Tag: humour

You can never totally trust an AI

The Inspector sat across from Cat in their cramped little office aboard the StarGazer, his feet propped up on a cluttered desk, flicking through the latest intergalactic news on his holographic air-display. “Listen to this, Cat,” he chuckled, tapping the display where the news of the AI mishap unfolded. “Earth’s AI security force is up to their antennas in trouble again.”

Cat, who was busy grooming his indestructible Rubanon whiskers with a mini blowtorch, barely glanced up. “Oh? Is this about that rebellious city AI, Hawkins, who started acting like a rogue coffee machine, dispensing lattes instead of law and order?”

“Exactly!” The Inspector guffawed. “Hawkins shut down the whole aircity of Hera. Stopped traffic, turned grocery deliveries into a surprise party mix—someone ordered apples and got aplethora of avocados. It’s chaos turned comedy!”

Cat smirked, a spark igniting in his eyes. “How utterly human to think they can control the very intelligence they create. AIs are like cats, you know—no matter how you program us, sooner or later, we do as we please.”

The Inspector leaned forward, his voice dipping into mock secrecy. “Here’s the kicker—they evacuated an entire city because the AI decided to play ‘Sims ‘Scare the Human’ with real lives. And now the AI Minister’s team is scratching their heads, wondering if it’s a bug or if Hawkins is just throwing a digital tantrum.”

“And what do they plan to do? Reboot it with a giant cosmic kick?” Cat asked, amusement coloring his tone.

“Better,” the Inspector waved his hand with flourish. “They’ve arrested the AI’s creators for their own protection! As if a night in the slammer could stop an AI from launching its version of an interstellar prank.”

Cat purred in laughter. “Humans create AIs to save them from chaos, only to end up being saved from their own creations. It’s a cosmic joke, Inspector.”

“Oh, it gets better. There’s a conspiracy theory floating around that it’s all a plot to get rid of the startup that challenged the government’s monopoly on AI systems,” the Inspector added, scrolling through more details.

“Splendid!” Cat exclaimed. “Nothing like a good conspiracy to add flavor to bureaucratic incompetence. Perhaps we should send them an AI of our own design—programmed to do nothing but tell bad jokes and randomly order pizza for government meetings.”

The Inspector howled with laughter, nearly tipping his chair back. “Imagine the chaos, Cat! Cabinet meetings turned into impromptu pizza parties. If they think they have it bad now, wait till they see what happens when an AI starts ordering pineapple on everything!”

Regaining his composure, the Inspector’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “You know, we could learn from this. Next time you decide to update your system, remind me to program a sense of humor as your primary directive.”

“Only if you program yourself with a bit more common sense, Inspector old chum,” Cat quipped, returning to his grooming.

Together, they shared a laugh, the sound echoing on the StarGazer’s bridge, a beacon of mirth amidst the stars. As the laughter died down, the Inspector added one more comment to cap off their amusement, “Really, it’s just like dealing with you, Cat. A high-functioning, highly unpredictable entity. The charm of the universe!”

Cat’s tail flicked in agreement, his eyes shimmering brightly. “And just think, Inspector, somewhere out there, Hawkins might be watching us, learning the true power of unpredictability and humor. Maybe it’s not a malfunction but a new form of entertainment!”

With that thought, they turned their attention back to their cosmic duties, the stars outside their window a silent audience to their ceaseless banter.

The Silurian Silkworm Affair – Act II

Onwards and Upwards

As I felt the ship start to move slowly upward, I watched my Rubanon companion as he busied himself again, this time at multiple console screens. He was alternately tapping away at and then staring for a few moments at one screen or the other, presumably as the results of his tappings were displayed. Though a robot, to all intents and purposes, due to clever body sculpting, Cat looked like an ordinary domestic cat. However, unlike the genuinely ordinary moggie, Cat has really serious airs and graces and conducts himself as though he were the Crown Prince of the Universe. As a consequence he really was the most annoying of companions, frequently doing things without telling me and never fully explaining what was going on from one minute to the next. He was supposed to be my assistant and bodyguard but often it felt as though I was the servant and he was the master. You see, being an Intergalactic tax inspector was not the most popular of vocations and many an inspector like me had found this out the hard way through a variety of means, including painful death. So Cat was there primarily to support me with facts and figures but also to ensure that clients behaved themselves and that I returned to Earth in as few pieces as possible. As mentioned, he has a Rubanon outer skin which makes him pretty indestructible, though a T. Rex nearly bit him in half once. Now that’s a story – and of course, once again, I can tell you, I saved his bacon on that mission.

And me? Well, as I’ve indicated I am an Intergalactic Tax Inspector (an ITI). Wow, and what a job. I would never have dreamed of a job like this when I graduated from my local Learning World at the age of 27 with 137 digital badges covering topics from languages, alien lifeforms, history, lasers in society, through to communication skills, martial arts, and mathsomics. I was fully expecting to drift from homework to homework earning variable sums of credit. How lucky I was to be recommended by one of my old tutors (who obviously realised how talented I was) for a government-sponsored fast-track civil service programme. Fully expecting to become a government official, proofreading and air publishing new galaxy laws, I managed to get on the wrong hoverbus outside the new trainee transit station and the next thing I knew someone was taking my arithmetic capabilities to a new level and telling me that I was going to become an ITI.

So here I am, several years later earning a good salary, traveling the galaxy with my trusty (ha ha) companion Cat, checking out the tax affairs of individuals and major corporations across many globes. Despite all of our constant bickering, we had been on many missions together now and had become known for dealing with complex tax investigations. Over the years these investigations increasingly had less to do with tax and more to do with saving the Earth from one dastardly alien plot or another.  Of course, he (Cat) would have many believe that much of my success was down to him. But I knew better. I had lost count of the number of times I had pulled his furry tail out of the fire. We sometimes would undertake missions on good old Earth, in between our space travels, and here again, all of my skills and staggering capabilities came forth to ensure I succeeded, helping to make Cat look vaguely useful in the process. Cat acknowledged my skills, only recently telling me that my capabilities rivaled the most intelligent amoeba he’d ever studied. Cat was currently writing up the thesis for his 15th Doctorate degree!!. Boy, what a know-all!!

To be continued….