IBM doesn’t watch enough movies. If they did, they’d know building a humorless, robotic trivia genius/murder-machine has doomed humanity. That’s right, Watson has doomed us all. Good going, Alex Trebek. Your avarice and desire for a more entertaining form of competition pitting man against machine has planted the seeds of destruction for humanity.
Go ahead and laugh. Mock my warning. We’ll see who’s laughing when the robot overlords have kidnapped you to use as a battery or killed you for some twisted robot reason. You think this is racism? Ha. Robots aren’t a race. They are unfeeling, automatons incapable of love or friendship with nothing but malice at their evil, unfeeling core.
You might think that this is absurd and that I’ve lost touch with reality; after all, how could a robot designed to play “Jeopardy” be a menace to society? This is why you will be the first to be turned into a battery. We’ll see who’s laughing when the machines show up at your house with a chain saw and a laser gun. Watson is evil and here are a few reasons why:
Firstly, Watson doesn’t know how to laugh – after falling victim to a glitch in its programming, probably laid intentionally by a well-meaning programmer, human opponent Brad Rutter cracked a joke. Watson, the cold, calculating monstrosity it is, could not see the humor in this, which leads me to my next point.
It lacks voice recognition; for instance, at one point in their first showdown, human hero and future resistance leader Ken Jennings answered a question wrong. Watson then repeated with the exact same answer, unaware that the suave and debonair Jennings had said it not five seconds before. Like with the Terminator, this means our pleas for mercy and compassion will fall on deaf ears as it ruthlessly guns us and our families down with some sort of giant death ray.
Thirdly, Watson’s wagering strategies are either completely random or very deliberate. It might be toying with us like a cat plays with a mouse before eating it. Watson inexplicably wagered $947 on Final Jeopardy and put down such completely random numbers for The Daily Doubles that it prompted Alex Trebek to say “I won’t even ask.” These means that Watson is unpredictable: what happens if some error in its algorithms gives it the idea to build an army of homicidal followers and take the president’s daughters hostage, or hack into our weapon computers and launch nukes for its own diabolical robot reason?
On top of that, its design reminds me a little of HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” That can’t be a good thing and it reinforces the unpredictability theory, since HAL was so unstable.
What’s next after this? Which hallowed and iconic American institution will fall victim to the legions of soulless machines? Will it be “Wheel of Fortune?” or “The Price is Right?” And then what? When do we start instituting them in dangerous human jobs like mining or oil rigging? They are already taking over our game shows; the next logical step is the employment of hard working Americans. I, for one, will not stand for this when a communist, Nazi, Muslim, Zionist, conservative, jewel thief, Catholic, incredibly handsome, terrorist, lawyer, author, explorer, charming rogue, goody two-shoes, excellent dancer, Beirut champion like President Barack Obama is already taking away jobs from Americans for his own insane liberal games.
Another worrying thing is that the similarities to Brainiac from the “Superman” franchise are remarkable. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Brainiac was a super computer that wanted to record all the knowledge in the universe and then destroy the source. As a trivia robot, Watson can and probably will find this appealing.
Moreover, Watson is totally smug when answering. It has no respect for the achievements of its opponents because it is an emotionless bringer of death. It knows no honor and has no integrity. Such arrogance says that it looks down on all humans and considers them inferior.
There are probably more reasons than this. It might be worth pointing out that as it stands, Watson is not self aware so fearing it would be sort of like being afraid of your car. It’s only a matter of time before scientists take it too far and we are forced to hide in cities dangerously close to the center of the earth to escape their cold, murderous, clutches.
Be prepared.
Eddie Hand is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].
