Computer scientists are fretting that people can’t tell the difference between a clever chatbot and a sentient being. They worry that because AI can simulate empathy, some will start treating it as alive, confusing mimicry with mind. Fair point. But if we’re being honest, you don’t need silicon to see the problem. Just look at Nigel Farage.
Farage is Britain’s first biological chatbot. He doesn’t think, he loops. Brussels, immigrants, boats, pint — that’s his training data, endlessly recycled like a faulty autocomplete. Ask him about housing, productivity, or the climate crisis and you’ll get the political equivalent of a 404 error. If he were software, you’d delete him and start again. Instead, he’s somehow landed a seat in Parliament.
The irony is that a genuine chatbot at least tries to please its user. Farage doesn’t. He’s programmed for himself while convincing you he’s speaking for you. His “common sense” routines spool out like a satnav stuck on “Turn right” while you’re ploughing across a field.
The one sure way we know he’s not a machine? Machines can be updated. Farage can’t. Thirty years on the same script, still insisting Brexit hasn’t been “done properly” — without ever once defining what properly means. That’s not sentience, it’s stasis.
So if scientists want a living case study in confusing simulation for thought, they needn’t worry about chatbots. They can switch on the Parliament channel and watch Farage glitch his way through another soundbite.
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