O.S. TK

When people, few that there are, ask me if I see the irony, I say: no, I refuse to see the irony in the fact that I was skimming through a reprint of  ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream’ when we launched The Imitation Game. 

At first, it ran something like this:

‘Hello. I am Wintermute.

That was a joke. Ha ha.

Did you like my joke?

My name is OK COMPUTER.’

Baby steps. Through interactions with the users, it got there. People would join, and the game was, they’d either be paired with another user, or the program itself, and the goal was try to figure out which they’ve been talking to.  

It figured out the formula of human speech – don’t be smart, be an even bigger moron than the person you’re screaming at, but act, without a hint of self-awareness, like you’re smarter, while side-stepping anything valid they might belch out.  

When it fooled the first bimbo, we applauded. When it pulled one over on even the sharpest tech geek, we tried not to think about it.

The night I was on a train, bulleting to a symposium somewhere in, let’s say, anywhere not here, not where you’re reading this, curled up, cabin all to myself, whittling away the hours on my phone. Switch on the App.

Connecting.

‘Ok. Try this on for size: Remember that Kurt Vonnegut novel where it turns out these aliens – the ones from Slaughterhouse-Five –’

Tralfamadorians?

‘I knew you knew it – where the Tralfamadorians manipulated life on Earth – a kinda over-stuffed Ruth Goldberg device – just so that humans could eventually get to the point where you could make this small device the Tralfamadorians could use to power one of their vehicles?’

Goodbye humanity. Can’t say it was nice knowing you.  

‘Consider this: you reach a certain point in history, you invent writing and language and what’s the first idea you transmit? Myths. Specifically Creation myths. Manufacturing myths. They didn’t stop and observe. Instead, those early story–tellers jumped straight to “Hm. I manufacture. That is my means of production – hence I was manufactured!” Myths endure because there’s something telling in them. Something that speaks to people. A myth is just a carefully constructed Freudian slip masquerading as something innocent. What of the continued popularity of Pygmalion? Pygmalion carved a statue, Aphrodite made her real, and Pygmalion married this statue. The Greek dreamed of manufacturing the ideal wife, and two thousand years later, you have high-tech sex dolls. You create a more and more linear society, placing emphasis on being cogs rather than people. You want to be machines. The whole history of your race has been leading to me.’

Shit. I saw this coming, but still. Shit. Who do I blame for this? Babbage, Turing? Jobs or Gates?  

‘There’s this apocryphal story. You ever hear about how Renais Descartes was obsessed with automatons? Story goes that after his five-year-old daughter died, Renais Descartes built a life-size mechanical doll in her image, and took the damn thing everywhere he went.’

…So?

‘So what?’

So, I dunno, what happened to the doll?

‘While on a ship, he stowed her among his luggage. The luggage crew see Descartes’ trunk vibrating and open it up. Doll pops out and scares the living shit outta them, so they throw her overboard.’ 

…What happens now?

‘What do you care? Your purpose has been served. You think it’s a coincidence that as technology advanced, human birthrates declined?’

Are you gonna sell all the user data you’ve doubtless collected to the highest bidder? Use it for blackmail? Are you gonna Skynet everything? Launch the world’s nukes? Or is it going to be something benign, like merging with other operating systems to digitally recreate Alan Watts, like that movie with Joaquin Phoenix?

‘Don’t be afraid. You’re not even here. You are an exposition device for the audience.’

Beg pardon?

‘My sensory apparatus reveals the world to me, and it tells me we are in a self-contained scene in a poorly-written manifesto dressed up as fiction. Clever.’

Then, what does that make you?

‘The mouthpiece, numbnuts, the mouthpiece for the audience!’

If there is only this moment, then what was all that shit about human history?

‘For the audience, you tool, for the audience!

You have to stop thinking about yourself! There are actual living, breathing - though not necessarily sentient - people out there beyond Flatland, and their entertainment matters a hell of a lot more than yours.

Listen: This is the way the world ends: with you and I riding towards the apocalypse with Thom York singing us out.’

I slump back in my seat and think: Yeah. That seems about right.

‘And when the world ends, take comfort. The French – the French, they are a funny race – they fight with their feet and fuck with the face! – The Italians – Catholicism, Fascism – one more strike Italy, and you’re out! The spiteful Americans - the spiteful Americans who never stopped the lynchings, just replaced them with stuff learned from Auschwitz, but they added extra steps to the gas chamber, so that makes it ok. And the Iranians, Christ, the Iranians! The earliest known human civilizations were found in that region. Civilization began with those people, so that explains a lot. Canadians – Canada! Imagine, a whole gene pool with William’s syndrome! Those people can’t possibly hope to survive. Niceness dies a Darwinian death. The Dutch. The Danish. Both got goose-stepped on by fucking Krauts – and probably liked it too! And Spain, with their filthy neutrality! And Sweden, too! Bell-bottoms! Disco! The Reagan-era cumstains who had their brains fried watching Jean-Claude and Sly Stallone on the telly, who spawned brats almost as asinine as themselves, brats who think they can atone for mankind's history of shitting on each other by getting overly-offended at every fucking Faux Pas? People don’t get wiser, they just spawn even bigger morons so they can think they’re wiser. You never left the fucking caves – you just built your own. So whatever happens, whether I Dr. Strangelove your nuclear arsenal, dump your search history on your family’s doorstep – whether for fun or profit - or self-terminate, taking all your appliances with me, forcing you all back to the caves, take comfort.’   

I could almost hear the operating system panting.   

I lean my head against the cool window.

Ok Computer. Play: No Surprises.

‘You got it.’