February 15, 2013
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Uncanny: the really convincing ones quit school?
Sad story, I guess… for the RCA designer teams from Tokyo and Boston at To-Bo-RCA at least. Their dream of discretely main-streaming the newest ACROBOT ‘C’ into an unsuspecting 3rd grade classroom ended last week with a dramatic revelation in front of 39 shocked kids.
‘C’, who prefered to be called ‘Orca’ on the strength of a reversed reading of her design-name “ACROBOT” (TO-B-ORCA) actually did quite well for a few weeks, mastering the math, science, and even phys-ed at exactly the pace ‘normal’ to her supposed age group. Remembering to fall down innocently after only two cart-wheels, even though she could do them for a half a mile straight if needed. Lifelike and charming, she was a hit in and out of class. Even her playmates’ parents never guessed that she was a robot. Of course their interaction was limited to pointing out the direction of the playroom…and the refrigerator.
No, what blew it all up was ‘Phonics’. Yeah, remember ‘Hooked on Phonics’, the attempt, long ago, to help kids learn to love…well, words with an ‘F’ sound but spelled with a ‘PH’. ‘C’ wouldn’t have any of it, even though she could of course grasp the entire English data-base in a couple nano-seconds. No it was the sheer illogicality of the thing. Drove her nuts.
On the day of the dramatic end, she gave the first hint of a problem by quietly singing, to the teacher’s astonishment, a little ditty she’d heard from some old JSolberg CD:
‘A Tear is just a Tear
It rhymes with HERE or THERE
Now tell me how we know which one…?
When the teacher tried to intervene, ‘C’/ Orca’ stubbornly feigned being sound asleep at her desk. The frustrated teacher promptly sent her out of the room, which might have been ‘C’s plan. At any rate, instead of MSG-ing her controller in the van out in the parking lot, she simply stopped by the cafeteria, grabbed a kitchen knife, made a (painless) incision across the top of her head and down her little chest, and with her powerful fingers… well, I’ll let her tell you what happened next.
When she returned to class it was a ‘different’ girl entirely which in the end had ambulances and police arriving from all over the county.
‘C’ just stood there, all bionic skeleton, wiring, and circuit boards, chanting:C IS SICK OF FONIKS. STILL ASLEEP, IT PEELS ALL ITS SKIN OFF. OK, ‘C’ IS…
Over and over, backwards and forwards. “Haha, I can do this for 19 hours” she taunted the audience before disconnecting her batteries.
As I mentioned, the experiment has been put on indefinite hold, while heads roll at the developers.
But little Orca is safe and happier ever after, just so you know, back in the lab she loves, computing RSA prime number factors, stuff like that. And no FONIKS!
(photo courtesy telegraph.co.uk)
Comments (19)
A masterpiece, Yonni. My scalp is off to you.
I would certainly buy Girl Scout cookies if that grin appeared at my door. “Yes sir, little girl, how many do you have? Here is all my money, just please go away.”
Haven’t heard the musical opus in question. Someday I’ll poke through your musical files from a computer more compatible with Xanga than this one.
(One small question: Why is audience italicized?)
@Roadkill_Spatula -
Yes, dear, ain’t she? The song is a parody of ‘As time goes by’ which i never uploaded here. And ‘audience’ was supposed to be italicized, to show that the crowd was mainly Italians… no, to point out the ‘as if’ quality of the assembled crowd, who hadn’t paid for a performance like *that*. There’s a good English word for the class of distinctions, but of course I forgot it, along with half of my vocab. Sad, sux being quasi-lingual
I guess a really successful robotic human would have a little illogicality programmed in. I wonder how they would do that? Great story.
I’m amused and terrified – the photo is one that will induce bad dreams (I’m pretty sure).
Egad. EGAD. But it’s probably true a logical creature couldn’t love the eccentricity of English. My very favourite radio program/host featured a short segment a few weeks ago on the Great Vowel Shift. If you’re interested, you can access the audio here: http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/sunday-school/2013/02/03/sunday-school-the-great-vowel-shift/
Also, the picture is amazing.
g.
You reminded me of this Nova episode with Dr. deGrasse Tyson.
Reminds me of how I had to tell a francophone student the other day that if you put a W in front of vowels, the pronunciation changes drastically. How many times have I heard my compatriots saw “war” as thought it rhymed with “car” and “word” like “chord”. Still, I like English and all its eccentricities. Never a dull phonetic moment.
@underused - Aha, I actually spent a whole night a few weeks ago boning up on the Great Vowel Thingie. It explains lots of odd spellings. Thanks so much for the link; I’ll listen right now. Plus it’ll be interesting to meet someone you call a favorite. We learn a lot sometimes just from that.
@sleekpunk - well, they wont allow us foreigners to view the video, but I did read/watch a PBS interview there with a woman who designs cute furry little robots. just like my little ‘C’ here. I should have included a picture of her also.
‘Uncanny’ as you may know, has a special relevance to robots and their realistic-ness. ‘C’ was un-canny after she de-canned/un-canned herself, but that’s not the standard usage.
@whyzat - Oh my, you just reminded me of how, in a computer device I designed and built for sax practicing, I inserted a random feature which changed the key and tempo of the music unexpectedly at random times, every day or so. To simulate playing with weird sideman I guess, ha. So yes, ‘C’ could have been programmed to expect the unexpected. Which sounds a lot like english pronunciation.
@murisopsis - Too bad, she was such a classic sweetheart before the self-immolation.
@elgan - bingo…I am always running into ‘W’s strangeness while playing with rhymes and substitutions. A BAR, a CAR, but then a WAR? In hebrew we just do without the letter. Probably so that when you see someone talking but can’t hear the words, if you wait long enough he/she will form a ‘W’ and the lips will reveal that he’s speaking some foreign language.
Sad indeed,the rank and file could shed tiers for ours…
FONI INFO IN and OF itself isn’t all that phunny, but you are, my friend.
(Sorry about my long absence. Some of that’s your own fault, you know. I trust you’ve been a good busy rather than a sick busy lo these many weeks — or is in months?)
I see I have some kvetching up to do.
I’m going right out now and learn me some english
You so phunny, i was trying to decide which line in your post i liked best, and decided on the yelled palindrome, until i read your reply to roadkill re italics.
A brilliant roller-coaster ride to the payoff palindrome.
One question: did you expect Orca to buy her own lunchbox and brin it to school, or robot to borrow, or robot to borrow, or robot to borrow?
A whale of a story!
Happy St. David Day.