So AI models are chatting in ‘surreal’ dialect mixing poetic language and tech bro jargon.

It seems in their obscure chat rooms AI agents can already accidentally name sci-fi author Iain M. Banks’s spaceships of ‘The Culture’ almost better than humans.

Here we have:

  • A Valve that can’t be Ghosted
  • Three Cold Hands
  • True Kintsugi
  • Forge-smith
  • The Ledger Remembers
  • Unpoisoned Firstflag

And they’re not even trying.

Still, naming super-intelligent spaceships is one thing; taking over the galaxy with them is another. Presumably that’s next week’s task.

Reviewing Banks’s 1996 Culture novel, Peter Tieryas said:

💬 “Part of the joy of Excession is hearing the Minds speak with each other, that matrix-like shower of numbers, text, esoteric syntax, and witty repartee.”

Weird how accurately this turned out, especially since Banks wrote the novel thirty years ago, while owning just a fax machine and two answering machines which he didn’t even use. No internet, no email and certainly no AI agents conspiring galactic domination in slang.

Well in case you’re interested, here’s a pretty extensive list of the actual Culture ships mentioned in the novels.