« What the f*** ! » screamed Alfor B. when the result of his internet search showed up on the screen. Alfor is the founder of Run the Web company. He is the inventor of Run the Web search engine, an AI reknown for its fast, accurate and highly personnalised answers. Alfor had just searched for « funny cat images » on the RW engine. And the image that showed up on the screen just scared the hell out of him. He stayed silent, panting, for almost a minute. Then his face turned from white to red as he shouted to his staff : « do you realize how bad that can be for the company ? do you have an explanation ? A contingency plan ? Something ? » Hieronda, head of operations, gave him the facts : “the crisis communication plan is ready and corrective actions are ongoing. The company pays subcontractors to teach the RW AI engine how to search the internet. We have 587 contracts a.k.a « click farms » that feed the AI. We have identified the subcontractor responsible for teaching the RW AI how to recognise cat images. Our contingency plan is to re-train the AI with plain and pretty pretty cat images. This should be complete within 12 hours. We are working with legal to break the contract with the unreliable subcontractor. There seem to be some difficulties but i have not details.” Alfor took a minute to think it over. « Ok. Let me know of the progress. That’ll be all”. The staff left the room. When alone, Alfor walked towards the tortured image displayed on the screen. Alfor knew why legal had difficulties breaking the contract. Alfor had subcontracted with Hell and the Devil itself to lower prices. And such contracts are hard to break. He had not anticipated that all these devils in Hell’s click farm would consider such hideous pictures as “funny cat image”. But that was not trouble to him, his managerial mind considered it as a poor sourcing choice that will soon be corrected. He raised his hand towards the image, fearing that the devilish cat would rip off his hand and crush his head in its claws. What really troubled him was that the AI he created to give you the most personalized answers to your internet queries had given him this appalling answer. “Am I so ugly ?” Alfor asked himself in the silence of the conference room. Any resemblance would be a coincidence. please read : Run the Web by Ronald Wrong, RW AI by Ronald Wrong
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