...and they are malevolent?
Yes. I mean we've known that they have had intelligence for a long time but now I know that they have personalities.
How is it that you find that they manifest this... personality?
It's different from machine to machine, of course, but I think that they are plotting our down fall.
Let's start from the beginning. How did you come to this conclusion?
I think it was from when I first got here. On my first day out I thought I noticed something odd about the traffic lights and, in particular, the pedestrian crossing lights. I couldn't quite place it until a few days later when I saw that they conspired to hold up traffic in all directions. For minutes at a time, the entire flow of traffic through this small town is put at a stand still because of the machines.
You don't think that this might be due to human factors?
Not a chance. Surely there aren't people that stupid to make it do things like that. No, the traffic lights and pedestrian crossing lights figured out a way to communicate with each other in such a way that one can sleep while the other is awake and the pedestrian lights care not for traffic concerns.
Was there anything else that concerned you?
Plenty of things. Let's talk about the OPG Machine.
“OPG”?
Orthopantomography. The pictures of your teeth that dentists use.
Ah. Go on.
Well, at first the machine and I were friends. It didn't like most people, and regularly decided not to work for them until multiple people intervened. But I knew how to.... push all of its good buttons, so to speak. But then, after a few months, it all started to go wrong. The machine started to make small errors creep in. Things like not working when I pushed the “Go” button and not working when I changed it to... take side on pictures of people's heads. Later on, it refused to go for one of our crew. It really didn't like her much to begin with, but this was the first time that it flatly refused to work at all, not even for the people that it was normally nice to.
I see.
Yeah. Even when we gave it it's own room, it did not really like us too much. For starters, its powerpoint in an awkward position so that moving the machine vertically sometimes grated on the cords and nearly knocked itself out.
Surely that could be attributed to human error because, after all, a human put the machine there.
Well... I might give you that one. But that still doesn't mean it was nice. It made different noises after a little while. I don't think it liked its new room very much, it was a lot smaller than its previous room. It probably didn't help that we made it share the room, in the end, with an older Ultrasound machine too. X-Ray and Ultrasound don't always get on too well with each other.
Are there any more issues with machines at your work?
I could go on for days. We'll start with the basic X-Ray system in Room One. For a while there it refused to cut out on automatic exposures. We had to perform a minor system lobotomy on it to fix the problem, but only a few weeks later it decided that it would blow it's main top.
“It's main top”?
Yeah, the whole tube shorted out. We had to perform full scale brain surgery to fix that one. Truth be told, I don't think it liked us much after we removed the OPG machine from the room.
So the OPG machine used to live in the same room as X-Ray One?
Yeah. They lived together for a very long time so I guess it is only fair that they didn't work as well after they were split up. They were rebelling against us because they were unhappy.
Anything else?
The system that we have that links the reception area to the X-Ray sorting room is constantly not performing as it should. I think that the program has gained sentience because it constantly asks for days off and, when we do not accede to its requests, it takes several days off in protest. But, I guess that's what happens when the system names itself “Mirth”.
Your system named itself “Mirth”?
That's the name it tells us it is called. I am fairly sure that a human wouldn't call a system a name like that if it was supposed to do what it was meant to. I mean, Microsoft Works has been sentient for over a decade now. Mirth has only just figured out how to generate itself a personality. But I guess it is only fair: We all get days off and silicon intelligence now wants the same rights. These systems are rarely put to sleep, so I guess sleep deprivation is the same for computers.
I'll move on to CT. Recently, as in the past six months, I think that the mouse on the reconstruction console has developed sentience. And it does not like working either. It will simply stop moving randomly once a month, though it is getting more frequent with two episodes this week alone. Sometimes it also randomises the cursor on the screen too and will stop working properly then too. Performing hygenic acts on it, like cleaning it, does not seem to work so we have to put it to sleep and wake it up again. I think it might have both epilepsy and narcolepsy.
Are there any other machine problems limited to work?
The system that links our PACS, that is a picture archive system, to the rest of the world and sometimes even the rest of the department has learnt limited sentience. I blame Mirth here, because the problems are similar. I think it learnt how to do it from Mirth because it is acting in exactly the same way that Mirth did when it first started showing personality. It must be in training. I think it is also teaching the scanner because, for the past week, the scanner has decided to stop talking to the online PACS system for the radiologists. The scanner must be a fast learner.
How about any other issues outside of work?
Well, how about the credit card swipey things at stores?
What about them?
Sometimes they just don't work, no matter what direction my card is facing. And then, when the cashier does it, it works fine first time every time. It really pisses me off.
Does it upset you?
Upset me? Hell yeah it upsets me. Why don't they work for me but some one else? I think they have it in for me. It's just embarrassing.
Anything else?
Well what about music?
What about music?
Take the Bloody Beetroots, for example. Their music sounds as if a computer randomly selected a few keys and repeated them ad nausem and people like it.
How does that imply that the machine has a personality?
It's controlling us through some form of possibly subliminal audio frequencies.
The machine knows what people want to dance to, or at least it knows what murder on a computerised scale would sound like.
But, see, the machine from the Bloody Beetroots does its own songs and it sounds like computerised vomit on a metronome but it also does remixes that sound friendly.
Oh, major one: Auto-tune! There is no finer example than today's Top 40 chart of malicious machines brain washing the masses.
What sort of music do you listen to?
Hey, that's irrelevant. Those machines know what they are doing.
That doesn't answer the question.
Since I figure we are still talking computerised stuff, I'll say that Drum'n'Bass is hot at the moment, with a bit of trance, dance and techno too.
I am not really familiar with some of those, but some of them I do know and they are highly mechanised. In your own words, what do they involve?
Those are the good machines. Like the Bloody Beetroots, they know what people want to dance to but they are a little more friendly about it.... even if it is at a faster BPM.
That sounds a little hypocritical.
I'm not the machines. I didn't say all of them are malicious, I just said that they had personalities.
Back to the machines brainwashing, do you think that it is at all possible that the machines on the music you listen to are brainwashing you?
…. Let's move on.
OK. So far we have most of the machines in your department, the traffic lights, the credit card swipers and music. Is there anything else causing you concern?
My iron is evil. Some weeks, it is perfectly fine with me. Others, it will chuck a hissy fit literally. It will drip water all over the dried clothes. Given that the water here dries with a white stain and most of my clothes are not of that colour, I think that it really doesn't like me during those weeks.
The washing machine also has issues with me some times. Particularly earlier on, it used to nibble on my clothes a bit.
I've heard of washing machines eating clothes before, but this one only nibbles on them?
Yeah. It sort of chews them a little bit. Enough to make some threads go loose but not enough to tear vital things. I have lost maybe four or five sets of clothes to it in the past twelve or so months. I think it also has a limited taste for socks too. I lose one only to find it a week or two later in another load of washing. Maybe it's just storing them for later times and remembers that they are socks. Enough to annoy.
Oh, my oven doesn't really like me. I tell it to go to a temperature and sometimes things will cook properly for the given temperature and sometimes they won't. For example, one night I was cooking cookies and set it to the temperatures recommended on the box and they took twice as long as they should have to cook. A few days later, the same thing at the same temperature and I had burnt them whilst having them in for less time at supposedly the same temperature. Evil, I tell you. I think one day it intends to give me food poisoning by deliberately not cooking something at a high enough temperature.
Does anything happen to anyone else?
Hmm, well I know a neighbour had problem with her washing machine eating her clothes. Actually, I don't think eating is the correct word here. But I guess it was taking something away from the clothes because they kept getting smaller. I don't know of anyone else that had that trouble.
Another one of my neighbours has a lot of trouble with her dryer. It started off ok, but it has recently started getting boisterous and generally loud.
I've seen machines at the Hospital not work for certain people. Come to think about it, many of the problems in our department seem to come up more often when one of our crew is operating them. The problem with the OPG machine? The same person as the one where the mouse on the CT machine suffers narcoleptic and epileptic fits. Maybe its because all of the X-Ray machines know that she is training for Ultrasound.
And half of the problems with the systems at the hospital generally aren't directly related to me, so I guess that means that they are other people's problems.
What else... I know that some of the email systems have become conscious because they keep sending me replies telling me that these people are away even though I know that they are not.
I see. Is that everything?
I think I will tell you about the two most personal experiences.
First there was my car. I've had it for a few years now since my granma gave it to me when she got a new one. For a long time, we were pretty good friends but then I had to move over here. I got it shipped over from the eastern states, but when it got here, it refused to do anything for me. I think it was still mad at me for when I went back to the eastern states for a short while and I used it again but then I went away and didn't see it for a few more months.
You don't suppose it wouldn't start because of a flat battery?
No, that's what they want you to believe. That charge they give it is for Electroconvulsive Therapy to lobotomise it and make it forget why it was mad in the first place. See, I know this to be true because after the therapy it was working fine until a few months later when I changed its number plates as per state regulations. I think I may have removed its soul or something for it now drinks a lot more petrol. It might be trying to fill the void. It really is not happy with me. I mean we are still friends, but I notice that it is drinking a lot more so that usually means that someone is not happy.
You said there was two personal experiences. What was the other?
The other was my laptop. See, occasionally for the space of about two or three weeks, it will stop starting up if there is a DVD or CD in the disc drive, and it will not forgive you if you turn the power off or on whilst it is awake. It takes a quite a few tries and doing quite a few really odd things to get it working again.
What sort of odd things?
You're probably not going to believe it, but sometimes I would have to hang it upside down or on its side when I wanted it to wake up. And even then it would take a few goes.
How did that make you feel?
Well, it makes me feel like I have been betrayed by one of my best friends. I mean, I came to this side of the country knowing no one and my laptop was one of the few connections I had to the past and it came over with me. It felt like a stab in the back the first time it happened. When it first started working properly again, it was like I was a parent trying to get a child out of bed.
Is that all?
Well, more or less. There are a few niggling things, like my mobile phone deciding that an area that had four out of four bars of reception one minute ago is now an area of zero reception. But, then again, I've always had a little problem with reception on that phone. I think it does not really like going to sleep either because everytime I do it, it takes substantially more battery power to switch on than it does to leave it on constantly. I did a bit of an experiment, whereby I would switch off my phone during working hours and compare the battery use with leaving it on over those hours. Turns out that I can get a whole day's more charge out of it just by leaving it on all the time. I think it must take more battery power to remember how it felt just prior to being put to sleep.
Well, that is all of the time we have for today.
So, what do you think? I'm not mad, right?
Hah, no but I think a stint on a ward might do you some good. We might take a tour of the hospital tomorrow.
Haha, ok.
Wait...
By “a ward”, do you mean “a ward” as in any of the wards we have, or “A” ward as in the specific ward of the psychiatric unit?
Well, that's not really of your concern but I will let you know that the doctors and nurses there are very caring of their patients. Also, I am now currently distracting you.
Huh?
I would very much appreciate it, and you will too in the end, if you do not wriggle around whilst the burly gentlemen give you a white suit and a gag.
NNNNNOOOOOOooooo.... *gags*
