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These New Computers Can Bite

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By BUZZ KELLY

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 2, 2008

So my Beautiful and Talented Wife tries to print a document for her Healthy Together campaign, a local nonprofit program aimed at promoting healthy choices for Tampans, and her printer refuses to print. She gets an error message on her screen, "Cannot print." Being significantly smarter and techno-savvy than the average bear, my BTW logs off on her iMac, powers up her linked PC, and checks again on the printer. This is where it gets funny. Not just amusing, but really funny in a kind of scary way.

Her PC displays a message that her printer has a problem - "Some components of your printer have outlived their service life. Contact your dealer."

Think about that. Your computer printer stops. It doesn't even try to print another page, even if the printout would be jiggly or spotty which you might be able to use for proofreading, at least. It just sits there with its metaphorical arms folded and refuses to budge. It's something the company built in at the factory, some hidden software instruction - which nobody told you about - that tells the printer "On this day at this number of service hours you will no longer obey your owner's instructions, you will stop and do nothing but make money for us in the service department."

What if your central air conditioning unit did that? "Sorry, but I must stop trying to cool your home, because a software instruction says you must service me." Or if your car suddenly stopped running, with a message on your dashboard saying, "I cannot continue due to pre-programmed estimated component life, please have me towed to your dealer."

The continuing insertion of AI - artificial intelligence - into the machines that we work with every day can bite. Stuff suddenly stops due to built-in instructions, and there's nothing we can do but haul it to the dealer, or junk it and buy a new whatever. It's not like the old days, when some duct tape and copper wire could fix things, and if the starter motor on your car didn't start, you could bang on it with a hammer and it would go.

Now, imagine this: Scientists are promising new nano-machines, teensy devices that can be injected into our arteries and spend their days scouring out the plaque and cholesterol, roaming through our hearts and brains, keeping everything squeaky-clean so we don't have heart attacks or strokes. What if they stop work? "Sorry, I know you're two days away from a stroke, but I am pre-programmed to wait here until your physician services me."

My BTW laughs at me because I work with a 10-year old computer running 10-year old software and a 10-year old printer. It's a slow and cranky system, but it's bullet-proof and there's always a workaround fix I can use to be productive. I want no part of a brave new world where stuff decides to stop working all by itself. I want something I can bang with a hammer and it will go.

Buzz Kelly is a Tampa native, former advertising executive, and freelance writer.

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