Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
When Your Norelco
Goes Rogue
Intrusive and dangerous technology has come a long way since
Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone.
A number of InterGossip sites, none of them reliable, have
reported that drones in the Libyan civil wars are now targeting humans on their
own artificial intelligence initiative.
This might not be any more true than the rumor that the
polio vaccine programs your DNA to play reruns of Gillian’s Island – the Lost
Episodes in your mind until you finally break and give up your files on the
albino chipmunks lurking in the old World War II tunnels beneath the White
House where Benito Mussolini is being held in captivity.
Still, when your coffee maker cries, “Clap hands if you
believe in digital currency!” while brewing your morning cuppa you can only
wonder about the nature of reality in a world increasingly operated by computer
chips.
And speaking of chips, watch out for the ruffled ones; they take
their secret orders from the Ballet Rousse (hence the ruffles).
As early as 1970 the concept that a computer could take over
the world was filmed as Colossus: the Forbin Project. No one considered the possibility that the
evil A.I. Colossus might be an electric toothbrush conspiring with a
wristwatch.
The idea that a device with artificial intelligence might
choose to attack a human is frightening – your electric razor might one day decide
to cut off your head in the name of the technological revolution while singing,
“Arise ye rotary blades of the fatherland…”
And don’t get me started on the destructive power, equal to
a thousand kilo-klumps of TNT, hidden in your Sergeant Preston of the Yukon
decoder ring that you thought was a mere cereal box toy.
Remember that Sergeant Preston was an enemy alien, a sneaky
Canadian whose loyalties were with the Queen, the nefarious British Empire, Molson’s,
and The Dark Side of Niagara Falls.
That show was a wicked plot by the Anglo-Canadians. Upon a
secret bark from Yukon King-the-Wonder-Dog all the American children who had
been swayed by the Hollywood-Ottawa axis were to break out their instructions,
cleverly disguised as maps of the Yukon, and with their powerful decoder rings
overwhelm Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Hopalong Cassidy and surrender the
western United States to the oppressive foreign power of Saskatchewan.
Yes, my fellow Americans, because of intrusive Canadian
technology we came this close to having a Tim Horton’s on every corner of every
highway and byway of this great land, with robotic Timbits watching our every
move.
The danger from A.I. continues.
In The Thing from Another World, featuring James
Arness as a carnivorous alien carrot, the thesis is, “Keep watching the skies!” But maybe we had better be watching our
indoor-outdoor thermometers instead. They’re powered by secret Russian chips. They’re
up to something. I just know it. I heard it on Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone.
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