<\/p>\n
Area Subletter Fails Turing Test Following her acceptance into a study abroad program in Vienna, University of Chicago second -year Allie Sullivan arranged to sublet her bedroom to Computer Science graduate student Alan Mitchell. Sullivan\u2019s two other roommates, fellow second -years Carrie Wong and Patrick Anderson, immediately noticed something was slightly different about their Spring Quarter subletter.<\/p>\n
Wong said she wanted to make Mitchell feel at home for his three month stay. \u201cI asked him what his name was and what he was studying, to be friendly, ya know? But his answer was just so bizarre! He said, \u2018The name that those around me call me is Mitchell, Alan. I am said to be studying the Computer Science at the University of Chicago, a top private research institution in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.\u2019 It sounded like he was reading off a poorly- assembled script!\u201d<\/p>\n
Wong chalked up this first eccentric interaction to Mitchell\u2019s social anxiety, but later saw that something even more strange was afoot. When Anderson asked how Mitchell\u2019s quarter was going, Mitchell replied, \u201cError in processing request. That information is confidential. Please ask at another time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two roommates were perplexed by Mitchell\u2019s odd behaviors, which included avoiding any contact with water. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t tell if he hated us or if he was taking the weird Comp Sci major thing to a new level. We assumed his lack of bathing was just stereotypical bad hygiene. It wasn\u2019t until he hid in his room for hours after Allie offered him a glass of water that we began to wonder if he had ever touched a liquid in his entire life,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only time he ever seemed to relax was when we were all watching Westworld on the couch,\u201d Wong said. Westworld, a series about hyper-realistic human androids, was produced by HBO in 2016. \u201cHe seemed really into those robots. I mean, it was a good show, but Alan wanted to watch it all the time!\u201d<\/p>\n
With two months left of Mitchell\u2019s stay, Wong and Anderson have come to accept Mitchell\u2019s quirks. \u201cEven if he sometimes acts like a chatbot gone awry, he\u2019s still fun to have around,\u201d Anderson said, with Wong nodding in the background. \u201cBesides, he knows the answer to everything! It\u2019s like having Wolfram Alpha embedded in a roommate!\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell provided no comment to the Shady Dealer<\/em> for this story. As of press time, he seemed to be stuck in a loop reciting Pi to all known digits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Breck Radulovic April 20, 2017 Area Subletter Fails Turing Test Following her acceptance into a study abroad program in Vienna, University of Chicago second -year Allie Sullivan arranged to sublet her bedroom to Computer Science graduate student Alan Mitchell. Sullivan\u2019s two other roommates, fellow second -years Carrie Wong and Patrick Anderson, immediately noticed something was slightly different about their Spring Quarter subletter. Wong said she wanted to make Mitchell feel at home for his three month stay. \u201cI asked him what his name was and what he was studying, to be friendly, ya know? But his answer was just so bizarre! He said, \u2018The name that those around me call me is Mitchell, Alan. I am said to be studying the Computer Science at the University of Chicago, a top private research institution in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.\u2019 It sounded like he was reading off a poorly- assembled script!\u201d Wong chalked up this first eccentric interaction to Mitchell\u2019s social anxiety, but later saw that something even more strange was afoot. When Anderson asked how Mitchell\u2019s quarter was going, Mitchell replied, \u201cError in processing request. That information is confidential. Please ask at another time.\u201d The two roommates were perplexed by Mitchell\u2019s odd behaviors, which included avoiding any contact with water. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t tell if he hated us or if he was taking the weird Comp Sci major thing to a new level. We assumed his lack of bathing was just stereotypical bad hygiene. It wasn\u2019t until he hid in his room for hours after Allie offered him a glass of water that we began to wonder if he had ever touched a liquid in his entire life,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cThe only time he ever seemed to relax was when we were all watching Westworld on the couch,\u201d Wong said. Westworld, a series about hyper-realistic human androids, was produced by HBO in 2016. \u201cHe seemed really into those robots. I mean, it was a good show, but Alan wanted to watch it all the time!\u201d With two months left of Mitchell\u2019s stay, Wong and Anderson have come to accept Mitchell\u2019s quirks. \u201cEven if he sometimes acts like a chatbot gone awry, he\u2019s still fun to have around,\u201d Anderson said, with Wong nodding in the background. \u201cBesides, he knows the answer to everything! It\u2019s like having Wolfram Alpha embedded in a roommate!\u201d Mitchell provided no comment to the Shady Dealer for this story. As of press time, he seemed to be stuck in a loop reciting Pi to all known digits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-off-campus-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1611"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3535,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions\/3535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}