End of an Era: Forum 2000 Closes

Ex Machina writes: "After nearly 4 years on the net, the great artificial intelligence project Forum 2000 has closed. For the uninitiated, Forum 2000's artificial intelligence constructs -- the SOMADS (who ranged from Tux the Penguin to Einstein) -- answered questions from 'drones' on the Internet. It is being reported on at: Fake Forum, True Meaning of Life, and Conversatron."

Comments

Damn Formless Void

[IanCarlson]

Forum2000 was the one of the best Internet hoaxes around. Questions were fed to students at a college by a web interface, then answered in imaginary personas. Submitting a question to Forum2000 was like getting a private consultation from literary figures, naked females, computer hardware, or a crack baby. Many belly-laughs were had while scanning the Hall Of Fame.

Forum was so well written, one got the impression of almost a tailor-made cartoon strip. SOMADS (personas) were always creative, and the answers were sometimes helpful.

All of this was done, from my understanding, by a group of bored college students. If Forum2000 displayed the wisdom of the average college student, then the future of the world has nothing to worry about. I really will miss the wit and wisdom that was dispensed through the cold and heartless system which is the Internet.

Farewell, Forum, and good luck to its creators in whatever line of work they plan on persuing in the future.

no!

[linuxonceleron]

Even though me and a friend knew this thing was a hoax (well I did, he still isn't sure), we were actually gonna go up to CMU sometime soon to go see the guys who run/fake it. Anyways, F2k has helped me make many decisions, and its decisions have always been dead wrong, but they still helped. I think the funniest thing that came from it was when my friend was bitching about playing drums in a school play, and PeterB replied, "go smoke some weed, then play drums, it will help". Also, when presented with questions about asian girls PeterB's "Mmmmm...asian girls" comforted me while Jet Li's "STAY AWAY FROM MY SISTER!!" had me scared to talk to any asian girls for a long time. F2k made me stop using it after Dr. Laura accused me of being raped by an asian nanny, that's just wrong.