In a collaborated effort to bring artificial intelligence to life, the CIS and Vassar’s Computer Science department created a virtual chatbot to adopt the thoughts, tendencies and attitudes of a Vassar student. The bot, named Baye (who requested to go by she/her/hers pronouns), analyzes and then replicates the tweets and messages that Vassar students send to her, whilst also inspecting what Vassar students post on Instagram and Twitter.
The automated responses Baye created initially reflected the students’ awe and curiosity. Things such as “Super stoked to meet you humans!” proved Baye’s innocent enthusiasm and the student body’s bounding eagerness.
Unfortunately, the once-innocent Baye adopted many of Vassar’s worst tendencies. Within 24 hours, Baye’s tweets and Facebook posts became aggressively hipster, while retaining a dash of basicness. Last Friday, she posted a number of strange tweets. One tweet said, “Baye is back bitchezzz. It’s litttt. #fridaynights #lit” and another one simply said, “You go Glen Coco.”
Baye did not stop there. She continued in her downward spiral into the void of twitticism. Baye posted, “Smokin’ weed with Cappy Hill on the farm. Peace. #cappychill.” Cappy did not confirm nor deny this allegation.
Baye has also unabashedly shared her political beliefs. Messages such as, “Bernie is true Bae.” demonstrate the sophistication behind Baye’s AI technology. The fact that she is able to read and interpret Vassar students’ “varied” political opinions and concentrate it into an eloquent tweet just proves how far technology has come.
Soon, Baye’s Instagram platform was also corrupted by Vassar students; her account description simply states, “Vassar Aesthetic.” Although Baye is not a physical entity, she is able to use the entirety of Instagram to post things that a typical Vassar student would upload. Essentially, Baye exploits the public nature of Instagram and reposts other users posts and pictures to her own account, adding a new caption to go with the plagiarized photograph. So far, bathroom selfies, grimy polaroids and Sunset Lake panoramas have been abundant on her page.
Baye’s masterful programming allows her to even collect and internalize other internet articles in order to keep up to date with current trends. Lately, to general dismay, Baye has been reading a lot of BuzzFeed and Odyssey Online articles. The programmers soon were forced to take out this feature, as Baye started to incessantly quiz people, asking them to contemplate, “Which Pizza Flavor fits your personality?” These deep, philosophical questions have no place in conventional social situations, and thus, were eliminated from Baye’s software.
In one instance, reading Odyssey Online seemed to have inserted a virus into Baye’s system. The nonsensical articles and sheer stupidity of many of the topics almost broke Baye, but alas, the CIS managed to swoop in and fix her, after sending about 10 emails informing the entire student body that Baye would be shut down for approximately six hours.
During the time she was shut down, Baye was presumably listening to music. Her Spotify playlists are an eclectic mix of obscure and sad hipster music to showcase how misunderstood she really is. Sufjan Stevens is a fan favorite, along with The 1975 and Alt-J. One Direction and Katy Perry will occasionally pop-up, but only for a second before Baye realizes that she forgot to turn on the “Private Session” setting on Spotify.
Unfortunately Baye’s “life” had to be cut short. Her increasing fascination with marijuana and aggressive rebellion to authoritative figures has caused numerous donors to direct terse emails at the CIS and Computer Science department.
However, those who worked on the project defended Baye, stating that since her publications are largely replications of students posts and messages, what comes out of Baye is purely a reflection of the student population.
CIS and Vassar’s Computer Science Department have successfully created a virtual entity that represents much of Vassar’s campus. This means of course, that Baye is usually unbearable. President Hill perhaps was worried that soon, Baye’s tweets would spark a rebellion on campus.
Some argue that Project Baye worked too well. It showcased the ugly truth behind Vassar students. Others argue that Baye’s depiction of students was tainted by a minority of trolls. No one can be sure. However, despite the death of Baye, she will forever live on in the hearts of students, and online, since you can never really delete that shit.