Re: AI is as AI does
"the vast majority of people are willing to accept any old shit "
When I studied robotics in the mid '80s, we had a vending machine in the college that I and a couple of my course mates were disgusted with. We couldn't really tell the difference between the powdered coffee and the powdered tea, also the veggy soup (powdered) was pretty close in flavour to the beef broth (powdered), so one of the guys, an ex-Navy weapons tech, found a way into the back of the thing so that we were able to open the front panel. After swapping a few connectors around we had swapped tea for coffee and veggies for beef broth, the interesting thing was only about 1 in 5 people said anything and that was usually the same observation we had made; it was difficult to tell the difference between tea and coffee or the two soups. It didn't stop anyone buying the alleged beverages though.
I think part of the reason for the lack of distinct flavours was the congealed mass of various powders we found inside, when the hot water poured it picked up a little of every flavour, after seeing the insides I started taking a large flask of coffee every day in preference to the risk of flavourless botulism.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
