That was a typo. I’ve edited the comment to show my original quote.

That’s… literally what I said…

“It’s sort of like saying 9/11 was an effective use of terrorism.” Sorry, I don’t know how this could have been clearer. Take care!

There’s no reason to be rude. I strongly suggest you reread what I said and consider the context of the thread. I never said that 9/11 was a successful use of terrorism, I said that the statement Data made about the troubles being successful was offensive and would be similar to saying the same thing about other terrorist attacks. You then aggressively began demanding evidence for something that was never a statement of fact, making it unclear what you were talking about. When further questioned, you became genuinely insulting for absolutely no reason. I won’t be responding again, but please take some time to consider how you approach discussions in the future.

It was and still is unclear what you were asking me to prove. A comparison isn’t a statement of fact, it’s to illustrate how two things are similar. I further explained why I feel that it was fair to compaire them. If you want to keep picking things apart for the sake of it though, have at it.

Interesting; I didn’t know that! It’s definitely an interesting subject to say the least.

Do you want evidence that people died in the tororist attacks, or that the statement is offensive? As to the first, you’re free to read up on the history of the troubles yourself if you like. As to the second, it’s a matter of opinion, not fact, but considering that history, one that I feel is fair enough. As far as I’m concerned, comparing a single terrorist attack to a series of terrorist attacks is more than reasonable.

In fairness, it’s less controversial and more that the line is outright offensive. At the time, people were being murdered by acts of terrorismin in the troubles, so to wontonly say that those attacks are effective and will get results was extremely insensitive. It’s sort of like saying 9/11 was an effective use of terrorism shortly after it happened, or the 2015 Paris attacks.

That being said, it’s still an interesting point that Data raises in the episode.

Garak is calm because he knows that they’re in the justice zone, where it’s impossible to commit a crime.

I didn’t play the remake because of the name changes. I still have my Gamecube copy and the PS2 special edition, so will probably go back to those next time nostalgia bites.

Thank you then! It seems like our debate stemmed from different definitions. Based on your definition of what constitutes AI, Data would absolutely count. By my definition, he is too advanced to be in the same category. But I get the impression that we would both agree that he is more advanced than any modern AI system. Once again, I’m sorry for coming across as condescending; I will have to choose my words more carefully in the future!

This seems to have descended into a debate on “what is consciousness”, which as I originally said, is a question that isn’t easy to answer. My point was that modern AI inherrently isn’t aware of what it’s saying, not that it couldn’t be defined as an intelligence. As far as I know, there’s no solid evidence to prove that it can. To finish, I would like to apologise if my initial comment came across as condescending. I didn’t mean to come across as such.

While I appreciate the philosophical take, it seems that you’ve misunderstood what AI is.

Have you ever been typing out a text and seen that your phone is recommending a list of words for you to select next? This is an example of AI. Your phone has been programmed with a list of words and a set probablility of one word following the other. For instance, if you type “I”, it will almost certainly suggest “am”, because there’s a high probabibility of that being correct. More advanced AI, like ChatGPT work the same way, only on a grander scale. It has no idea what its words mean, but through clever programming can create the illusion that it does.

Data on the other hand is explicitly stated to have a human-like consciousness. His posotronic brain is no different than a human brain, besides being artificial.

Naturally, this brings up the age old philosophical debate on “what actually is consciousness”. The simple answer is that we still don’t have a good explanation. You could argue that humans also follow an algorithm, just far more advanced, but I would argue that this doesn’t satisfactorily explain how humans are able to extrapolate their own ideas from abstract concepts.

Technically no, since data is a full on artificial life form. Modern AI is just programmed to create the illusion of sentience.

That’s good to hear at least! I’ve heard mixed things from different people, but it just doesn’t strike me as something I want to invest three hours into. I’m glad you enjoyed it though!

I was thinking this as well. Action adventure films like it were what got me into filmmaking, yet even I have less than no desire to see it. It’s actually pretty incredible how badly they missed the mark; the trailer just needed open up with Harrison Ford in costume saying something like “why is it always snakes?” followed immediately by the theme blasting up over an action montage. Instead, they chose to show a group of old men talking seriously in a bar, while some utterly stock sounding music underscores it. What were they thinking?

In addition to what others have said about tv settings, it also seems that a lot of filmmakers have forgotten how to light a scene. They go for really crushed blacks, but don’t bother with backlights (to separate the characters from the background) or making sure enough light is on the face and eyes. The result being just a really poorly exposed image.

As much as I hate to admit it, 2001 was 22 years ago now…

I always loved the amount of time Tolkien spends describing cute guys. Like, he’s very equal opportunities when someone’s pretty.

I’m not OP, but I feel like I want to add on to this if that’s alright. I think it’s often easy to get into this mindset when a trend seems to overtake a lot of the industry. For instance, personally I’ve noticed a common game that seems to get churned out a lot in recent years: it’s open world, but has nothing in it and is given light RPG elements that don’t really add anything. That doesn’t mean every game is like that, of course, but I think it can be easy to fixate on what we’re tired of seeing. Eventually, someone will come up with a new trend, and the empty open world games will fade out, and the cycle will continue as it always has. It’s also interesting to point out that humans tend to remember the past more fondly, so it’s easy to remember old gems and ignore the flops. Anyway, thanks for entertaining my ramble.