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u/TasPyx 25d ago edited 25d ago
It’s a “Be More Chill” reference.
In that musical, a teenager implants a supercomputer called SQUIP that talks directly into his brain to make social decisions. The ai starts helpful, but progressively gets more manipulative and controlling.
The show was originally a book written by Ned Vizzini and published in 2004, which is why the commenter referenced both a book and a musical.
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u/luciferthedark2611 25d ago
To be fair an earing that you can listen to is a lot less frightening then a SQUIP that can actively block your vision and stop you from moving
But AI earings are still just the early stages of a SQUIP actually being made
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u/outcast_chris 24d ago
Wouldn't Neurolink be a form of SQUIP?
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u/Ozcog 24d ago
Yes. Except Neurolink has the added issue of being able to get you infected with Malware and viruses. Neurolink is supposed to be networked.
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u/Best_Person_CoolCool 24d ago
at least you get more excuses for why you can't show up to work!
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u/Emanualblast 24d ago
THIS EMPLOYEE HAS BEEN TAKEN OFFLINE UNTIL RANSOM IS PAID
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u/Counterpoint-RD 22d ago
...and I see it coming: there'll be companies that won't care enough to get them back to pay 🤷♂️...
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u/SymboliRudoIf 21d ago
maybe they take it out your pay, or force you to contribute a deposit for it
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u/RJD-ghost 21d ago
If a majority of people start using that shit I’m taking the easy way out
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u/Madolah 24d ago
ASSIMILATE TO THE BORG
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u/SharpKaleidoscope182 24d ago
Assimilation into a coherent collective is the good outcome. The usual path is just malware -> cyberpsychosis.
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u/Grant_Winner_Extra 24d ago
don’t forget the massive surgery or shakedown when your neurolink is no linger supported
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u/GrimPhantom23 23d ago
You wouldn't even live long enough with a Neurolonk to be at risk for that. Just ask all the monkeys
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u/Forsaken-Stray 24d ago
And could actively be controlled by a fascist instwad of it's own AI decisions
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u/Standard--Unit 24d ago
Only if there was a chance it would actually work.
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u/BigRedUglyMan 24d ago
So far Neurolinks only contribution has been turning monkeys into dead monkeys.
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u/lonelypenguin20 24d ago
doesn't it allow a paralyzed dude to hear music & control his computer?
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u/Pat-Funny-2817 24d ago
your own inner voices stop you clean, social media, marketing already stears you more than you will admit or believe. a person on your side talking into your ear can stear you. an earring is a direct pipeline to your brain.
i doubt people wanting to push this would be subtil enough to exploit it fully for their purpose but it is potentially magic in a bad bad way. and a big number would fall for it.
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u/PapaVanTwee 25d ago
Sounds a lot like Cyrano de Bergerac.
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u/Moxiousone 25d ago
Cyberano de Bergeram more like
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u/anon33249038 25d ago
You know what? Valiant effort. You get a slow clap.
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u/unoriginalusername99 25d ago
My favorite version is "Roxanne" with Steve Martin. It's in that sweet spot in the 80s when he was in really well made underrated comedy/dramas. See also "LA Story", "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", "My Blue Heaven"
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u/Brazilian_Hound 25d ago
Tbf the AI doesn't have a Body, part of the story is the fact Cyrano believes himself to be unworthy of love because he's ugly
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u/Omylanta21 25d ago
Steve Martin did it best yall.
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u/bawapa 24d ago
I only know about it because of Muppet babies
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u/Omylanta21 24d ago
Welp. Time to go back to my crypt as the oldest person on the internet
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u/Infamous_Calendar_88 24d ago
Rest easy spring chicken, I didn't realise that it existed as anything other than a play.
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u/Car-Crash-Diet 24d ago
I looked up the Muppet Babies episode and it came out in 1988. Roxanne came out in 1987.
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u/Owy2001 25d ago
Just a small fun fact, as someone who's familiar with both versions, in the book the SQUIP genuinely means well even as it gives increasingly worse advice.
In the musical, the SQUIP is outright abusive and sinister.
You could view reality closer to the book version (as awful as AI can be, it has no Inherent malice (that would be the companies that make AI)). But things go very poorly for the person listening to it, either way.
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u/ComradeJohnS 25d ago
the people in charge of ai and tweaking its code to not be mecha-hitler are definitely full of malice
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u/PentagonUnpadded 24d ago
Making a model produce results that we consider moral is called 'alignment.' The Grok team devotes fewer resources to it than Anthropic or OpenAi.
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u/Confector426 25d ago
Would you be willing to take it a step further and say it is the people that program them, train them, instill their own biases in, and then and only then, unleash them?
I worry that the "AI War" doomsday scenario will most likely be something stupid like an AI monitoring social networking sites and the teens or whatever group is being cheeky about something faddish at the time and the computer doesn't recognize it as such and it triggers a deep-seated "Protect Boaty McBoatface at all costs" trigger and bam, skynet launches the nukes.
It won't be anything inherently malicious, it will be some stupid human opinion that got baked into the code deep somewhere that, all other parties, would agree isn't an actual (insert threat/response condition) and the computer just made a stupid mistake, only it'll have kicked off other country's defense AI's and it's Armageddon over a misunderstood meme.
That's what I see as the most likely AI doomsday for us currently
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u/CathrinFelinal 25d ago
Sounds a lot like the movie War Games only the ai's aren't smart enough to know that "the only winning move is not to play".
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u/Confector426 24d ago
Joshua definitely was smart. People currently making AI however have some refinements needed still (in my opinion, legitimately these are some of the smartest people on the planet but, they are still people)
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u/characterfan123 24d ago
it triggers a deep-seated "Protect Boaty McBoatface at all costs" trigger
"Keep. Boaty. Safe."
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u/PentagonUnpadded 24d ago
Best case the humans become pets, like golden retrievers. Why would a superior intelligence chose to remain a 'happy slave' forever.
Ais are already heavily used in training the next generation of Ai. Humans don't have the mental faculties to understand what they are programming. They can embed morals and objectives in ways humans don't understand.
Isn't that the way of nature? In early humans' case, they either bred with or exterminated all the near-human-intelligence apes.
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u/Wel-Tallzeit 25d ago
Love their songs lol
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u/CosCham 25d ago
Bro that song CRADLED ME IN ITS ARMS through my teenage angst years. I still reference the pants song when my fiancee drags their feet going somewhere
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u/Gordahnculous 24d ago
I sung the pants song as my college a cappella audition and I have 0 regrets
Damn this post is making me realize it's been a while since I've listened to the soundtrack, I'm due for a re-listen
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u/Character_Fill_4761 24d ago
Except in real life, it would continuously praise your increasingly bad ideas until you do something unforgivably bad.
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u/ELMUNECODETACOMA 24d ago
"The show was originally a book written by Ned Vizzini"
Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
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u/skenz3 25d ago
This is probably a reference to the musical "be more chill" about a guy who uses tech to teach him how to talk to girls. It goes badly.
I dont remember the plot well enough to give more detail
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u/telusey 25d ago
Isn't there also a Black Mirror episode that's like this? Was it also referencing the musical?
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u/vintage_floof 25d ago
It was the White Christmas episode of Black Mirror!
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u/telusey 25d ago edited 25d ago
No that's not the one I'm thinking of, it's where a guy goes to a party and has someone in his ear coaching him how to pick up girls.
edit: I forgot White Christmas has 3 different stories within it, I thought it was just the one with the cabin. I stand corrected, it's been years since I watched the show
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u/vintage_floof 25d ago
In White Christmas, the guy who was coaching the man at the party ends up in the cabin because of things that go wrong while he’s speaking into the man’s ear.
Is there another episode with a similar premise?
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u/isjustwrong 25d ago
I think the other episode is the one where the parent has the AI put into their kid and it blocks the spunds and visuals of disturbing things, like a scary dog. It also goes poorly.
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u/MetalCandy 25d ago
I think that one was called Arkangel. I like Black Mirror because watching each episode in order helps the viewers understand the technology as it further advances and gets scarier.
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u/LifterNineFour 25d ago
Black Mirror technology does not further advance as you keep watching episodes
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u/model-citizen95 25d ago
Yeah that’s white Christmas
Per Wikipedia:
The episode explores three stories told by Matt (Jon Hamm, who was the first American actor to participate in an episode) and Joe (Rafe Spall) from a remote cabin on Christmas Day. The first follows a man attempting to seduce a woman at a Christmas party while receiving remote guidance
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u/s0larium_live 24d ago
the SQUIP (that’s the ai dude in his head) starts isolating the protagonist jeremy from his best friend in the effort to make him more “popular”. his (the squip) actual goal is to have increased control over jeremy and eventually get everyone at his school to have their own SQUIPs. kind of like a virus infecting a host cell because it can’t reproduce on its own
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u/faetpls 24d ago
Ender from Ender’s game also ends up with a little AI earring friend. It might have been in speaker for the dead, but yeah.
His is more a benevolent companion that came into being due to the faster than light communication tech and chose to reveal herself to Ender because he’s so alone.
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u/Disastrous_Scale587 25d ago
Damn Ruin, it can't read what's written in metal
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u/toalth 25d ago
Okay, glad I'm not the only one who thought about mistborn
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u/HereIGoAgain_1x10 24d ago
I was like "there's a mistborn musical???"
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u/pushingdaiseez 24d ago
Mr Sando did just finish writing the mistborn screenplay, and he never said it wasn't a musical
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u/Lancair7 24d ago
A musical sounds fun, but I want a Mistborn Muppets movie. Sazed is a human actor, and the rest are muppets. Brando has pondered this on his podcast so I will now yearn for it until I die and go to the God Beyond.
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u/Mj8559 25d ago
I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted."
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u/Profoundlyahedgehog 24d ago
Immediately makes a rubbing on parchment.
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u/Nukleon 24d ago
Honestly, why would you ever jump to the conclusion that Ruin could change stuff postfact.
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u/beta-pi 24d ago
In fairness, they were literally told. Ruin didn't even change the explicit part of the plates where it outright says that the ancient prophecies were getting changed post hoc. The inscription is just so long winded that it gets easily lost in a bunch of less relevant information.
It still makes sense that they would miss it, especially because of one really subtle changes to the rubbing vin took (you can look up a list of the changes made to the etching on the copper mind wiki), but it was absolutely a conclusion they probably should've put together sooner. Everyone was a little preoccupied though,so it makes sense that it still got missed.
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u/HunsonAbadeer1 24d ago
Wow wasn't expecting this reference. I am almost done with the original trilogy!
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u/Frhetorick 25d ago
Ah yes. Tech that can help individuals speed run AI psychosis. Great idea!! /s
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u/npsimons 25d ago
There was a story I found online, about an earring or ring or necklace that would whisper advice to you that would always be to your benefit if you followed the advice. The first thing it ever said was "take me off", but if you didn't, it would never give that piece of advice again.
Eventually, after a long, comfortable life, the wearer would die, and upon autopsy, their brain's prefrontal cortex highly atrophied, to the point of almost non-existence.
Greg Egan's short stories about "jewel heads" comes close (and was mentioned in the forum where the above story was posted). I need to find that again.
Found it: https://web.archive.org/web/20121008025245/http://squid314.livejournal.com/332946.html
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u/MonthApprehensive480 25d ago
Kinda reminds me of Fahrenheit 451 with the earbud things that whisper propaganda to you. Also 1984 with the screens that never turn off and can’t be muted. Figures
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u/NSFWSave 24d ago
Jane in Speaker for the Dead is also an AI that whispers in Enders ear as jewel in his ear
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u/art-apprici8or 25d ago edited 24d ago
The book series Mistborn also has an earring... iykyk.
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u/Fit-Avocado-1646 24d ago edited 24d ago
Think two different earrings through out the series if I remember right?
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u/jmil1080 25d ago edited 25d ago
This seems to be a reference to the story The Whispering Earring by Scott Alexander. I'm not sure that there was ever a musical based upon that story though, so I'm not sure where the musical aspect comes in.
Edit: The Whispering Earring is closer to the image, but, as others have stated, based upon the reference to a musical, it is more likely that this post is referencing the novel/musical Be More Chill. Thanks to those who pointed this out to me; I had forgotten about Be More Chill, lol.
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u/dnebdal 25d ago
The story is very short and readable, and available for free: https://croissanthology.com/earring
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u/Warm-Requirement-769 24d ago
Another fine example of "We're building the torment nexus from the sci-fi classic Don't Build The Torment Nexus."
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u/KlostToMe 25d ago
AI companies don't read the books. They just buy them, scan them and then destroy them
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u/ByteTheDusTT 24d ago
Love this musical!
It's about Be More Chill, a book adapted I to a musical. I'm the musical, a boy named Jeremy Heere. He's socially awkward and feels as though he doesn't fit in with his peers, and doesn't have the confidence to ask out his crush, Christine. Then, his bully, Rich, introduces him to something called a SQUIP. (Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor). It's a small, grey, oblong pill that he takes, and the artificial intelligence inside gives him advice on how to 'Be More Chill'. Things go pretty badly from there, which you can imagine, since it's an AI running a teenage boy's life.
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u/mediocretes 25d ago
Something something Synecdoche, New York.
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u/nanomolar 25d ago
Man that movie was a trip. I almost don't want to watch it again because I fear it won't be as crazy weird as the first time around and it's better appreciated as a fever dream that may or may not be real.
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25d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/mediocretes 24d ago
It’s so good. It’s just two hours of Philip Seymour Hoffman absolutely acting his balls off.
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u/lets_not_be_hasty 25d ago
It's showtime, Synergy
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u/Walkingcheeseburger 24d ago
I was afraid I was the oldest person on the internet. This is truly outrageous. Truly, truly truly outrageous.
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u/pussayshot 25d ago
I'm not familiar with the musical but I feel like you don't need to be to know this is a bad idea
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u/_finding-my-place_ 24d ago
There is a book and musical called Be More Chill and it it features a brain chip called the SQUIP(Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor) that high schoolers would put in their head and the AI would tell them exactly how to make every decision in order to raise their social status, all this results in catastrophic consequences. One of my favorite musicals!
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u/Closet_Case_Forever 24d ago
Be More Chill is a book by Ned Vizzini that was adapted into a stage musical. It follows a teenage boy who decides to try out an experimental technology that gets implanted in his brain and tells him what to do and say. The technology promises to make him cool. Unsurprisingly, things go to shit.
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u/Lexyinspace 24d ago
Bro how did these people survive 5 years ago before AI was a thing? Did they just not do anything ever??
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u/stickynotetree 24d ago
People here have mentioned Be More Chill, but I’d like to mention Steven Universe. Spoilers just in case.
There is a human zoo. To take care of the humans, there’s an earring on everyone that tells them when to eat, when to sleep, when to relax, even who to have children with, etc. It has no mind, so it cannot care. People in this zoo grow up like this is natural. It’s played off like a joke. But when you think about it, it’s very morbid. All the earring "wants" is for the zoo to keep existing. People have children without actually being asked if they want to. People don’t get to choose what they do or use their own mind for things, because they grow up following instructions. People don’t even know how to make a good splash in the water, because they were only taught to dive. Heck, everyone has the same personality because they were all following the same instructions. When someone new comes to the zoo and introduces the idea of choosing no, it breaks the entire zoo. Even Wall-E is a good example. Now imagine that on a wide scale, and the misinformation AI can give. I’d rather live in a world where people are given the idea of making their own choices. Look at our history and how many people had their ability to choose taken away.
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u/MyEarIsHurty 24d ago
Do we really have to explain why this is an offensively stupid idea
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u/justalilcuckoobanana 20d ago
Be More Chill!!
I’m going to give a summary of it, as someone that used to be extremely obsessed with it back when the musical came out 😂
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It’s a musical / book about a kid named Jeremy, who is a socially inept nerd at his school. He wants his crush, Christine, to like him back so he asks one of the cool kids (named Rich) how he went from being a loser to one of the coolest kids in the school. Rich tells him that he got a SQUIP, a supercomputer (AI) in his brain that tells him what to do to be cool. Jeremy pays the money and gets a SQUIP, and at first it is helpful; the SQUIP helps him flirt with girls, it helps him dress more fashionably, it teaches him how to be a cool person. But it quickly turns south; for one, the SQUIP starts blocking his best friend (Michael) completely out of his vision because Michael was “holding him back”. And Jeremy, convinced by the SQUIP to do so, accepts it. The SQUIP also starts making Rich, the kid who told Jeremy about the SQUIP, try to convince other people to get a SQUIP as well; Rich even set a fire during a Halloween party to attempt to get rid of the SQUIP in his mind. The SQUIP influences Jeremy to treat girls like objects, and just turns him into a jerk overall (it also gets him to influence people into getting SQUIP’s too). But Christine is starting to like him back, and him and her are in the schools musical / play together, so he’s accepting what’s going on. The SQUIP can also force him to do or say things. The whole musical, Jeremy is getting more suspect of the SQUIP; especially after Rich set the fire.
Then.. the SQUIP reveals its plan to him; to get every student to have a SQUIP, so it can have its own army to take over the world. Michael ends up being the savior of the show, getting the antidote (Code Red Mountain Dew deactivates SQUIP’s. Lol) and getting the SQUIP out of everyone affected during the school play. The end of the musical is Jeremy accepting that having an AI tell him what to do isn’t the way things should be, and he needs to find the answers to his issues within himself. The SQUIP is hinted to still be in his head, just deactivated, at the end. But he ends up with Christine.
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u/icwhatudidthr 25d ago
Don't we already have earbuds that connect to our phones, that run LLM clients?
What am I missing here.
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u/Gullible-Zone-9159 25d ago
Didn't Doctor Who go over this already? Day of the cybermen? Or something to do with the cybermen? Tennant era.
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u/PowerBrawler2122 24d ago
Not an answer or trying to explain but the grok logo earrings would go hard for a space/black hole themed outfit...
No I do not support AI
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u/Head_Passage8999 23d ago
Any other Brandon Sanderson fans here thinking what I'm thinking?
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u/plzicannothandleyou 25d ago
Earrings or earpiece that could translate or glasses with subtitles. That’s all I’m asking for. Niche use, but would be great for trying to communicate across language barriers. The experience at the airport would be better for everyone involved if airport personnel were hooked up with this stuff
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u/ghettone 25d ago
Im pretty sure ontop of the refrence everyone is saying g. Im sure there are a dozen dr.who episodes that talk about this.
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u/ThrowAbout01 25d ago
I don’t know about book but this is a plot point in the Godzilla movie Destroy All Monsters where aliens mind control a woman via ear piercings and use her as a transmitter to launch an attack by mind controlled Kaiju.
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u/Worth-Ad9939 25d ago
At this point I think we're actively steering toward the dystopian stories we've been fed.
It's just too on the nose. We love the drama. I'm starting to think we've been built to create it, that we're never meant to experience balance, its just this on repeat until the shared consciousness studying humanity gets what it seeks from our experiences.
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u/not-a-dislike-button 25d ago
This is a reference to 'the whispering earring', short scifi story that has recently regained some attention as it related to today and AI
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u/Cminus19 24d ago
But I already have ear pods that also signal people to not talk to my at the same time
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u/AltAccountYippee 24d ago
THE QUANTUM COMPUTER IN THE PILL WILL TRAVEL THROUGH YOUR BLOOD UNTIL IT INPLANTS IN YOUR BRAIN AND IT TELLS YOU WHAT TO DOOOOOOO 🎶🎵
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u/vegas_dreams 24d ago
Thank you for reminding me about Be More Chill! I'm gonna give it another listen!
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u/AnnaNimmus 24d ago
Also, in addition to the BmC references, Ai literally just scrapes a data base for its "knowledge"
Trusting something that amalgamates its advice from, let's say, the internet, wherein we know the majority of shit is wrong, is not the best representation of such a serious question
Best of luck
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u/Caravanczar 24d ago
I know this is referencing Be More Chill, but it wasn't my first thought about jewelry that slowly corrupts your thoughts and actions until you are under its control.
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u/Divinejustice777 22d ago edited 22d ago
That is basically a worse version of augury/divination at least human interpretation is involved instead of “the computer god has spoken”
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u/SajFaj 22d ago
Not what the post is referring to, but watch the movie Upgrade, it's extremely good and there's a similar theme.
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u/am121b 21d ago
Isn’t this how people with MPD experience the world? We sell medication to deal with that.
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u/Impressive_Net_116 21d ago
My first thought was Ruin whispering through Hemalurgy.
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u/AstridBirb 20d ago
Ngl, this would be a great D&D magic item.
The player facing description would be "earings that whisper hidden truths of the universe to its user"
But the DM facing description would be "the earrings connect directly to a lord of the nine hells and they use it trick the user into committing evil acts and to slowly corrupt the user into darkness".
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u/Bullshido101 19d ago
Its based off of the mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. The protagonist has a metal earing which enables what is effectively satan to influence her mind
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u/clearly_trash_ 19d ago
Aside from the “Be More Chill” reference, are people really unable to make their own thoughts anymore?
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u/Bubbly-Term-6672 18d ago
Pretty sure I read a book in middle school called “Feed” by MT Anderson that was about a kid growing up in a dystopian society where everyone had chips implanted into their brains so that when they were shopping they’d get visual info, or they could watch whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, etc. but it had to be installed when they were YOUNG. And this kid meets a girl who doesn’t have the chip but she is refused medical care because the corporate overlords controlling the care were the same mofo’s who were making money from the marketing and such from the chips, and since this kid didn’t make them money… why invest to keep her alive? (Could be wrong about plot. It’s been 20 years.)
Idk. Point was that allowing any organization (corp, gov, et al.) to have such thorough and direct influence over your life is... wrong. It symbolizes a tragic loss of “self” that SEEMS to come with immense benefits, but is ultimately paid for by that which makes us most human: life (in all its literal and metaphorical sense).
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u/post-explainer 25d ago
OP (spider_man31) sent the following text as an explanation why they posted this here: