Tuesday, March 08, 2011

The filter cannot keep up

kw: observations

I learned a new word in a book I've been reading, in more than one sense. The characters wear armor that has an AI agent built in, which is called an ancilla. I hadn't seen the word before, so I Googled it. One of the first hits explained that ancilla is the Latin word for a female slave, and the root of the word ancillary. Simple enough. The armor AI's in the book all use female voices.

Then, a few hits later, Google helpfully supplied some thumbnail photos illustrating the word; all pictures of women in suggestive poses. "Uh-oh," I thought, "the porn stars have learned Latin." A click on the Images tab confirmed that "Ancilla" is the stage name of an impressive number of porn stars who specialize in an edgy variety of S&M, and that their images are bypassing the "Safe Search" filter, which apparently doesn't have any Latin words in it yet.

There is always something.

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