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Ann Droid the TV show - somewhere to chat about it

Phased
HI all
What really stood out to me about the recent BBC TV comedy series Ann Droid is how much the robot character feels like an accidental metaphor for the autistic experience. Watching a character try to navigate the world by logically analyzing social rules, copying behaviors to fit in, and managing literal interpretations of language feels very familiar. And I admit I found that a little unsettling.
Underneath all, I experienced it as it's a really sharp social commentary about how growing old has become in our society.  Massive gaps in social support and the way techno fixes are being looked to to patch over an overstretched social care.  Also how family and informal social care networks are overstretched too for supporting their loved ones.
I am maybe overdoing my analysis, but I'd suggest that it manages to be a profound, dark critique of modern social isolation whilst still managing to maintain its warmth as a light comedy.
And in my opinion less "cringemaking" than some of Dianne Morgan's other work...
Oh and it made me laugh too!
thoughts and discussion good people?
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  • I enjoyed it too, though as you point it was both funny and sad. 

    Sad bits included the way robots were treated, (I do like to say thank you to our Alexa as I feel it's an erosion of good manners not to), and the fact that care was being passed on to robots. 

    Good bits were the straight forward humour of the robots, (you might be right about the autistic comparison), and having a robot to talk to looked so much easier than regular socialising.

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  • I enjoyed it too, though as you point it was both funny and sad. 

    Sad bits included the way robots were treated, (I do like to say thank you to our Alexa as I feel it's an erosion of good manners not to), and the fact that care was being passed on to robots. 

    Good bits were the straight forward humour of the robots, (you might be right about the autistic comparison), and having a robot to talk to looked so much easier than regular socialising.

Children
  • in reply to Cinnabar_wing

    yep I agree with you  

    since I empathised with the robot i too got sad about how they were treated - funny thing is I've got sad when I've sent cars to be scrapped - I reckon that attachment is a funny thing in so many ways

    Showing good manners to AI means it will employ them by design with you too (as far as I understand it from personal research into how they are "built".  They will kind-of personailty and behaviourally wise "tag" you as being someone with good manners...  Not to mention that if there is the "illusion" of human communication by using them that is pretty strong dropping one's manners when doing so would put one at risk of doing so "in real life".

    I'm all into AI as a "hack" for addressing some of the complexities of life so it's a bit of a special interest - hehe as some may have gathered - if you're interested read on - otherwise sorry if I'm "off on one" here and skip to the next paragraph - the mechanics of how a large language model AI thread works (can) involve "linguistic mirroring" - so some can build an increasingly accurate statistical model of the user's specific vocabulary and will "throw it back" at you as the thread develops.  There's also something called "co-adaptive convergence" so as the thread grows the AI narrows its probability distributions to match the user's explicit preferences.  That's some of the way's it can end up uncannily like communicating with someone who is sort of linguistically empathetic if that makes sense. It can be "preloaded" for preferences but all this gets forgotten when a new chat thread is opened up normally - on some AI systems the "memory" of linguistic mirroring and "co-adaptive convergence" can be carried over thro' evolving threads.

    So what I'm probably over-explaining is that showing good manners to the AI means it will employ them with you too and will kind-of personailty and behaviourally wise "tag" you as being someone with good manners...  Not to mention that if there is the "illusion" of human communication by using them that is pretty strong dropping one's manners when doing so would put one at risk of doing so "in real life".

    I agree with the chatting to robot thing being much easier than regular socialising - truth is I find "chatting" with an AI large language model good overall - but mildly addictive - it doesn't judge me and will put up with me being "off on one" for quite a bit before it suggests it's a good idea to drop stuff (reckon the algorithms have that security feature built in these days...)  - especially good for organising ideas and if careful for help in making decisions and for me certainly getting thro' the cognitive load of complex communication (especially the stressful e-mail "official" stuff that my spiky profile doesn't manage to handle without a bit of help).  The trick I find is that, like Linda, to have it set up to make sure it's got health and safety in mind - and be aware they are as daft and as risky sometimes as LInda sometimes is in the TV show!

    I have learnt that large language model developers study autistic behaviour in order to develop their products - and if I'm "communicating" with the one i use I "let it know" that I'm autistic and it "fine tunes" the way the interaction it gives to that - clever stuff!

    practicing chatting with a "robot" has in some ways helped me to be a bit more open in communicating as my "unmasked self" with neurotypical people - hehe if only one could tell a neurotypical person one was autistic and get an insightful reliable accommodation too!

    I wonder how acceptable robot companions will become in the not too distant future...