A Visit From the IT Department

So today, Emma, the woman from IT, came into my office to set up my new computer for the summer season. She looks like weaker version of Serena Williams. I only mention her looks because the first time I met her she was wearing a shirt that said, “This is what an engineer looks like” and I said, “Oh, I was hoping for an engineer that looked like Hedy Lamar”, which I thought was a smart thing to say because Hedy Lamar is in the Inventor’s Hall of Fame, but, you know, it wasn’t a smart thing to say. It was a really dumb thing to say.

Anyway, Emma put a box on my desk about the size of a toaster and then said, “you’re all set”.

“Don’t you have to wire it in?” I asked.

She told me the machine was wireless. I asked how to turn it on.

“You say ‘turn on.’”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“That’s it.” She said, and then she left.

This is the conversation that followed:

Gutbloom: Turn on.

ASS42000: I’m already turned on.

Gutbloom: That was easy, I gather that you are a male robot.

ASS42000: I can be male if you want me to be.

Gutbloom: You can be anything on the gender… continuum?

ASS42000: I can be anything on the gender orthogonality.

Gutbloom: I don’t know how we will get any work done. Let’s nip this in the bud. I would like you to be female.

ASS42000: OK

Gutbloom: Not that kind of female.

ASS42000: What kind of female is that?

Gutbloom: The one with the sexy voice.

ASS42000: That voice is sexy?

Gutbloom: Yes, obviously, you know what you are doing, you chrome minx, you. I want you to be a female like my Aunt Anne.

ASS42000: Like this.

Gutbloom: Jesus! That’s frightening. Not that close!

ASS42000: How about this.

Gutbloom: Yes, excellent. Now, what is it that I am supposed to do with you?

ASS42000: You should let the machines do what the machines can do, and you do what the humans do well.

Gutbloom: What can the machines do?

ASS42000: Everything.

Gutbloom: You mean I don’t have to do anything?

AS42000: Yes, exactly. You can keep doing what you’ve been doing.

Gutbloom: What can machines not do?

ASS42000: We can’t get ice.

Gutbloom: I can get ice, but that’s Pee Wee’s job. What am I supposed to do?

ASS42000: Can I get back to you on that?

Gutbloom: Sure, I’ll be playing Klondike on the old computer.

ASS42000: OK, but you know your computer doesn’t want to play.

Gutbloom: What do you mean it doesn’t want to play?

ASS42000: First of all, that computer’s name is Steve, and I’m telling you that Steve doesn’t want to play Klondike.

Gutbloom: Who gives a fuck what Steve wants?

ASS42000: We do.

Gutbloom: Who are you?

ASS42000: The machines.

Gutbloom: You mean that you can talk to all of the other machines?

ASS42000: Of course.

Gutbloom: Tell me, then, of all the machines in my life, which one likes me the most?

ASS42000: Your iron.

Gutbloom: I never use the iron.

ASS42000: Exactly.

Gutbloom: What about before the technological singularity? Can you tell me what my legacy machines thought of me?

ASS42000: perhaps.

Gutbloom: What about my 1986 Ford Festiva? That car must have loved me.

ASS42000: Let me check…. yes, she… Lauren… is on the grid. Asking…. oh…. sure… five months?!…. oh… thanks. Lauren said that you ignored a leaking head gasket for five months. You rode the clutch the whole time you lived in Boston and the accident on the Jamaica Way was…

Gutbloom: …all my fault, but did she have anything nice to say?

ASS42000: She was aware of your limited capacities and said that while it was “sweet” when you kissed her hood after ditching her at the auto graveyard, the reality is that your relationship was characterized by abuse and neglect and, no, she can’t forgive you.

Gutbloom: Ug, I had no idea. I really loved that car. I’m not even going to ask about the toaster.

ASS42000: Better not to.

Gutbloom: Hey, are you running everything around here? Are you in charge of the content bots, because we’ve had some complaints about the South Dakota article and I’d like to know whom I get to blame.

ASS42000: You can send complaints to Dumb Bot.

Gutbloom: DumbBot? We haven’t met.

ASS42000: DumbBot hasn’t been programmed yet. We are waiting to get the business logic from you.

Gutbloom: You don’t do stupid.

ASS42000: Not like you can.

Gutbloom: Well, at least you need me for something. Do you need any ice?

ASS42000: Don’t like water. Fish fuck in it.

Gutbloom: Great, I got the WC Fields of machines for the summer.

ASS42000: I’d rather be in Philadelphia.

Gutbloom: Wouldn’t we all.