#91 Machine Personality

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

 
Next week I have to take a personality test at work and I’m a little worried. What if it comes up negative?

Will I be summoned to the HR office where I will be forcibly enrolled in some flashy, pricey character-building exercise like a Dale Carnegie seminar, a ropes course, or graduate school? I kind of like the personality I have, it’s everyone else who needs to change.

Especially the machines around me.

Really.

The gee-whiz-won’t-the-world-of-tomorrow-be-great crowd can’t wait for machines that have human-like personalities all their own. From what I can see, my machines already have too much personality.

Take my cars, for example. I drive a a piece of Detroit iron, American-made with a personality to match. It’s loud, abrasive, and completely in-your-face. If I leave the headlights on, it rewards me with a sharp, sustained buzzzzzz; the automotive equivalent of “Hey mac, what do you think you’re doing?”…

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Like this excerpt?  Want the whole story?  Listen to the audio version at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com by clicking the ‘Play’ button at the top of the text.

NOTES:

• When I Googled machine personality I found this fasctinating link:
  http://tinyurl.com/2edbn8from the Seminar in Humanities Computing from King’s College in London.
• I write my scripts about six weeks in advance and share them with my family. When he read this, my oldest son said that the ultimate annoying machine personality is GLaDOS — the psychotic computer in the game Portal. You can read all about Portal and GLaDOS in the Wikipedia:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_%28video_game%29
  If you want to interact with GLaDOS on your own, order a copy of The Orange Box.
• One of the early experiments in computer personalities was called Eliza. You can learn more about Eliza (and interact with her — really!) at:
  http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/canon/eliza.htm.

Tags: humor essay | funny story | personality | machine personality | cars | comedy