This was 10 years ago now, but when I was studying in Ireland, at least 75% of the people I spoke to followed up "where are you from in the States?" with "Oh, Chicago? Do you have a gun? Have you ever been shot at?"
this is an interesting point in the new ted chiang piece – no one really claims that alphafold is conscious, or that sora or midjourney or dall-e are conscious
sad Japanese man literature (Mishima, Dazai etc) is so effortlessly self-absorbed and raw and convincing that you really have to be careful with it. Read No Longer Human at the wrong time and you'll be thinking yeahhh. Drunk and sexy and sad and smarter than everyone. Thats me