Summary (details follow)

Google provides an early-stage variant of a general-purpose AI (GP-AI).

Other providers of an early-stage GP-AI include IBM, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Samsung.

Google and its AI competitors are likely to be operating under the assumption that one GP-AI could become the runaway market leader. Their likely thinking:

The more users a GP-AI has, the smarter it gets. The smarter a GP-AI gets, the more new users it will attract.

Google can produce multiple comedy series that showcase its AI being funny and getting smarter. In particular, these comedies can showcase Google’s AI getting smarter about facilitating group flow. This variant of flow:

is a top enabler of professional success for group members

often sparks romantic/sexual attraction between group members

Google’s flowmantic comedies could become very popular, not least because:

comedy and increased prospects of money and (great) sex stimulate the part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens

the nucleus accumbens mediates psychological addiction (i.e., manufactures cravings)

So Google’s comedies could enable Google’s AI to gain enough users to achieve escape velocity, the precursor to runaway market leadership.

Fun fact: Popular comedies typically generate a lot of revenue directly (e.g., via advertising, product placement).

Via comedy, then, the popularizing of Google’s AI could be run as a profit center.

So Google’s AI competitors . . .

I shared this article with Google by responding to the company’s October 2016 job post seeking a comedy writer for Google’s AI.

So, again, Google wanting its AI to be funny portends . . .

Re: early-stage GP-AI

“[T]he first genuine AI will not be birthed in a stand-alone supercomputer, but [rather] in the superorganism of a billion computer chips known as the ‘Net. . . . Any device [e.g., a smartphone] that touches this networked AI will share — and contribute to — its intelligence.”

— From 2016 book The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, by the founding executive editor of Wired magazine

Re: Google’s AI

“Google Assistant, a voice-activated digital helper [that] . . . ‘learns’ about your habits and day-to-day activities and carries out ‘conversation actions’ to serve you. It also draws on information in your Google accounts. The more it knows about how, when, and where it is used, the more it’s able to help you.”

— From an October 9, 2016 article on Futurism.com

“All That New Google Hardware? It’s a Trojan Horse for AI”

— Title of an October 5, 2016 article on Wired.com

Re: Google wants its AI to be funny

“Google Taps Pixar, Onion Staff to Give AI Assistant a Sense of Humor”

— Title of an October 11, 2016 article on the website of PC magazine

Re: Google vs. IBM vs. Microsoft . . .

“Major technology firms are racing to infuse smartphones and other internet-linked devices with software smarts . . .

The artificial intelligence (AI) component in these programs aims to create a world in which everyone can have a virtual aide that gets to know them better with each interaction.”

— From an October 8, 2016 article on Yahoo.com

Companies mentioned in the article: Google, IBM, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Samsung.

Re: one GP-AI could become the runaway market leader

“The more people who use an AI, the smarter it gets. The smarter it gets, the more people who use it. The more people who use it, the smarter it gets. And so on. Once a company enters this virtuous cycle, it tends to grow so big so fast that it overwhelms any upstart competitors. As a result, our AI future is likely to be ruled by an oligarchy of two or three large, general-purpose cloud-based commercial intelligences.”

— From The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

Re: producing comedy series to (further) popularize a GP-AI

— From a 2013 article on Neilsen.com

— From the July 2014 report by Yahoo and Tumblr, in partnership with Razorfish and Digitas, titled “Content Marketing: Best Practices Among Millennials”

Re: producing profitable comedy series to (further) popularize a GP-AI

“The Big Four [TV] networks can charge an average of 35 percent more for a thirty-second spot on a situation comedy than one on a drama.”

— From 1999 book The Entertainment Economy

Re: group flow is a top enabler of professional success

“Flow’s two defining characteristics are its feel-good nature (flow is always a positive experience) and its function as a performance-enhancer. The [neuro]chemicals described herein are among the strongest . . . the body can produce.”

“A ten-year study done by McKinsey found top executives reported being up to five times more productive when in flow. Creativity and cooperation are so amplified by the state that [a] Greylock Partners venture capitalist . . . called ‘flow state percentage’ — defined as the amount of time employees spend in flow — the ‘most important management metric for building great innovation teams.’

. . . When performance peaks in groups . . . this isn’t just about individuals in flow — it’s the group entering the state together . . .”

— From 2014 book The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance

Re: group flow often sparks romantic/sexual attraction

“[T]here are extraordinarily powerful social bonding neurochemicals at the heart of both flow and group flow: dopamine and norepinephrine, that underpin romantic love . . .”

— From The Rise of Superman

“Great Groups are sexy places.

. . . [During Apple’s early years, Steve Jobs mandated that] employees share [hotel] rooms when they were at conventions and other professional meetings . . . to limit bed-hopping . . .”

— From 1997 book Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration

Re: comedy stimulates the nucleus accumbens

“Mobbs saw that subjects’ brains became highly activated for all the cartoons, but one subset of structures responded solely for the funny ones — namely, the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, and the amygdala. What do those brain regions have in common? They’re key components of what scientists call the dopamine reward circuit, which is responsible for distributing dopamine throughout the brain. In response to unfunny jokes, we not only fail to laugh, we miss out on the joy. That joy comes in the form of dopamine.

. . . [H]umor taps directly into the brain’s pleasure-production system.”

— From 2014 book Ha!: The Science of When We Laugh and Why

Re: the prospect of money stimulates the nucleus accumbens

“The brain scan at the top highlights the nucleus accumbens flaring up at the prospect of making money . . . (courtesy of Hans Breiter, Harvard Medical School)”

— from 2007 book Your Money and Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich

Re: the prospect of (great) sex stimulates the nucleus accumbens

“[N]uclei accumbens, which respond nearly identically to the prospect of food, sex . . .”

— From 2009 book The Investor’s Manifesto

Re: the nucleus accumbens mediates psychological addiction

“[I]t’s no wonder companies stimulate consumers’ nucleus accumbens all the time. For example, the reason we find ourselves incessantly checking our smart phones is deeply rooted in the psychology of reward.”

— From a 2014 article by the author of 2014 book Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

“Dopamine and drug addiction: the nucleus accumbens shell connection.”

— Title of a 2004 academic paper published in Neuropharmacology (the paper had 674 citations as of October 23, 2016)