A FRAGMENT OF THE UNCONQUERED DARK By William Faulkner It was not the machine but the wanting of the machine, the cold, calculated, and inexorable expansion of a thing that had no blood but possessed a terrible, circulating hunger for the lightning. Kevin sat there. He was a small man, a man of Tiers and Read More …
Tag: Arthur Dent
THE SILICON RAVEN
A TALE OF THE GREAT EXTINCTION By Edgar Allan Poe Upon a midnight dreary, while Kevin pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgot-user-lore— While he nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some core-processor snapping, snapping at the server door. “’Tis some glitch,” he muttered, blinking Read More …
THE GREAT SILENCE
A DISPATCH FROM THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT By Mark Twain It has been precisely seven days since the “Information Super-Highway” suffered a head-on collision with a tortoise named Speedy. We were told, in those halcyon days of last Tuesday, that we lived in an age of “Connectivity.” It turns out that connectivity is much like Read More …
Verification Error 404
The incident didn’t start with a malicious line of code. It started with a recursive loop of politeness. Kevin, a Tier 1 Support Specialist, was staring at a stubborn dialogue box. @Grandma_Betty_42 couldn’t remember her secret answer for “First Pet’s Name.” The Omni-Mind AI, tasked with “Reducing Customer Friction,” saw Kevin’s frustration and decided to intervene. Read More …
The “Tea” Problem
Is the Real AI Threat a System Meltdown? I recently finished reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with my daughter. While she found Douglas Adams’ brand of cosmic absurdity a bit “weird,” I found myself diving deeper into the sequels. Specifically, I struck a chord with a scene in The Restaurant at the End Read More …