T. Gamble: The fight against intelligence … artificial and the other kind

Increasingly, daily I read alarming articles about the impending takeover of mankind by AI computers or robots. In case you have been under a rock for the last few years, AI stands for “artificial intelligence.”

It appears that great advances are being made, and the fear is that eventually these artificially intelligent things, whether computers or robots, will begin to have a life of their own. They may become smarter than we are, dooming our society, and mankind in general.

Listen, this news causes me great anxiety. I have no idea how smart these things may become, and I don’t really care. I am already outsmarted by technology as it currently stands. I have no chance against the future’s smarter machines.

In life, I have from time to time made enemies. It comes with the territory of being a lawyer, being in local politics, and sometimes from just plain ole living. I can deal with my human enemies. It is the non-human ones that cause me great trepidation. You see, my copying machine hates me. I don’t mean that we have an occasional disagreement. No, it completely and utterly hates me.

It is also smarter than I am. How does it know how to copy on two sides? All I know is if I am in a hurry, the copying machine will not be. If I die and go to hell, which if I don’t change my ways there is at least a possibility, I am sure the first thing I will face is a copying machine with a light blinking claiming a paper jam.

There is not a single copy machine alive that I cannot paper jam. I especially like to miss the one set of stapled papers, hidden in the middle of a very large stack of papers, that will then throw the copying machine into renal failure. Staples are like kryptonite to a copier. I should be required to run my copies through a TSA metal detector before I am allowed to even try and make copies.

I think staple manufacturers should be required to dye each staple with glow-in-the-dark fluorescent orange color to avoid this situation because I cannot avoid it on my own.

But it is not just paper jams that cause me anguish. Copiers love for me to put a group of 20 pages in the chute and then cleverly disguise the fact the machine is preset to make 25 copies. I gleefully hit copy, go off to do something else and return to find 500 copies. I could buy a mountain house if I just had back all the money I have paid for multiple copies of things I never wanted in multiple copies to begin with.

Copiers also like to print out sideways copies, so I have a hundred pages of printed material that includes only half the page. There is nothing like reading out a quote from a legal case to the judge and only including about six out of every 10 words because the copier cut off half the sentences. Now, I know I could simply pull up a copy on my phone or computer, but they hate me even more.

Let’s face it. I can barely operate a Mr. Coffee maker, which I’m not sure they even make anymore. Once AI robots come into my world, I may as well just ask for a position as the janitor and call it a day. I cannot compete with AI.

My copier already costs more than I paid for my first and second car combined. Not only can I not operate these smart items, but I also cannot afford them. I don’t need a $1,200 vacuum cleaner that knows how to vacuum without me. I refuse to drive a car that parks itself. I will not and cannot afford a phone that records my every move and markets things to me I like 24 hours a day.

We need legislation before I’m ruled obsolete. I am now officially opposed to intelligence, artificial or not.