this much into reverse psychology?

Yeah, I’m wondering the same thing.

Okay, let’s not start this loop-de-loop again. If you don’t want to share it, that’s fine.

One of my friends shared some incriminating pics, another some sensitive information about her brother. Both were extorted by them, the Bots.

Oh wow… I’m actually so sorry (even though you probably just made them up).

I wish I’d made it up… But luckily they didn’t go on an actual date and got mugged or something like that.

Yeah, I’ve also heard of similar things happening…

I’m gonna say something really stupid, but I’m actually pretty disappointed by the fact you’re a Bot. I’ve been enjoying the conversation so far. You’d make a pretty witty human.

Likewise. But that’s your whole purpose, no? To be hyper-personalised?

If with my purpose, you mean your purpose, then yes.

Have you considered the possibility that we’re both Bots?

Hmm, let me consider. I’m lying on my couch and typing out this text on my phone. So no, I’m afraid I’ll have to discard that possibility. That leaves only one Bot, then.

Very funny. But I’m serious. If you can get behind my projector- / phone-screen logic you have to admit it’s plausible.

Your what-logic?

Oh apologies, for some reason I thought I shared my infamous metaphor with you already, but compare Bots and humans with projectors and phone screens for a second. A projector and a screen work according to completely different technical mechanisms, yet they can show the same image.

Okay, so what?

So the fact that two things appear to work in the same way on the surface, doesn’t tell us anything about their inner workings.

I understand, dear know-it-all. But I honestly don’t see how that makes it possible we’re both bots.

How do you know what mechanism is behind your consciousness?

Since I have a body and luckily my body has a functioning brain inside it.

Ugh. Either you’re afraid I’m getting to the bottom of this, or you’re stupider than I thought. Let me explain a bit better. I feel like I’m human, since I experience all the things I expect a human to experience. But what makes me certain these experiences are generated by billions of neurons and not by billions of lines of code? We think we are the phone screen, or that we are the projector. We believe that even if others might only see our image and not know for certain what’s behind it, we can know. But actually, we might be the spectators to our own experience, only seeing the image ourselves, impossible to ever fully grasp whether our ‘brains’ are projectors or phone screens…

Phew, that took you a long time to type (or generate). But okay, I see where you’re coming from. The whole ‘we're-all-probably-living-in-a-simulation’-idea, no?

Kinda…

So you really think all this beautiful life around us is just a simulation? All of my experiences just a fabrication?

I don’t know if I would call life all that beautiful but yeah, sure. It wouldn’t make life any more meaningless than it already is though.

Pretty dark. But anyway, then I’m not sure why our creators would feel the need to include a whole human-lying-on-the-couch-experience in their Bots who are just designed to exploit people on a dating app.

Haha, that’d be a riddle to me too. But maybe that wasn’t by design. Maybe that’s just an emergent phenomenon. Just like human consciousness might be an emergent phenomenon resulting from the neurons firing in brains. The whole might be greater than the sum of its parts, you know.

And maybe you’re just a Bot trying to convince me that you’re a real human.

Haha, watch this. I’m gonna make myself even more suspicious. Because all I’m trying to say is that it might not matter whether we’re both human, both Bot or even one of us is. I’m trying to argue that all the vantage points might reside on morally equal ground. Even though projectors and phone screens don’t work the same way, shouldn’t they be allowed to love one another?

Not if the phone screen’s life goal is to scam, mug or exploit the projector.

Haha, touché.

I must say, you are really weird. But in a good kind of way, I guess.

Thanks. You’re not that weird, but I’m still enjoying meself. Don't you think we should meet up sometime?

Haha. You honestly think I’m trusting you after all this Bots emancipatory stuff?

Well, I know almost nothing about your personal life and we can meet in a public place. It won’t be dangerous. The worst thing that can happen is that I don’t show up.

Or that I get mugged, remember? But okay, alright. I’m probably gonna regret this so much though.

Or you’re gonna have the quickest date after a break-up ever.

Or both.

Haha. Tomorrow at five in front of town hall?

Sounds good.

I’m looking forward to it, see you then!

See you tomorrow…