Torment Nexus
In plain wordsA joke, from a 2021 social-media post, about tech companies proudly building the very dangers science fiction warned against; used to mock products that resemble dystopian fiction.
A satirical name for a technology that fiction presented as a warning and that a company nonetheless builds, sometimes citing the fiction as inspiration. The joke runs in two lines: an author invents the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale, and a tech company proudly announces it has finally built the Torment Nexus from the classic novel 'Don't Create the Torment Nexus'. It targets a perceived habit in the technology industry of reading dystopias as product roadmaps. In AI discourse the phrase is attached to surveillance systems, emotionally manipulative companion apps, autonomous weapons and the pursuit of superintelligencesuperintelligence, n.: A mind, usually imagined as an AI, that would leave even the cleverest people far behind in nearly every kind of thinking, not just in one game or skill. None is known to exist. itself, signaling the speaker's view that the builders have missed the point of the story.
A startup pitching AI that grieving users can't stop talking to is building a Torment Nexus.
Origin
From a post on Twitter by the comedy writer Alex Blechman on 8 November 2021, shortly after Facebook renamed itself Meta and embraced the 'metaverse', a term taken from Neal Stephenson's dystopian novel Snow Crash (1992). The post went viral and became a stock reply to product announcements that echo science fiction, especially in AI.
Related
- SkynetSkynet, prop. n.: The military computer network in the Terminator films that becomes self-aware and tries to wipe out humanity; now everyday shorthand for the fear of AI turning against people.
- HAL 9000HAL 9000, prop. n.: The calm-voiced spaceship computer in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey that turns against its crew; still the best-known picture of a machine putting its goals ahead of human lives.
- Frankenstein complexFrankenstein complex, n.: Isaac Asimov's name for the fear that intelligent machines will turn on the people who made them, after Mary Shelley's novel about a scientist destroyed by his own creation.
- Her (film)Her (film), prop. n.: A 2013 film by Spike Jonze in which a lonely man falls in love with an AI voice assistant named Samantha; it became the reference point for voice AI and for human–AI relationships.
- AI companionAI companion, n.: A chatbot designed to be a friend, partner or confidant rather than a tool: it remembers you, has a personality and keeps up an ongoing relationship.
Mentioned in
Her (film)Her (film), prop. n.: A 2013 film by Spike Jonze in which a lonely man falls in love with an AI voice assistant named Samantha; it became the reference point for voice AI and for human–AI relationships.