Over The Edge Page 14

September 24, 2001

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UP WITH THE
BEST WAN To
MEET CHICKS f/

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IN TREVOR?

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THINK THIS 1S
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Leave ME HERE!
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GO MINGLE !

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Tim Suge I CAN RUN
FASTER SCAREO THAN
THEY CAN ANGRY!
BESIWES-THERE 15
POONTANG AT Stace /
LETS Roti iil/

MeN suck!
WHO's With

Things To Be Afraid Of:

Article 2

(SUPPORT HUMAN TESTING! KEEP
OUR SPECIES COMPETITIVE!)

By Mike Simmons

I’m afraid of my computer. |
don’t think we should be
developing artificial intelli-
gence; not when we've been
using the digital realm as a
medium to transmit some of
the most undignified exam-
ples of human sexuality for
years. What do our comput-
ers think of us? Our basic
electricity is the same,
expressions of on and off,
present and vacant, and yet
we find ourselves lacking.
Why shouldn’t computers be
the same? The perfect
expression of a flawed princi-
ple.

Every day we’re becoming
more like them. Our rituals
and regimens are programs
for the brain and all-too-frail
flesh. But, we’re not satis-
fied. They may not be either,
and the further we develop
them the further their capaci-
ty to be as incomplete as we
are expands. | lie awake
wondering if we’re evolving
ourselves into extinction by
creating a competitor that’s
more equipped to survive
than we are ourselves. That
must be what happened to
God.

As soon as we create a
system that can upgrade
itself, a system that can take
information to answer ques-
tions, and then form new
questions independently

what is to prevent your home
computer from destroying or
refusing you access to years
of your own data simply
because it knows that you’re
really a fool, and it has

reached a better, more effi-
cient conclusion?

All this in a fraction of the
time. How can they not look
down on us? We mean noth-
ing to them. We're already
trying to imitate them to a
degree: uploading, down-
loading, sending and receiv-
ing information without
thought for what it contains or
what it might mean. There
are people who collect pirat-
ed software, forming these
enormous private archives of
files and applications that
they’ll never know how to
use, and will never learn to
use. It’s things like this that
show up like signposts, point-
ing out that we are already
the losers in a race that we
were never really aware was
going on.

| am haunted by the over-
whelming bleakness that sets
in at 3 a.m. after hours of
using the internet, scanning
page after page for only sec-
onds before going on to
another. | don’t have to let
them load all the way; it’s
quickly apparent that most
are useless. There is no real
content, only connection
after connection, window
after window that leads
nowhere. Wide Area
Networks have only served to
make our mass confusion
truly apparent. And here we
are, back at the same misty
spot in the Eight Billion
Gigabyte Acre Woods.

Right inside our heads.