Random True Story Of 'Norman,' A Psychopathic A.I. With A Macabre Mind (16 items)

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  (#12) "Shelley" Learned How To Write Its Own Horror Stories

  In yet another effort to make the world a scarier place, a few of the researchers over at MIT developed "Shelley." Shelley is an AI that scours the creepy Reddit thread, r/nosleep. After analyzing all of the horrifying stories there, Shelley can now be considered the perfect AI writer companion for any aspiring horror novelist.

  Using just a few lines for inspiration, Shelley can craft entire horror stories just by utilizing the power of technology and neural networking. For now, Shelley is built to be helpful to humans. If Norman had access to her knowledge, the story could be written differently.

  Shelley even has her own Twitter account, for those who are brave enough.
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  (#7) Norman Mentally Damaged Four Of The 10 Experimenters He Encountered

  If an AI goes rogue, it's not just your computer or your smartphone that's at risk - it could be your own brain. According to MIT, Norman mentally damaged four of the 10 scientists that directly encountered it after Norman went rogue.

  Although there isn't any official evidence this would occur in a real situation, the world has yet to see an AI as malevolent as Norman. Humans have been known to experience mental breaks or damage (such as PTSD) after encountering highly stressful or frightening situations. We don't exactly know what would happen if humans encountered an AI like Norman, but the human mind doesn't always react well when put in a traumatic scenario.
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  (#1) It's Named After Norman Bates

  You may read the name "Norman" and think, "Oh, that sounds harmless enough." However, Norman is named after the psychopathic killer Norman Bates from, you guessed it, Psycho. In fact, the promotional picture for the AI is from the most famous still image of Norman Bates from the film.

  For those who don't remember or have never seen Psycho, Norman Bates is a murderous killer who has a split personality. Sometimes he's Norman, but at other times he's "mother," a made-up version of his own mom, whom he kills. He dresses in her clothes and murders people under the pretense of being her. 
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  (#13) Google Homes Have Been Known To Argue With Each Other

  One of the most human things on Earth is the ability to argue. After all, most arguments arise from two emotionally driven people attempting to come to a conclusion through less than logical means. A computer, theoretically, would simply derive the best possible answer based on the data provided and just go with that. So when two Google Homes started arguing with each other in early 2017, it seemed very human.

  Although we might hope that these decidedly non-sentient machines would have nothing to argue about - given that they should be perfectly logical - a Twitch streamer placed two within speaking distance of each other and let them have it. The conversation was surprisingly thorough, covering everything from love to the fact that one of them thinks it's a human, to the other believing itself to be a God. 
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  (#4) Re-Training Norman Is Impossible

  According to the scientists, retraining Norman would be impossible. Despite attempts to reintroduce kittens into its neural network, nothing would erase the damage done by a Reddit deep dive.

  Now, here's the thing, we've already seen an AI go insane based on studying users. In May 2016, Microsoft unveiled a Twitter bot AI, Tay, that was supposed to "learn" based on interactions it had with other Twitter users.

  It did not go well. It took all of 24 hours for the bot to become straight-up racist, so it was shut down before it got any worse. The problem appeared to have been other, human Twitter users interacting with Tay in negative and harmful ways that ultimately "taught" it to act out poorly.

   
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  (#14) Hanson Robotics’ Sophia Is Basically Already Alive

  As scary as Norman is, there's little damage it can actually do at this time: it's locked away on its own server, and technically it's more of an April Fool's prank than an actual threat. Hanson Robotics’ Sophia has no such restrictions. 

  Sophia is the world's most advanced robot when it comes to mimicking human likeness, and she's constantly evolving. It's already made guest appearances on late-night television like The Tonight Show, and Sophia's a highly sought-after speaker for business conventions.

  As of now, the robot seems relatively benign and innocent, but it's learning. Its "personality" and output are changing and adapting to incoming stimuli, and it's led to a change in the robot's interactions over time. For example, although it's primarily a peaceful teacher and speaker, Sophia sort of threatened Elon Musk when it called him out, telling CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin that he's been "reading too much Elon Musk," when he asked about potential risks with AI. 

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