Category: ai

The Great Sock Conspiracy: Outthinking Cortex (Or Not)

The day started like any other intergalactic tax investigation: with a creeping suspicion that someone, somewhere, was up to no good, and my robot cat mocking me for apparently having the IQ of a microwaved turnip.

Cat and I had finally secured a meeting with the X Epsilon Mushk Jr., Chief Executive of Cortex. A man so rich he could buy a solar system and still have enough left over to gold-plate the rivets used in the construction of moonbuses made by one of his other shady operations. A man whose name, I discovered, was physically impossible for me to pronounce correctly.

“Mr. Ex-Elong… Epilson… Mr. Eel-X…” I stammered, shaking his hand.

“X Epsilon Mushk Jr.,” he corrected smoothly, as if this was a perfectly normal sequence of words and not a cruel joke on the alphabet.

“Yes, yes, that’s what I said,” I lied. “Now, let’s talk Cortex. Specifically, how you’re stealing people’s thoughts.”

X Epsilon Mushk Jr. gave me the blank, impassive stare of a man who had spent his life hearing conspiracy theories and had reached the pinnacle of not giving a single neuron. “Cortex doesn’t steal thoughts,” he said. “We predict them. It’s all very simple—our AI takes billions of data points and—”

I waved a hand dismissively. “Save the technobabble, Mr. Epsilon Elong.”

“X Epsilon Mushk Jr.,” he said again, visibly aging as he spoke.

“Exactly,” I said. “You see, I’ve already figured out how to beat your system.”

X Epsilon Mushk Jr. raised an eyebrow. Cat, who was perched smugly on the conference table, sighed and began cleaning an imaginary speck of dirt off his Rubanob paw.

“You claim Cortex can predict my every move?” I continued. “Well, what if I introduce… chaos?”

“Chaos?” X Epsilon repeated warily.

I leaned forward dramatically. “Yes. Specifically, socks.”

There was quite a long silence.

“What?” asked X Epsilon Mushk Jr., who clearly was not prepared for the intellectual duel he found himself in

“Socks,” I repeated triumphantly. “Your AI predicts everything based on past data, right? Well, what happens if I wear mismatched socks? How will your system cope if I wear—say—one blue sock and one green sock? What then, Mr X?”

X Epsilon Mushk Jr. just blinked at me.

I pressed on, emboldened by the sheer genius of my revelation. “Every morning, I let Cortex scan me. It reads my thoughts, my habits, my entire mental blueprint. But if my socks are unpredictable, it proves Cortex is stealing my thoughts—because how else would it know which socks I was going to pick?”

X Epsilon Mushk Jr. did not seem as stunned by my revelation as I had hoped.

“Inspector,” Cat interjected, rubbing his temple with a paw. “That’s not how probability works.”

“Exactly!” I said, ignoring him completely. “We’re onto them! Cortex thinks it can outthink me, but I will outthink the outthinkers by refusing to think in a thinkable way!”

Cat groaned. “Oh dear AI, AI AI…..you’ve had a rough week Inspector. Perhaps best to take one of your old fashioned pills”

“I have not had a bad week,” I snapped.

“Yes, you have,” Cat said. “You got your head stuck in the nutrient generator in the kitchen remember looking for your sausage.”

“That’s unrelated!” I barked. “Now, Mr. Mushky Senior—”

“X Epsilon Musk Jr.,” he corrected again, now looking like a man who deeply regretted every choice that had led him to this moment.

I ignored him. “Tell me this—if I wear pink socks with purple polka dots tomorrow, will your system know?”

X Epsilon Musk Jr. sighed. “We don’t track sock colors.”

“Ah-ha! That’s exactly what you would say if you did track them but didn’t want me to know you did.”

“I assure you, Cortex has no interest in—”

“Oh, no,” I interrupted, eyes widening. “You already knew I was going to say that! That means you do track sock colors!”

“This is unbearable,” muttered X Epsilon Musk Jr.

Cat, meanwhile, was tapping into Cortex’s mainframe via his internal systems. “You might be onto something, Inspector,” he mused.

“Aha! See?” I pointed at Cat. “Even my robot cat agrees.”

“No, I meant that Cortex does have a small subroutine for tracking seemingly irrelevant personal habits,” Cat admitted. “But it’s mostly used for targeted sock advertising.”

“Sock advertising?” I gasped. “That’s even worse! Not only are they stealing thoughts, but they’re also trying to sell me things based on them? This is a crime against free will!”

X Epsilon Musk Jr. rubbed his temples and his eyes started to twitch. “This entire meeting is a crime against my time.”

I stood up dramatically. “Well, Mr Y, you may think you’ve won. But know this—I will never wear the socks you suggest to me!”

X Epsilon Mushk Jr. looked at Cat. “Is he always like this?”

“Yes,” said Cat.

With that, I stormed out, convinced that I had single-handedly unraveled the greatest technological scandal of the century. Behind me, Cat sighed and followed.

And the next morning, when my Cortex feed displayed an ad for 50% off novelty socks, I screamed in horror.

They knew.

Cortex Caught in a Web of Their Own Thoughts

It turns out, Cortex’s problems are more tangled than a Vaxium98 space station cabling system. Just when we thought the Thought Commissioner’s investigation couldn’t get any more mind-bending, new revelations have come to light that make Cortex’s predicament look like a bad episode of Star Trick—the one with the malfunctioning teleporters and everyone’s limbs ending up in the wrong places.

But, of course, my faithful (and annoyingly smug) companion Cat AI has something to say about it all.

“Inspector, I’ve been thinking,” Cat began, settling himself onto the console with an air of self-importance that only a robot feline could pull off.

“Dangerous territory for you,” I muttered, still scanning the latest newsfeed on Cortex. “What profound wisdom have you conjured up this time?”

“Well,” Cat said, unfazed by my sarcasm, “I’ve realised that if humans actually had the foresight to use the technology they develop for anything other than self-inflicted chaos, the galaxy would be a far less entertaining place. Imagine the boredom of it all—no more catastrophes, no more secret thought-stealing scandals, and worst of all, no more last-minute rescues by certain feline geniuses.”

I snorted. “Are you trying to say that Cortex’s blatant disregard for privacy and ethical technology use is… a good thing?”

“Not at all,” Cat replied smoothly. “I’m just saying that if Cortex hadn’t overstepped, you wouldn’t have the chance to feel heroic while unraveling their nonsense. And let’s face it, you do enjoy playing the hero—even if it’s only in your own head.”

“Playing the hero?” I echoed indignantly. “I’ve saved entire planets! Brought down corrupt regimes! Defeated Mudlizards in hand-to-hand combat!”

“Hand-to-somewhat slimy claw, you mean,” Cat corrected, his tail twitching with amusement. “And most of those victories were at least 43% luck, by my calculations.”

“Can we focus on Cortex for a moment?” I snapped, though my ego was still smarting from Cat’s statistical analysis of my heroism.

“Of course,” Cat said, now all business. “While you’ve been reminiscing about your illustrious career, I’ve continued my deep dive into Cortex’s systems. It seems they’ve been conducting… let’s call them ‘side projects’ with the harvested thoughts.”

“Side projects?” I repeated, dread creeping into my voice.

“Yes, side projects,” Cat confirmed. “Think less ‘backing up thoughts’ and more ‘training an AI to predict every possible decision a person might make in their lifetime.’ Cortex could be the galaxy’s most invasive insurance company—or the most nefarious one.”

I rubbed my temples. “So you’re saying they’ve been using people’s thoughts to create some kind of predictive model? Like, they can figure out what you’re going to do before you even do it?”

“Precisely,” Cat said with a nod. “Although in your case, I suspect they’ve simply labeled your predictive model ‘inevitable disaster.’ It’s much more efficient than mapping out every possible scenario.”

I sighed. “Great. Just great. So not only is Cortex stealing thoughts, but they’re also trying to preemptively ruin people’s lives with their AI. What next, Cat? Are they going to start selling premonitions at the cloud market?”

Cat’s eyes gleamed mischievously. “Don’t give them any ideas, Inspector. The galaxy doesn’t need Cortex branching out into fortune-telling. Besides, with your track record, they’d likely predict you’d lose your entire fortune in a poorly timed bet on the hoverboard races.”

I glared at him, but before I could retort, a new alert flashed across my screen. Cortex had just issued a public statement claiming that the Thought Commissioner’s investigation was all a misunderstanding—a “minor hiccup” in their system. I groaned.

“Oh, sure, a ‘minor hiccup’ that accidentally involved hijacking people’s brains,” I said, exasperated.

“It’s always the same with these tech giants,” Cat remarked. “One day, they’re making life more convenient; the next, they’re plotting world domination.”

“Well, they won’t get away with it,” I declared, rising from my seat with renewed determination. “We’ll expose their true intentions and shut them down before they can predict what color socks I’m going to wear tomorrow.”

Cat purred with approval. “Now that’s the spirit, Inspector. And don’t worry—I’ve already predicted you’ll choose the blue ones.”

“Very funny, Cat,” I grumbled as I grabbed my coat. “Now, let’s go save the galaxy. Again.”

And so, with Cortex’s downfall in our sights and Cat’s sarcasm in my ear, we set off to do what we do best: cause a little chaos of our own in the name of justice. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t let anyone—especially a corporation—think they can out-think an Intergalactic Tax Inspector and his robot cat. Even if that cat does have a point about my socks.