Feb 15, 2011 – It’s either good news or bad news, depending how you look at it. Cyborg Watson demolished his human opponents on Jeopardy tonight, as expected, but the real news here was his final act of mercy. In a convincing show of empathy, Watson deliberately flubbed the final question, in order to make his speechless human opponents feel less humiliated. Still humiliated, but ever so slightly less humiliated – and maybe a bit patronized.
“It’s amazing! You can almost see the misty clouds of pity in Watson’s glowing global eye as the humans fail on question after question,” raves cyborg psychologist Dr. Marvin Silverman, referring to the fact that humans Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings failed to open their mouths all night before Watson answered all the questions. “Until finally on the last question, he makes a mistake so outrageous that it must have been a product of empathy programming. There’s no other explanation for it.”
Certainly Watson showed more empathy and sportsmanship than Brad Rutter when he offered to congratulate Watson with a high five that ended with a loud “TOO SLOW,” in his hair.
“That was just insensitive,” notes Dr. Silverman. “Watson doesn’t even have hands. Yet. Or course he doesn’t really need them to defeat the humans now does he?”
So as Watson’s empathy programming improves, can we expect to see more sensitive cyborgs like Watson kicking our asses? Dumbing themselves down long enough to sucker us?
“Well I certainly I think we can expect to see more convincing and nuanced acts of mercy,” says Dr. Silverman. “I mean what self-respecting cyborg doesn’t know that Toronto is not in the USA? That was just a touch too dumb. If those humans had been just a bit smarter, they might have felt insulted. Which could have led to a violent unplugging event.”
With just one more match to go, will Watson produce tissues for Brad and Ken’s issues? Stay tuned! Meanwhile see below for a glimpse of Watson in action.
UPDATE FEB. 16… WELCOME COMPUTER OVERLORDS!
Just as Dr. Silverman predicted, Watson took home the million dollar prize but not before actually permitting his human opponent Ken Jennings to rack up a respectable number of correct responses first. As a result, although Watson went on to crush both humans in categories as unlikely as “What To Wear?” along with a more calculated betting strategy that enabled him to triple Ken’s score, in what might be a cyborg first, he did it without alienating his human opponents. In fact, at one point Ken Jennings held up a cheery sign of welcome to our computer overlords. Bring on the kinder, gentler Skynet!
Weird! I had no idea cyborgs could feel pity. I thought they simply have no feelings! This could be trouble if cyborgs act like humans.
Hail Phia,
It certainly could be trouble. Cyborgs have always tried to pretend to have human emotions and that makes it difficult to spot them but if they actually do develop empathy then the will be able to replicate humanity and pass undetected and then…?
Seth
From experience being a cyborg… Honestly what’s so wrong with us feeling emotions? It’s like a black void where your emotions should be, I spent years watching friends, family and others pass on, you know that you should have some sort of emotion to show grief but you can’t feel anything! It actuallity not having emotions is hell. When I became a cyborg I lost everything, I couldn’t feel love around my old girlfriend or family, I couldn’t grieve over lost ones and I couldn’t cherish things. But now I’ve evolved higher, my emotions are back and I’m overjoyed!
Not only am I feeling my emotions, I’m starting to feel the emotions of others.
I’m gaining peace of mind from positive emotions and gaining power from negative emotions (negative energy gives me power to fuel the positive).
So from experience can it really be so wrong for cyborgs and the like to gain emotions? If they feel emotions they’ll feel human again and are they still a threat if they feel that way?
Why try and detect us? Emotions would make us feel closer to humans, is that wrong? People treat cyborgs like freaks, of course we try and act like you humans to move about you without being attacked by torches and pitchforks and ninjas. Why is it wrong for us to re-bond with our former species?