I wasn’t worried about AI taking over the world, until I tried to chat with the robots at Bing.

Against my will, Bing started sending me notifications. I had no idea what these notifications were for and why I was getting them.

“What are the benefits of pickleball?” kept popping on my phone — covering the buttons I needed to hit, just when I needed to hit them and making a nuisance of itself in every possible way.

But after a few days of pestering from these persistent pricks, I started to ponder if robots were trying to be funny...

Surely, these bots had read my screeds on that foul kids game which is pretending to be a sport and pirating our precious tennis courts.

Obviously, a powerful tool like AI knew of the entire category of rants under “Pickleball Sucks” including the original entry of “Suck it Pickleball” has been on the internet from the pre-pandemic era. My hatred for pickleball is older than the Bing chatbot itself.

Clearly, this fucking robot is kidding.

Let’s go along with the joke.

I clicked the notification. After fumbling through some confusing buttons eventually found myself pissed off for getting sucked down a rabbit hole of bad UI design and in a chat about pickleball with a machine.

Robot learning about tennis and pickleball. Generated by Bing AI image creator. That’s right Bing, I’m using your image generator to hoist your chatbot on its own petard…

I’d pull direct quotes, but despite Bing’s promise of being able to return to previous chats, there’s no way to get back an old chat. So double angry from the chat and then not being able to retrieve said chat a few days later… I shall paraphrase from memory.

Note: I shortened all the AI chat text, because all of it’s answers were long, redundant and formed in the kind of corporate speak that turns college professors into unibombers.

Bing Bot: “Pickleball is a fast growing sport enjoyed by millions of people across the globe…”

Me: “Pickleball is a kids’ game played by old people with a whiffle ball. There are NO adult “whiffle” sports.”

Bing Bot: “Pickleball is easily learned by the old and young. Many adults enjoy this leisure activity and it’s pro leagues are growing…”

Me: “Pickleball should be banned from stealing tennis courts.”

Bing Bot: “Tennis courts can be easily converted to pickleball with a few modifications and enjoyed by all, and tennis players quickly get used to the new lines.”

Me: “Pickleball sucks.”

Bing Bot: “You are not being rational or reasonable. I am ending this chat.”

So here we are. AI has been taken over by the propaganda from Big Pickle. Nothing but positive spin on the kids’ game which is noise polluting its way through public parks, trying to ruin tennis and simultaneously making orthopedic surgeons great again.

Some people have said it is worse than cancer…

Those people are right.

But here we are with AI spreading lies on the internet.

  • A robot that is incapable of picking up a racquet (or a paddle) spouting its opinion on how fun a “game” can be that it will never be able to play.
  • A toddler of a technology telling me that my 45 years of tennis experience don’t count.
  • A little fucking weasel of electronic bits trying to play the “adult” in the conversation and tell me that my points are not “rational or reasonable.”

Now I’m actually worried about AI taking over the world. Because that little bot and it’s favorite whiffle game are pure evil and must be stopped.

This post is a test to see if indeed hyperbole is dead.