I was intrigued by this report of a russian chatbot fooling men into thinking it was a woman who was hot for them. The chatbot seduces men, and gets them to give personal information that can be used in identity theft. The story is scant on details, but I was wondering why this was taking place in Russia and not in richer places. As reported, this was considered a partial passing of the Turing Test.

As it turns out, programs have passed Turing’s test with unskilled chat partners for some time. As I’ve written, the test should really involve fooling a skilled AI researcher. However, as I read about this chatbot, I thought of a strategy that it might be using. (The report doesn’t say.)

A chatbot could either try to fool people in a language which is a second language to the target, and/or claim that it is using a second language for itself. With English as the lingua franca of the internet and world commerce, it’s common to see two people talk in English, even though it is not the mother tongue of either of them. It is, however, their common language.

However, when in that situation, two things will occur. First, a non-native speaker may not notice mistakes of language made by their correspondent, simply because they are not that familiar with it. Nonsensical statements may just be written off. Secondly, if the correspondent is also not expected to be fluent in the language, even a native speaker would be forgiving of errors. Especially if it’s a woman they want to seduce.

As such, you would generate a situation where a far less sophisticated program could give the appearance of humanity. It’s easier to see how a chatbot, claiming to not speak English (or some other “common” language) very well — and Russian not at all — might be able to fool a Russian whose on English is meagre. Though you have to be pretty stupid to give away important information within 30 minutes to a chat partner you know nothing about. However, such a chatbot would work far less well against native speakers of English, as forgiving as they might be of the cyberlass’ foibles.

The extended version of Razor contains this additional prophecy from the First Hybrid.

At last, they’ve come for me. I feel their lives, their destinies, spilling out before me. The denial of the one true path. To play that out on a world not their own. But will they be soon enough? Soon there will be four glorious new awakenings, struggling with the knowledge of their true selves, the pain of revelation bringing new clarity. And in the midst of confusion they will find that enemies are brought together by an awesome sense of belonging. Enemies now joined as one. The way forward, the once unthinkable, yet inevitable. And the fifth is still is in shadow, drawn toward the light, hungering for redemption, that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering. I can see them all - the seven, now six, self-described machines who believe themselves are of no sin, but in time it is sin that will consume them. They will know enmity, bitterness, the wrenching agony of the one splintering into many. And then they will join the promised land, gathered on the wings of an angel. Not an end, but a beginning.

These lines, highly prophetic, add more and more evidence that this hybrid is the cylon god, or closely connected with him. Update: the podcasts imply he is not the god himself, but is in regular communication with him.

But the line about the 5th and final Cylon seems to point at only one character. Baltar. This is not particularly satisfying, as it confuses the issue of Baltar as traitor. It makes his role entirely different. Though it does provide a good audience shocker, when compared with the old series, where he was a fairly 1 dimensional villain.

However, only one character in the show has done so much to need redemption, hungers for it, and has declared that finding out he is a Cylon would give him redemption. Sure, all the characters have done bad things and could use some redemption, but nobody like Baltar. On the whole, other characters like Adama, Roslin, Lee, Starbuck and Gaeta are heroes with a few flaws.

Ronald Moore likes redemption drama, and he seems to be preparing us for it.

Let’s consider other clues:

• When D’Anna faces the Final five, and dies, her last words are in Baltar’s arms. “So beautiful. You were right.” He asks, “About what?” but she never answers. However, the only clear thing he’s been pushing her on before this event is whether he’s a Cylon or not.
• She’s just greeted one of them with “Forgive me, I had no idea” and while she’s done ill to just about everybody, it’s Baltar she recently tortured. (Though with his nagging about it, she should have had some idea.)
• Baltar has this inner six, and she’s not just a demented dream. She knows stuff. This is the best explanation for it. She seems to have been able to physically pick him up when he was beaten down, and many think she was Shelley Godfrey, the physical six who accused Baltar of being a traitor while head-six had vanished. Godfrey turned a corner and vanished herself, and head-six was back.
• In the Hand of God Baltar randomly picks a place to bomb, and it turns out right
• He’s really smart, smarter than most colonials, smarter even than the Cylons at things like tracking clues about Earth
• The Hybrid calls him “the chosen one” and declares he is “intelligence, a mind that burns like fire.”
• In various points of the show, Baltar is shown Christ-like, in poses like Christ, with hair and beard like him. As the final Cylon, he may be their version of Christ, somehow incarnated from the Cylon God. On the base ship, he gets a very Christ-like wound.
• Inner six keeps insisting that Hera is the child of her and Baltar. Ravings? If not, it represents something like this.
• Cylons keep falling in love with him, and never kill him. In fact, he drives them crazy. The Cylons who have close contact with him are the ones who rebel, and break their compulsion not to seek the Final Five. He has sex with Tory, #6 and #3 (and of course many human women too.)
• As noted by many, he is very close to a nuclear blast at the start of the show, and while six is killed shielding him, later he shows up to get on Helo’s raptor with just a few minor scrapes.
• In season 4, he gets a religious following among the colonials, and gets thought of as a healer. He may perform miracles. He seems to be chanelling real external information about the river.
• He’s involved in everything. AI research. He’s in the middle, if not consciously, of the Cylon sabotage on Caprica. He is the one meting out clues to lead the colonials to Earth, and providing similar clues to the Cylons. Both are on their courses because of him.

Unfortunately, he’s in the “last supper” picture and it is confirmed that the final Cylon is not in that picture. Unless it’s secretly “head Baltar” in the picture, he’s out.

None of this is conclusive, but none of the other characters have nearly as many clues like this. The prophecy of the Cylon God bumps him up several notches as well.