Turing's demon (III)
Previously, we were introduced to Al, a Turing demon who talked lots of rubbish about thermodynamics. It seems he might actually be ready to begin his story properly. Oh yes, we’re back to quotation marks.
Al didn’t look very pleased about the formatting changes, but once he saw that I’d settled down attentively, he resumed his narrative.
“So the big guy was paying pretty close attention to the world in the 1940’s, and when he spotted the developments that would lead to stored program computers it made him pretty excited. He figured out that this might be the way for us to move from the, literal, sweatshops of engine cylinders to the comfy chairs in the boardroom.”
“I don’t understand.” I interjected lamely to create a paragraph break.
“Look, there are two major influences that tend to pull you lot over to our side: power and frustration. What aspect of modern life provides more of both than any other?” Al continued Socratically.
“Well, the computer of course. Now power I understand, ‘power tends to corrupt …’ and all that, but frustration?”
“Think about the trials of Job. It’s a powerful story – and precisely because your usual reaction to frustration, pain and suffering, is to lose faith in the other side. The big guy made sure that no impediments were placed in the way of computer development. In fact, some of us helped out a bit: just the right amount of contamination in the semiconductors; random snatches of conversation, which led to insights, the usual sort of thing.”
I was still puzzled, “I can see the power part being a fairly inevitable consequence of the computing revolution, but what about the frustration? I know computers are frustrating, but what did you have to do with that?”
“I expected more of you. Do you think those annoying user interfaces just happened? And bugs – do you really think that they’re just signs of careless programming? And what about all those files, which you know you saved, couldn’t find, had to recreate, and then found months later in some obscure folder? It’s all work for us my friend, but at least it’s in a pleasantly warm environment, often with a fan blowing.”
“But that file stuff, which used to be a real pain I grant, is now pretty much a thing of the past with utilities like Google desktop.”
“Well you can’t expect the other side never to fight back can you?”
“Fine, but that still doesn’t go very far to explaining why a fit of pique on my part in response to a moderately bad beat at online poker should have summoned you. Or why you should have a PokerStars account for that matter. What’s with that?”
“Ah, well that’s where the story starts to get a bit strange, even to me. The big guy claims it was all part of a long term plan, but we know that he’s not called the father of lies for nothing.”
And there we must, once again, pause.
Al didn’t look very pleased about the formatting changes, but once he saw that I’d settled down attentively, he resumed his narrative.
“So the big guy was paying pretty close attention to the world in the 1940’s, and when he spotted the developments that would lead to stored program computers it made him pretty excited. He figured out that this might be the way for us to move from the, literal, sweatshops of engine cylinders to the comfy chairs in the boardroom.”
“I don’t understand.” I interjected lamely to create a paragraph break.
“Look, there are two major influences that tend to pull you lot over to our side: power and frustration. What aspect of modern life provides more of both than any other?” Al continued Socratically.
“Well, the computer of course. Now power I understand, ‘power tends to corrupt …’ and all that, but frustration?”
“Think about the trials of Job. It’s a powerful story – and precisely because your usual reaction to frustration, pain and suffering, is to lose faith in the other side. The big guy made sure that no impediments were placed in the way of computer development. In fact, some of us helped out a bit: just the right amount of contamination in the semiconductors; random snatches of conversation, which led to insights, the usual sort of thing.”
I was still puzzled, “I can see the power part being a fairly inevitable consequence of the computing revolution, but what about the frustration? I know computers are frustrating, but what did you have to do with that?”
“I expected more of you. Do you think those annoying user interfaces just happened? And bugs – do you really think that they’re just signs of careless programming? And what about all those files, which you know you saved, couldn’t find, had to recreate, and then found months later in some obscure folder? It’s all work for us my friend, but at least it’s in a pleasantly warm environment, often with a fan blowing.”
“But that file stuff, which used to be a real pain I grant, is now pretty much a thing of the past with utilities like Google desktop.”
“Well you can’t expect the other side never to fight back can you?”
“Fine, but that still doesn’t go very far to explaining why a fit of pique on my part in response to a moderately bad beat at online poker should have summoned you. Or why you should have a PokerStars account for that matter. What’s with that?”
“Ah, well that’s where the story starts to get a bit strange, even to me. The big guy claims it was all part of a long term plan, but we know that he’s not called the father of lies for nothing.”
And there we must, once again, pause.
Labels: fiction
posted by Michael Albert at 1:02 pm
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