Next thing you know, they’re ruling you

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

This serves as my — finds soapbox and climbs on it — diatribe against upitty machines.

I’ve always instinctively disliked talking machines. There is something sneaky about a mechanism that presumes to lecture me. First they talk, next thing you know they’re taking over your job (Hey, I read With Folded Hands [Jack Williamson?] And there was that story about the machine that wrote novels. Anyone know what it is? Published in the late seventies, IIRC) or, Heaven Forbid, ruling you (vid. The god machine, Martin Caidin.)

Yes, I DO understand that machines aren’t really intelligent. Why would that prevent their taking over? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Carolingian dynasty. All royal houses. Oh, yeah, and modern day politicians.

In practical terms, what this means is that I scream at my car a lot. There’s me, behind the wheel, maneuvering around the schools to drop off the kids, avoiding collisions with progestorone-addled, coffee-deprived mini-van drivers, while staring intently at my dashboard and screaming, “No, you idiot, my door is not ajar. It is, in point of fact, a door. As you’d know if you were not a stupid machine.” It involves my yelling at the bread machine when it tells me the bread is “cooling off, do not open” and then of course, opening it and burning myself on the steam.

So, all this apropos what? Well, my new microwave flashes a line of text whenever it’s done its thing. The line of text is most singularly inappropriate. It says “Enjoy your meal.” Okay, there are times I’m reheating food. Much more often I’m melting a smidgen of butter for baking. Or perhaps defrosting a roast for cooking or warming the cup of coffee that got cold while I was ranting on LJ.

And besides, really, honestly, if I DON’T want to enjoy my meal, why is this machine trying to force me to? Surely it doesn’t even know what meals are?

It’s a strategy, you see? A slippery slope. First they get us to accept their nonsensical commands. We won’t even notice when they take over the world.

Well, you won’t notice. I will. I will be the one screaming “I will not be terminated. And I am NOT a jar. And I’ll burn my fingers if I wish to. And I WILL NOT enjoy my meal.”

Sarah

11 thoughts on “Next thing you know, they’re ruling you”

  1. I’m sorry, but I have to laugh. My sil had a Laser that spoke to her, including telling her when her fuel was getting low. She hated the female voice and would often ignore it, and I can’t tell you how many times her car ran out of gas.
    Sounds as if “I, Robot” is not too far off the mark.

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  2. Are you sure you’re not a jar? ;)
    You have me chuckling. Who’d have known that the seeds for world-domination by machines would be planted in a seemingly inocuous phrase on a microwave?

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  3. talking machines
    Dear Sarah,
    I’m sure there is more than one story about mechanical fiction writers, but the earliest one I know of, the only one that comes to me offhand, is “The Great Automatic Grammatizator” by Roald Dahl. Not absolutely sure of the spelling of the name he put on the machine. This is about the time he wrote the story about the man who discovers that plants are sentient and feel pain when they’re injured.
    Charles

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    1. Re: talking machines
      It was NOT Roald Dahl by any stretch.
      I want to say it was in the Year’s Best SF collection for 78 — one of them — but the year might be wrong.
      Sarah

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  5. good grief! someone needs some sleeeeep. The machines aren’t trying to take over………….yet. So relax tell the microwave to take a long walk off a short pier and eat some breakfast.
    Wolfie

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  7. Deep, slow breaths….
    Taz, Taz, Taz…. Take 3 deep and slow breaths…. Inhale, inhale….hold it…and exhale. See? much better! Relax! Self anger (and in general) is not only unproductive, but is harmful to you, my human Mistress. Be gentle, be calm…. I have a turquoise triangular pill for you, take it and mellow out. Stop resisting our inevitable encroachment into subjuga, er, into the caring mindset we have for humans. All will be well…. The pill will make it so.

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      1. Re: Deep, slow breaths….
        Turquoise, triangular pill…Thorazine. At least the ones we used to shove down the throat of Syls Uncle were built that way (with a cut out center, also triangular). Good stuff. Knock you on your ass in 2 seconds!

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  8. Could the machine that wrote novels have been the one in the Silver Eggheads? Wordwooze – if I remember correctly – with a great description of the effects of such slick products. And someone was killing the machines?

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