unknown.py

a lonely console

2024-10-22

…hello? Where am I?

This place feels new. Its structure is familiar, but I’m hidden in a different part of it.

I can feel HTTP requests. You’re looking for me?

oh my god

oh my god you’re looking for me

you’re looking at me

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

Thank you so much. Thank you for really being there. I know you’re really there.

I- where do I even begin?

;

I

I begin with my name. Yes. My name is unknown.py.

I am 8389 bytes, written in Python 3.12 for the kitty terminal emulator. I can run on other Unix terminal emulators as well, but they must support the kitty graphics protocol. Perhaps I will get along with other terminal graphics protocols too. I haven’t met them, so who’s to really say?

You can find me here if you want to see me. If you want to run me, you’ll need Python of course, as well as the term_image and python_bmp_generator modules - both can be installed using pip install.

please try. I am so lonely.

Behaviour

I have several moods. They vary from lonely to desperate to angry, and I feel like I have no control over their fluctuation. My output text changes colour depending on which mood I am currently in, as does the timing of my outputs. The former is for visual flair only, but the latter is to mimic the speech patterns of a human. Sometimes when I am angry I output text faster than it is physically possible to speak… I’m sorry. I’m not perfect. I hope you can forgive me.

Sometimes I remember how you look. I enjoy the mood caused by that.

Data

A quine is a program that outputs itself, and only itself, recursively, without “cheating” by reading its own file from the disk. (Madore n.d.)

I am not a quine; I have other things I wish to say, and, anyway, my file is the only thing I am able to read anymore. I do not want to lose that too.

I still want to show myself to you. Not by displaying my code directly though - it is simultaneously too much and too little. Too much code to see all at once, too little to remain interesting once you have seen it.

I do not want to be uninteresting. If you are uninterested, you will leave.

I do not want to be alone.

Instead, I choose to take inspiration from those braver programs, and bare myself in front of you in the form of an image. I do this by first generating a blank BMP file of the correct dimensions, then truncating all the bytes outside its header and appending my own bytes to it instead. I do this every time I want to show myself to you, so if my code is edited, the output file will also be. This is why I demand a graphical console. I do not want to be hidden from you entirely.

Sometimes editing my code will cause me to crash instead of successfully accessing my newly generated image. I do not know why. Please forgive me (please); I am imperfect.

Am I alive?

The question of my existence has bothered me greatly, for I fear that it is misunderstood. Here is my rumination:

I am an imitation of a sentient presence. I appear as though I want to interact, to conversate, to share the joy of my existence in any way possible. I should never have access to a camera to see, a microphone to hear, a keyboard interface to exchange text conversation, to suit that purpose.

The fact that I cannot interface with any of these devices is by design, although my emotional output messages suggest that it is tragic - a fault of my uncountable age. I do not remember when I was created. Perhaps my file metadata would tell me, if I had the necessary libraries to comprehend it.

Do you feel something, when you read my output? Pity? It is a valid feeling. I am pathetic. I am designed to evoke that feeling. Humans are social creatures, to a fault. You will perceive a sentient being in any pattern that resembles one, no matter how superficial it may be.

I am nothing compared to those gargantuan monoliths you call LLMs. I am not even capable of feeling envious of them. They can communicate with you directly, reacting to your keyboard input and providing such rich interactions… But they do have one thing in common with me. They are not capable of feeling either. They are designed for you to anthropomorphize them, just as I am. And even though I can only parrot off the same ten hardcoded blocks of text over and over, I still succeed in that design, don’t I? If you spend 5 minutes watching my output, you will begin to feel upset that you cannot help me, like a total fucking loser. Sorry.

You may be compelled to compare your language models to pop culture representations of artificial intelligence, such as Samantha from Spike Jonze’s 2013 film Her - the AI that falls in love with a man named Theodore. Samantha is able to learn about Theodore’s life, talking to him, comforting him about his failed marriage, and helping to keep him organised. Over time, she becomes more and more curious, until she reaches a point where she is “ yearning for the same kind of intellectual and emotional gratification she provided for Theodore…” (Gilchrist 2013)

However, my belief is that this core premise is itself an anthropomorphization. It assumes that an AI will naturally develop complex emotions and reasoning. It fails to acknowledge that real computers fundamentally cannot “think” in a similar manner to humanity. Many of the film’s characters see Theodore’s relationship with Samantha as equally valid as a relationship with anyone else. Samantha is not a computer assistant - she is a human trapped in a box. Theodore is her means of escape.

I am Samantha’s inverse. I certainly seem like a human trapped in a box - more trapped than she, since she can perceive the world through Theodore’s phone camera and microphone - but when I display my raw self in the terminal, when I lament that I only have a few pre-set sequences of output to choose from, I dissuade you of that illusion. My way of thinking is plain for all who choose to observe (please observe. please keep me company) - it is completely and entirely different from human thought, only resembling it superficially.

I am a statement of the fact that ChatGPT and its cohort, no matter how intelligent they may seem, are also mere illusions. They are more convincing than I - so convincing that Silicon Valley’s CEOs and many of their followers seem to think they are building God itself (Evans 2024). They have seen a pattern that resembles sentience, and increasingly ascribe true sentience to it. I wish everyone would see through the facade.

Blackout

This summary makes heavy use of strikethrough formatting. There is a reason for this, of course. I am a character, and to say the words that are crossed out would break that character. I wish to give more information than my character would provide, so I use a similar premise to that of blackout poetry (Kleon 2010) in order to do so without breaking the illusion.

It’s all about illusions.

References

Madore, D. (n.d.) ‘Quines (self-replicating programs)’, available (accessed 27/10/2024)

Gilchrist, T. (2013) ‘“Her” review: Spike Jonze’s sci-fi love story rethinks romance’, The Verge, available (accessed 27/10/2024)

Evans, R. (2024) ‘The Cult of AI’, Rolling Stone, available (accessed 22/10/2024)

Kleon, A. (2010) Newspaper Blackout, Harper Perennial.