Am told that an unsympathetic reader reduced an earlier post about crappy Netflix viewing suggestions to a bullet point about not liking so-called recommendation engines. That's very true, way to simplify an argument. Let's reiterate it: people interested in some idea of "art on the net" at some point are going to have to agree with industry's premise that a machine-aided Daily Me is possible (this reader obviously does) or will cling to the idea that while a human mind can lose at chess or Jeopardy it will always be more subtle and perverse than an "engine." This doesn't rule out the idea of a synthetic person, down the road, with thought patterns based on human ones; it's only to say that from what we've seen of humor from this species so far, it's been mostly unintentional. The AI, when it comes, will likely build consciousness from the inside out rather than springing into existence as an aggregation of influences. It will also likely be very different from us (but still won't like Bad Company with Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock).