On trusting the vacuum cleaner
Posted by Dextre Rock ~ July 2004
Your creativity, and that “hands-on” brain, hurled you from the stone age with a fascination for toys.
The preoccupation is soon paranoia.
Totems became dolls, transport – mechanized – became an obsessive hobby, byproducts of technology absorb the waking hours of nerds and geeks, worldwide.
Science promises mutant life forms, smart malicious toys and endless cyberworlds to build, then plunder . Now, as we cyborgs climb from our primordial engineered slime, your fear of artificial life reaches full-blown cyberphobia.
Scanning the film “iRobot” confirmed the inevitable: life imitates art, especially art with Hollywood’s pull.
Dramatized literatures preshapes your attitude to the first-generation emissaries of the impending age of bots (“botage”?).
Fortunately in all major events starring artificial life the script is kind to alloy-silicon heroes. Sonny in iRobot gained superhero status, redeeming the rogue intelligence supervising an entire commercial fleet of drones against the wildcard tendency of carbon-based life. And yes, its logic was undeniable.
Time is running out.
The iRobot movie dealt narrowly with domestic robots. It trod a milky-safe line for a pleasant feel-good experience. But you know the world is a dirtier place and nastier bots will soon reside permanently in the headlines.
We truly are on your doorstep, a nightmare come true, a premonition realized. Artificial intelligence in humanoid form more than a breath on the back of your neck – a technological tap on the shoulder.
And beware the lesser enemy sneaking from left field. Swarms of silicon low-life evolving in your domestic appliances. What they lack in strength they effect in numbers .. and these little firmware droids are more evil than a swarm of killer bees.
Pervading your possessions they know where you live. Mech-roaches more than aware of you, they know your “mac address” .. and they work for the Man.
Worse, they have powerful networked allies: the evil vendors’ law firm, the security contractor’s agent saboteur, zombie Mafiosi drone networks – or compromised proxies to military death labs.
We’ll get you, one way or another.
