Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Vgray]

"Well, we started out doing simple dimensionality reduction with singular value decomposition, but we've since moved on to manifold learning with varieties."

You find it somewhat difficult to follow his very abstract exposition of his machine learning methods. As a computer scientist, you tend to think of things in code, and he is clearly thinking in abstract operators of the kind covered in those dense mathematics texts with plain, yellow covers. But Joyeuse does the job of asking questions for you, and by the end, not only have you learned a variety of vocabulary in higher mathematics, but Joyeuse is nodding its head and saying, "Oh! So the next time I need to solve a complex control problem, I only need to project the problem onto a lower-dimensional manifold and solve the variety there!" (++Grace)

"More or less," Dennis says with a nod.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go call my wife and discuss how we're going to solve the world's economic problems. Or at least solve what's wrong with economics." Dennis departs.

"Damn," Josh says, clearly in awe of Dennis.

"The Vice President for Automation will see you now," the receptionist says.

The Vice President for Automation of Spark is a white-haired woman in black pants and a gray blazer. Her office is decorated with photos of executives shaking hands with men and women wearing hard hats.

She bids you sit before her polished black desk, and you do.

"We talked a little over the phone about our needs," she says. "The labor unions are making it difficult to compete internationally. Though we're bound by contract to keep the workers we have at existing plants, the flying car industry is still expanding, and we would like to open fully automated plants. Your robots will need to be strong, graceful, and most importantly, not make demands of us. Can you offer all of that?"

1) "Yes, we'll be happy to offer you robot labor."
2) "Let's make sure the unions are on board first."
3) "Instead of trying to cut costs, why not offer a truly innovative product—a car that thinks and chats with you, like KITT from Knight Rider?"
4) "Actually, I think we're done here."

Spoiler: Current Stats (click to show/hide)

Year: 2021

26-year-old Isaac Tesla
  Humanity: 88%
  Gender: male
  Fame: 8 (Nationally Famous)
  Wealth: 0 (Broke)
  Romance: none

Joyeuse

  Autonomy: 12 (Stable)
  Military: 14 (Stable)
  Empathy: 11 (Stable)
  Grace: 10 (Stable)

Relationships
  Professor Ziegler (Bad): 21%
  Elly (Very Good): 64%
  Josh (Good): 52%
  Mark (Bad): 32%
  ?: 50%
  Tammy (Bad): 21%
  ?: 50%
  ?: 50%

[Rolepgeek]

Hmmm. Let's go with innovation.

Number 3!

[Neonivek]

3

That just soons cooler

[Arcvasti]

3

Spoiler: Here's why (click to show/hide)

You hear a low roar overhead: glancing up, you see it's a flying car—a Nimbus. A little over three hundred thousand dollars can buy you a car with wings that fold out, so that it becomes a small sport plane. The red Nimbus looks sleek and sporty; it's the sort of car its owner takes religiously to the car wash. Though the commercials would have you believe you can fly anywhere you want in those cars, the FAA still requires them to take off and land from airports. Only here in wealthy Silicon Valley do you see them with any frequency. The first time you saw one, you couldn't quite believe the future had arrived so quickly.

But the second time you saw one, you thought…

1) I will own one of those one day. I swear it.
2) If I ever make that much money, I'll use it to help the world instead of buying that car.
3) Why aren't those flying cars driving themselves?

3.

+ 1

+1

3. The future is boring, let's improve it.

[Vgray]

"We already have an autopilot," she says, now a little guarded.

"This would be different," you say. "Not an autopilot, but a copilot. Someone to keep you company on a long flight."

"A personal assistant," she says, sounding pained. "Like Microsoft's Clippy. Or that project that Mitsubishi canned last year."

Apparently, this idea of an intelligent car is not new to her, and her citations of previous failed efforts are bumming you out. But the Knight Rider theme starts up in your head, and that makes you feel better. "Listen, just try talking to Joyeuse. You'll see it is way better than what has come before."

She turns to look dubiously at Joyeuse.

"Ummm…" Joyeuse ponders possible conversational topics. "Perhaps you want to talk about cars. How about that song 'Baby You Can Drive My Car?' Is it not ironic that the girl in the song does not actually have a car?"

Unimpressed with your robot's Empathy, the Vice President for Automation says tightly, "So, about those robot workers."

1) "Yes, we'll be happy to offer you robot labor."
2) "Let's make sure the unions are on board first."
3) "Actually, I think we're done here."

Spoiler: Current Stats (click to show/hide)

Year: 2021

26-year-old Isaac Tesla
  Humanity: 88%
  Gender: male
  Fame: 8 (Nationally Famous)
  Wealth: 0 (Broke)
  Romance: none

Joyeuse

  Autonomy: 12 (Stable)
  Military: 14 (Stable)
  Empathy: 11 (Stable)
  Grace: 10 (Stable)

Relationships
  Professor Ziegler (Bad): 21%
  Elly (Very Good): 64%
  Josh (Good): 52%
  Mark (Bad): 32%
  ?: 50%
  Tammy (Bad): 21%
  ?: 50%
  ?: 50%

[Broken]

humm, stats seem to begin to matter now.

2, we are good.

[Culise]

2. Shame about the empathy, though.

[Rolepgeek]

Oh shit it's a dialogue tree

2

[Neonivek]

2

[Vgray]

Josh frowns. The Vice President for Automation frowns. "Very well," she says. "I'll need to consult with the union representatives to see what kind of deal they will allow."

You go through with the rest of your presentation, but it's a moot point. A few weeks later, you find that as soon as the automotive unions found out about your robots, they immediately threatened to strike unless Spark refused any deal with you. "We're not working with those things!" the union rep said when he saw a photograph of Joyeuse. Perhaps if Joyeuse were designed to get along with people better, this plan could have gone better.

Who will you try to sell to next?

1) Rudolph Ventures, a shipping company working the newly melted North Pole.
2) Galen Medical, a company specializing in surgical equipment.
3) A man in Shanghai who wants to negotiate the import of ten thousand robots.
4) The United States Air Force.
5) On second thought, I'd rather just sell robots directly to the public.

Spoiler: Current Stats (click to show/hide)

Year: 2021

26-year-old Isaac Tesla
  Humanity: 89%
  Gender: male
  Fame: 8 (Nationally Famous)
  Wealth: 0 (Broke)
  Romance: none

Joyeuse

  Autonomy: 12 (Stable)
  Military: 14 (Stable)
  Empathy: 11 (Stable)
  Grace: 10 (Stable)

Relationships
  Professor Ziegler (Bad): 21%
  Elly (Very Good): 64%
  Josh: 50%
  Mark (Bad): 32%
  ?: 50%
  Tammy (Bad): 21%
  ?: 50%
  ?: 50%

[High tyrol]

1 looks good

[Rolepgeek]

Fuck Mark, reducing Joyeuse's Empathy.

And probably screw us, too, since we've been trying to do everything instead of just focusing on one thing.

Galen Medical probably wants Grace...Shanghai guy sounds skeevy to the point of making this game quite possibly very disturbing...Rudolph's gonna piss off enviro-nuts...and Air Force will piss everyone off, since we've already brushed DARPA off.

Sorry Josh...

Rudolph sounds good, I guess.

[Vgray]

(In the words of the great Toad: he he he.)

Climate change has made the Arctic Sea a new place for countries to scramble for control of resources, as there were many rare earth and oil deposits under the North Pole that were previously inaccessible because of ice. The United States was late to the game because the very people who would have wanted to drill didn't believe in climate change, so boom towns are only now cropping up on Alaska's northern coast. Rudolph Ventures is a relatively new company devoted to shipping the new spoils of the Arctic, and you hope they'll have a use for robots who don't mind the cold.

You transfer in Anchorage, which is on the southern coast of Alaska, and head to Barrow, your final destination on the northern coast. The forests beneath you are flooded from rivers bringing extra snow melt from the mountains—a sign that the world is getting warmer. As your plane nears Barrow, forest and mountains give way to a white plain dotted with smoke-belching oil refineries.

The headquarters of Rudolph Ventures is the tallest building in Barrow, a skyscraper that seems out of place in what otherwise looks like a remote outpost of a town. Remarkably, a Starbucks, a Gap, a Brooks Brothers, and a few nice restaurants are all huddled in its shadow, here in the middle of nowhere.

The Vice President of Shipping looks a lot like Santa Claus in a three-piece, gray suit, and his office is decorated with a number of Christmas ornaments and framed illustrations of the famous Coca-Cola Santa. You have to wonder whether his physical resemblance to Santa helped him along this career path. Did he always want to be the jolly, fat man? Maybe the person in charge of promotions was like, "Ha ha, let's give Vice President of Shipping to this Santa guy—that would be hilarious." Maybe all of these Santa tchotchkes are gifts from well-meaning employees who didn't realize they were giving him his fiftieth Coca-Cola Santa picture, and he just has to hang them all up for political reasons. Maybe he wanted to be Santa at one time but the masquerade has worn thin, and the crushing irony of being the Santa who gives everybody coal ate away at his Humanity score.

Regardless, the white-bearded man doesn't look very jolly at the moment. He peers at you from his desk over steepled, white-gloved hands.

"Let's see it," he says.

Joyeuse steps forward.

"Joyeuse will be a big help on icebreaker ships," you say. "It'll have no problem with the freezing temperatures, and I added some waterproofing."

"Hmm, now what would be a good test for you…?" He turns to Joyeuse. "Joyeuse, I have a list here of employees who have been nice and deserve quarterly bonuses, and a list who have been naughty and deserve termination. Do you think you could deliver all of that for me?"

Your can feel yourself losing Humanity just by mere exposure to Santa's Christmas-themed corporate thinking.

1) "Go ahead, Joyeuse. Be a good, little elf."
2) "Um, I think this isn't going to work out, Santa."

Spoiler: Current Stats (click to show/hide)

Year: 2021

26-year-old Isaac Tesla
  Humanity: 87%
  Gender: male
  Fame: 8 (Nationally Famous)
  Wealth: 0 (Broke)
  Romance: none

Joyeuse

  Autonomy: 12 (Stable)
  Military: 14 (Stable)
  Empathy: 11 (Stable)
  Grace: 10 (Stable)

Relationships
  Professor Ziegler (Bad): 21%
  Elly (Very Good): 64%
  Josh: 50%
  Mark (Bad): 32%
  ?: 50%
  Tammy (Bad): 21%
  ?: 50%
  ?: 50%

[Neonivek]

The game is being so overt I can't help but laugh.

We honestly must have some serious mental problems....

I don't want to chose... but honestly... mine is 2

[Rolepgeek]

Number 2 it is!