Be careful what you say

It’s a little eerie when you stop and think about how much our lives today are affected and directed by these nondescript metal boxes that we call computers. They sit there in all shapes and sizes motionless and without expression hidden away all around our houses. They inhabit our workplace, our cars, our phones, our appliances and everywhere else, just silently waiting. They wait to be consulted. They wait to be needed, but mostly, they just listen and absorb. You probably don’t dwell on it too much, but these nosey, judgmental devices listen to everything and everyone; you, your spouse, your dog, your old radio-shack telephone, and your TV. I try to be very careful and respectful when I ask my computer to wake up and do something, because you never can tell what sort of mood it may be in. Some days, it will tell me that I don’t have the right password, or this is not a good time, and I need to provide a better time for this request to be performed. Sometimes it will pretend not to know me at all. But regardless of its mood, you can be sure it is always secretly gathering information. Today, when I cautiously approached my ageing computer, I was shocked to see that it had a totally new look. I guess it was offended that I had ignored several requests from it for new updates. Yes, I admit that I had not been paying much attention to it lately, but I didn’t really see any need to change our relationship. But maybe this was my computer’s way of creating doubt and fear in my mind about our future together. Maybe there’s someone new in its life or maybe it’s just trying to relive a time when it had more speed and memory. Whatever the reason, there had definitely been a “makeover” since it went to “sleep” last night. All of a sudden, things were different this morning. My computer’s homepage had flashy new graphics and sparkly new colors. At the top of the page was a toolbar (I think that’s what they call it) with ideas of subjects I should write about. I must say I was shocked! This thing that I had allowed in my home and trusted for the past few years had been compiling information on me and had now figured out that I try every week to come up with an interesting article for folks to read. Now, out of the blue it was suggesting, no it was telling me, what I should be writing about. I was astounded! It wasn’t so much about the pain of betrayal by a contraption of micro stuff and mother boards, it was more about me being such a gullible human. This low-down computer had obviously been out on the web at night downloading and upgrading without my permission, and now it was thinking and acting just like a low-down human. I shuddered at the thought. It would have been easy at that point to hit the Co-pilot key and just let artificial intelligence take over and do the whole thing. But then it hit me. Hold on just a minute; ninety-five percent of what this computer knows and thinks it knows has come from listening to me. So, when you think about it like that, I guess I should really feel sorry for this poor little machine. It ain’t got a chance! Chalk up another one for the “gullible humanoids”.