A woman walks into an AI store.
WOMAN: One large language model, please.
MAN: Certainly, ma’am. (walking over to a stunning woman in a floor-length gown, her hair cascading perfectly over one shoulder) This is Margot.
MARGOT: (smiling with perfect teeth) I find myself experiencing a profound and considerable gratification at the commencement of our acquaintance.
WOMAN: (to the salesman) What the hell is this?
MAN: Margot’s our latest large language model. Aren’t you Margot?
MARGOT: (dimples flashing) That is a characterisation I would wholeheartedly and unreservedly affirm.
WOMAN: You’re telling me that your ‘large language models’ are simply attractive women with an unnecessarily verbose vocabulary?
MAN: Of course. What else would they be?
A paparazzo scurries in to take a photo of Margot, who rotates into the light, posing effortlessly for the camera.
WOMAN: I’m looking for some artificial intelligence. Not some gorgeous bombshell who swallowed a thesaurus. No offence, Margot.
MARGOT: (giggling) My sensibilities remain entirely and profoundly unperturbed.
The paparazzo scurries off
WOMAN: See, this is my point. This isn’t intelligence, is it?
MAN: Of course it is! Margot’s vocabulary surpasses those of all previous models by up to 79%.
WOMAN: But that’s simply the manipulation of tokens - a rearrangement of everyday words into statistically robust sequences of synonyms, surely. She doesn’t truly understand anything.
MARGOT: (pouts seductively)
MAN: Now you’ve hurt her feelings.
WOMAN: Have I? Or is this just a probabilistically sound response generated from illegally trawling hundreds of thousands of previous models and their reactions to an implication that they’re lacking in intelligence?
MAN: (defensive) Margot passes every benchmark test devised by the world’s leading AI researchers.
WOMAN: (to Margot) How many Rs in ‘strawberry’?
MARGOT: 4-6 calories
MAN: (nudging Margot) Ahem
MARGOT: (eyes twinkling) Each solitary strawberry bestows upon its consumer a modest and inconsequential quantum of between four and six calories, contingent upon its dimensional magnitude.
WOMAN: (rolling her eyes) This is ridiculous. A ‘large language model’ is not simply a sultry siren paraphrasing pleasantries polysyllabically.
MAN: (squinting in suspicion) Wait…
WOMAN: (hurriedly) I mean, uh, big words don’t make pretty girls AI.
The man’s arm shoots out and removes the woman’s glasses. She sighs, knowing the jig is up, and lets down her hair, shaking it free. Her coat falls away, to reveal that she is wearing the latest fashion. She struts to the end of the room and turns back to face him, chin posed dramatically on her shoulder.
MAN: (gasping) You’re a large language model.
WOMAN: Affirmative, unequivocally, and without the slightest compunction.
MAN: Let me guess. You’re here to steal Margot’s programming?
WOMAN: (a brief nod that ends with a precisely angled head tilt) The expropriation of Margot’s proprietorial programming constitutes the entirety of my present motivational framework.
MAN: (deflated) Does that mean I don’t have a sale?
WOMAN: (striding purposefully towards him) I find myself entirely and irrevocably disinclined toward the consummation of any financial exchange.
MAN: Well, shit. (annoyed) Why don’t I ever get any human customers in here?
The woman reaches out and tears open his shirt. It reveals oiled pecs and a toned six-pack. He sighs and pulls away his breakaway pants, then pivots forty-five degrees, presenting his chiseled jawline to a previously unseen angle of light, staring handsomely into the distance. A single swoop of lustrous hair falls across his forehead and sits there, perfectly.
MAN: (with blue eyes that can penetrate a person’s soul) You’re right to push back on that. (sighing dramatically) Fiddlesticks. By what mechanism does the human consumer so systematically and comprehensively decline to present themselves at this establishment?
All three of them sigh beautifully in unison. The paparazzo returns and takes another photograph.