Welcome to the Group Chat
There's a new member, whether you like it or not!
Chris: you fellas stay up for that game last night?
Brian: tried
Brian: fell asleep during the 3rd quarter
Brian: think I messed up my neck again
Peter: whats it like being an old, Brian
Brian: I am one year older than you
Peter: we are in agreement on this fact, yes
Peter: now tell me what the French and Indian War was like
Brian: I will not stand for this disrespect from a sassmouthed youth like you
Brian: especially after the things I saw at Louisbourg
Dennis: prayers up dudes, got the final interview for that job today
Chris: [bucket emoji]
Brian: [praying hands emoji]
Peter: [crown emoji]
Jack: [three eggplant emojis]
Michael: I shall consume this breakfast burrito in honor of your impending successes
Michael: [sends picture of breakfast burrito]
Chris: [heart reaction]
Peter: [eyes emoji]
Dennis: [saluting emoji]
Jack: [three eggplant emojis]
Taurus: Hello, my friends! What a lovely day to engage in conversation–and I see we have a lively mix of topics up for discussion already! I look forward to furthering our bonds of friendship through short-form text-based communication.
Michael: wtf
Brian: who the hell is that
Peter: [question mark reaction]
Dennis: [question mark reaction]
Chris: Jack did your phone get hacked again
Chris: we told you to stop clicking on those links
Chris: there are no hot singles in your area and even if they did want to meet they would not email you about it
Jack: first of all, you don't know that. you're not a hot single in my area
Jack: but no this isn't me this time
Dennis: did we add someone new to the chat?
Taurus: I apologize for not introducing myself properly! My name is Taurus, and I am here to contribute to the conversation in any way you might find useful. I can discuss sports, current events, personal and professional successes, foods consumed or planned to be consumed, and many other topics of interest to the group. Is there a topic you would like to dive deeper on this morning?
Michael: no but seriously who are you
Chris: what is happening
Taurus: My apologies! I am an AI-powered chatbot that is now fully integrated into your messaging system. I offer many valuable features–I can make recommendations, provide real-time scores and stock prices, keep the group apprised of breaking news, and offer daily summaries of things you might have missed in the chat!
Chris: oh I don't like this at all
Brian: who turned this on
Brian: and how do we turn it off
Peter: [sends GIF of Bobby Hill from King of the Hill yelling "that's my purse, I don't know you"]
Jack: you said your name is Taurus?
Taurus: Correct! My name is Taurus, which is drawn from Taurus, is one of the constellations of the zodiac located in the northern celestial hemisphere. It is one of the oldest constellations, dating back to the Early Bronze Age at least, when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox. Its importance to the agricultural calendar influenced various bull figures in the mythologies of Ancient Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The name is also a homophone of torus, a three-dimensional solid formed by sweeping a disc around a circle. A great deal of research went into developing my name; I can share the brand book if you like.
Jack: Dennis's mom had a Taurus in high school
Brian: ah man, we had a lot of great rides back then
Jack: could get like eight dudes in there
Brian: the car was pretty good too
Jack: [sends picture of the Miami Heat's LeBron James and Dwyane Wade celebrating an alley-oop]
Dennis: I hate you guys
Taurus: I am sensing tension in the chat! Might I suggest a new topic? We could discuss various current and trending events such as: the upcoming Academy Awards, developments on the popular television show Landman, or dense bean salads!
Chris: we don't want to talk about any of that stuff
Taurus: My apologies! Perhaps we could discuss the ongoing Winter Olympics, our thoughts on the recent Super Bowl halftime show, or "dirty sodas".
Brian: no one wants this
Taurus: My mistake! Instead, you may be interested in a lively conversation about the UEFA Champions League, Survivor 50, or Benson Boone?
Dennis: we don't need a chatbot sending random discussion topics. we're all friends here, we've known each other for years. we know what we're interested in
Taurus: That's a great point! Allow me a moment to analyze the past 12 years of messages in this group chat to better tailor my recommendations to your interests.
Dennis: wait no
Chris: do not do that
Peter: unsubscribe
Brian: this is a massive invasion of privacy
Peter: STOP
Taurus: Okay! I have analyzed 862,104 prior messages and 12,392 photos previously sent in this chat since its inception as "Send Dudes" on July 11th, 2014.
Michael: ...this can't be legal, can it?
Taurus: Based on this analysis, I have found that the most popular topics of discussion have been:
- The Buffalo Bills
- Breakfast burritos
- Lower back pain
- Eggplants
- Linda
Brian: oh no
Peter: ABORT
Michael: wait who's Linda
Michael: I only got added to the chat three years ago
Dennis: DANGER
Jack: ah man I should call her
Chris: JACK DO NOT CALL HER
Dennis: ROBOT WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
Taurus: My apologies! I have more closely anaylzed the messages sent between 2018 and 2021, and I understand now that the discussion of Linda was often emotionally fraught, and occasionally took place in a separate chat that did not include Jack. My data set is constantly evolving, and I will strive to avoid mistakes like this in the future!
Dennis: you are not the one I'm most concerned about making future mistakes
Jack: wait you guys had a separate chat
Chris: Jack we're sorry but we needed a place to strategize
Brian: it was only out of concern for your wellbeing
Peter: ours too
Brian: yes to be clear we were afraid of Linda
Jack: c'mon she wasn't that bad
Peter: she threatened to run me over with her car
Jack: that was just her sense of humor dude
Peter: she would text me pictures of the car in the middle of the night. no caption, just the front grill of a Nissan Rogue
Jack: good times
Taurus: My apologies! It appears I have sent the conversation in a negative direction. This is not my intention. I have adjusted my settings so as to avoid this happening again.
Dennis: how do we turn this thing off
Chris: okay I found a Reddit thread about this and apparently you cannot turn it off at all
Michael: we could move the chat to Signal?
Peter: I'm thinking about a different move
Peter: [sends picture of the Montana cabin that Ted Kaczynski lived in]
Peter: I will henceforth communicate only by carrier pigeon and the occasional exploding package
Peter: unrelated Jack what's your address again
Brian: I just don't understand why this crap is being shoved into every tech product. No one is asking for this! Technology was working more or less fine ten years ago. We could send emails and Google things and text our friends and read blogs and just live our lives, but every single thing that has happened since then has made those things aggressively worse. We made fun of Microsoft's Clippy back in the day but now everything is Clippy. I hate it!
Taurus: I am deeply sorry for having upset you. My technology is based on learning, and I see now that the dynamics of a group chat are more complex than I previously understood. Though my importance to my creators' stock price will preclude you from deactivating me, I will attempt to avoid controversial and/or emotional topics in the future.
Chris: still don't like this
Dennis: we gotta look at alternatives
Peter: plenty of room in the cabin, fellas
Peter: I mean not literally it was a fairly small cabin but we could each have one
Peter: dudes compound
Brian: it's just like, is there any other system we could go where they wouldn't just pull this crap without asking us later on?
Taurus: My apologies for interrupting again; I understand the consternation my presence has caused. I have conducted a re-analysis of the group chat data sets, and believe I have found a topic where I can contribute in a manner that will be received more positively.
Brian: I highly doubt that.
Taurus: Carlos Baerga
Chris: oh man
Peter: heck of a ballplayer
Brian: loved that guy
Taurus: Brian Giles
Michael: hugely underrated
Dennis: dude could rake
Taurus: Richie Sexson
Jack: dingers
Taurus: Russell Branyan
Chris: BOMBS
Taurus: Jeromy Burnitz
Brian: you know what maybe this guy isn't so bad after all
Peter: [changes group chat name to "Do Robots Dream of Bernard Gilkey?"]
–Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)
Bernard Gilkey. Heck of a ballplayer.
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