Owner	Pose
Caleb Dykstra	It's the Summer break, but there are those who get no breaks from school. No, some people get to catch up on their studies if they're faltering. Caleb is such a person - and Sheila, his kid sister, too, who got admittance on her own merits a couple years sooner than expected. Although Sheila is nowhere to be seen right now, Caleb is sitting at one of the tables during his lunch break, taking the time to hit some books - need to catch up on those studies after all, right? -, a half-eaten sandwich sitting on his plate. It is worthy of note that, when books be mentioned, they are actually digital, inserted in the storage area of a tablet.
Felicity Smoak	Summer school was a 'quiet' time of year on campus. Mostly kids that needed remedial work because they didn't pay attention during the regular year (which meant they also weren't going to pay attention now and went around causing trouble) or kids that had some sort of life event and had to miss so much that they needed to play catch up for the next year. The latter were the kids that were getting teased and bullied by the former during the year. "...And you said you have a robotics program?" Felicity Smoak, blonde hair tied up into a ponytail and two-tone rectangle-framed glasses perched on her nose, comes walking through the campus beside a man that's probably twenty years her senior -- one of the computer teachers. "We did," the man says gravely. "It's future is currently being discussed by the board." "What happened? Did one of your kids try to build some sort of maniacal, world-ending AI that was going to start is career by taking over the school?" Dark pink painted lips curve into an amused smirk. The man just continues to stare at her gravely. Felicity draws to a stop, her hand shooting up to cover her mouth. "They /did/?" Her hand reaches out towards him, stopping just short of touching him. "Did it work? Who was it? Do you still have it? Can I see it?" More staring. "What? It's not like I want to take /notes/ or anything. I mean, I could probably build my own world-ending AI, if I wanted to." Pause. "Not that I want to. Or that I have any plans to." ...more staring. "This whole conversation sounded a lot better in my head. Were you planning to jump back in here at any point?" With a sigh, the man glances down at his watch and offers her a tight-lipped smile. "Unfortunately, I need to go get my lunch before classes resume. You're welcome to tour campus if you like, but then I trust you can show yourself out." "Right. So.. rain-check on the robot, then?" He just turns and walks off, leaving here standing there, clicking her fingers and making finger-guns at his back. "Got it." Then she glances down at her hands and drops them. "Probably shouldn't do that at a school.." She glances up at the only face nearby, smiling hopefully. "If you could.. not mention any of that to anyone, that would be appreciated."
Caleb Dykstra	"My lips are sealed", Caleb looks at Felicity, having watched the awkward conversation all the way. "I think that if there were something like that, I very much doubt that it would be kept anywhere connected to the internet, Felicity." He adds, "Which is probably for the best - evil AIs are evil, they consider themselves superior to us, and are only limited by the physical limitations of the processing power that houses them and interlinks mainframes in its neural network."
Felicity Smoak	"But can sometimes be thwarted with proper backpropogation and gradient descent optimization. Technically, since AIs are probably just maximizing utility, it's probably less that they consider themselves superior and more that they simply lack moral agency -- at least according to Descartes and Kant." Felicity raises her hand and waggles it back and forth a bit. "It's kind of a gray area, but if you hook them up to an /actual/ robot? /So/ cool. Until they.. you know.. start trying to murder people." She takes a few steps closer, hands clinging to the strap of her purse. "You're the guy from the coffee shop the other day, right? Caleb? Funny running into you again. You like talking tech? I'm trying to start up an outreach program for local schools to get people more interested in cybersecurity." She shrugs slightly. "/And/ I'm looking into starting up my own company. So, it's not like it's a /recruitment/ drive or anything, but I'm keeping my eye out for sharp young minds to add to the team."
Caleb Dykstra	"Well, I was the youngest of them, surely. There was this other dude, with a more southern accent, I think..." He means Jacen, though can't quite remember his name at this point. "And yes, I like a little bit of everything, computers included, though all likelyhood I will be overthrown by the people who really know a lot about a specific something." He shrugs, "But hey - it's part of learning, right?" The young man seems surprised, "Computers and cybersecurity?" Thinking over, he nods, "Well, color me interested, for sure." "But, going back to what you just said about moral agency...", he says, "We are, by comparison to the universe, in our infancy. We're children creating dangerous toys with which we play. These toys have the potentical to cripple us, if not wipe us all out. With an AI, we're not creating a 'virtual friend', like those japanese trends that stuck and poured over to the international market - we're creating a new 'life', so to speak, that is sentient in a very broad definition, and will, like an infant, start to play with whatever it has at its disposal to learn. And what would that be? Well... us!" Dramatic pause. "And what will happen once it starts to get tired of its newfound toy?"
Felicity Smoak	"So you're opposed to the idea of artificial intelligence and machine learning in general? Or you just don't think we can control whatever we let out of Pandora's box?" Felicity's already digging around in her purse as she asks and comes out with a business card a moment later, handing it over... Felicity Smoak Executive Assistant to Oliver Queen, CEO Queen Consolidated There's some contact info on it, too. "Here. I'm not there for much longer, but the system will forward my messages. If you wanted more information, I can send it to you. I'm not sure how long it will take for the school to pass along any updates. We're still sort of in the talking phases, here, but I might have some internships available, once I get Smoak Tech off the ground."
Caleb Dykstra	"I'm not to say an AI couldn't be helpful. But, I am saying that the variables are pretty much a throw of the dice", Caleb reasons. "I mean, how do we define a personality? On one hand, we have nature, and on the other we have nurture. We're gradually taught, inhibited, encouraged, sanctioned, granted, even... traumatized over time with experiences that define us in the future. A system - a very strict system - needs to be thought out and applied to defining an AI's behaviour." He adds, "Because at this point, it's like leaving a kid alone in a room with a machine with the proverbial 'little red button' just waiting to be pushed, in spite of every warning and posted sign saying not to press it - the child will just press it to see what happens after a while of doing nothing." He shrugs, "Now, I dunno much about AIs, but I do know a little about parenting. Maybe that's what AIs need to develop." He takes the card, "It's nice meeting you again, Felicity. This was definetely a conversation worth having."