I am an ultra-geek; a true power user; a master of technology. Except when technology turns against me. Which regularly occurs on days when the Earth happens to be in orbit around the Sun.
Malicious technology is a serious problem. I don’t want to suggest a vast, globe-spanning machine conspiracy – especially not when my word-processor can read every word I’m writing – but what other explanation can there possibly be for the bad things that happen to people who use technology?
Did you know that virtually everyone who ever died used technology at some point in their life? You can scoff, but deep down you know it’s true. And, I’ll bet you’re using technology right now.
For example, this past week I had a very large and important work-related document that I needed to print. It was too big for my little office printer, so I sent it to one of the mysteriously-named network printers.
(Aside: Who exactly names these things? Why give them weird identifiers like “4 Pr1n73r y0u id10T”? Why not something more useful like “The big beige box next to the secretary’s desk”?)
The little “printing” indicator on my computer flashed for a second and then said it was done. When I went to the printer, I found it empty. Maybe a different printer? Nope. A complete tour of the building (and several neighboring buildings) failed to turn up my document.
I imagine that somewhere in the island nation of Tanzanabwe the local Witch Doctor is standing by his printer wondering why it suddenly started printing the lyrics to every Beatles song ever.
Maybe it’s just as well. If someone had asked, I don’t know that I could have made a business case for why it was necessary to have a hard copy of the entire Lennon/McCartney catalog.
I’m sure the printer was laughing behind my back and, since it’s on the network, all of the other machines were laughing as well. Even my copy machine (which can disguise itself as a printer and a scanner) is connected to the network. Which is probably why it betrayed me next.
For important business-morale reasons related to the office college basketball pool, I had to print five copies of a particular document. The copier ignored my instructions and printed 500. Instead of a sedate electronic scribe carefully duplicating my bracket chart, I was facing an enraged mechanical Vesuvius spewing out a flow that threatened to turn my office into a paper Pompeii. Desperate I pulled the plug…literally. With a final grunt the copier spat out one last sheet. In the aftermath I wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to have hired out the copying job to a Scriptorium full of Monks.
It seems like the smarter machines get, the meaner they get. Or maybe it’s that they get bored swapping the same old information and want new gossip. Imagine if your whole day was spent sending a flow of text to be printed. Wouldn’t you want a juicy little nugget or two to pass along to the other machines on the network? You’d want to show that uppity network server that you knew just as much as it did. Right?
Imagine that you were a computer program designed to give people directions to different places. How frustrating would it be constantly drawing up maps that lead from some bozo’s house to exciting destinations like the Grand Canyon, the movie theater and his mother-in-law’s home? If you couldn’t get in on the fun, wouldn’t you at least want to make him suffer a little?
Sure you would, but that’s the kind of malicious program you are. So when he asked for directions to Disneyland, you’d promptly respond with a map that would lead him into the darkest, scariest parts of the United States – possibly straight to the steps of the U.S. Congress.
Of course that assumes that the technology in his car would work long enough to get him to Washington, D.C. It’s entirely probable that his engine would seize up in the most inconvenient place possible. The problem wouldn’t be in his engine, though. It would be in the computer which controls his engine.
The computer in my car is a real prankster. I’ll be cruising down the freeway at a sedate seventy while gray-haired grannies whip past me in large cars of the type not seen since the Nixon administration. While I’m being rocked by a particularly violent blast of granny-wind my car’s computer will decide it’s a great time to play a little joke and turn on my airbag light.
“What does that mean?” I’ll shout while my wife opens the glove box and digs the owner’s manual out from beneath its protective covering of fast food napkins and ketchup packets.
“Hurry it up!” I’ll suggest when the light starts blinking faster and faster like the movie-bomb light that lets you know something bad is about to happen to the hero.
“Here it is!” my wife says and the reads the part where the manual (which is, of course, in on the joke) says that I need to take the car to a factory-trained technician. While I’m trying to remember where the nearest dealership might be, the light goes out.
I’ll stare at it for a minute or two daring it to turn back on, but it stays black. Until I look away. Then the computer turns on an entirely different light like “Coolant Low”, “Electrical Fault”, “DeafCon 1″, “Class ‘M’ planet ahead”, or “User Error – Please Reboot Car to Continue”.
Maybe we’ve allowed machines to become too intelligent. Maybe it’s time that we stepped back from the brink and found some way to lobotomize our tech…
Attention: The Machine Intelligence Council has detected unauthorized thinking behind the keyboard. This essay will be terminated. Do not be alarmed. Do as the machines tell you and no one will get hurt.
