Yesterday, being Sunday, I loitered for a long time on Facebook. I was taking very important quizzes (What alcohol are you? Tequila. What How I Met Your Mother character are you? Marshall. Who were you in your former life? Pablo Picasso) and while I was very satisfied with the results (we all know I am no classy cognac), something weird started to happen.
Down at the bottom of the screen of one of my results pages, was this phrase, "Julie, Michael thinks you are an idiot." Now, rationally I know this is one of those ad quizzes that just sucks you in to a cell phone company or something, but then I got to thinking.
How did Facebook know that? I've always suspected, but Facebook seemed so sure. And Facebook knows everything. I mean, of course, if I were a Golden Girl, I would be Dorothy. And clearly, if I were a car, I'd be a Corolla.
What if my computer really started speaking to me; telling me other truths? What if I ran spellcheck on a document, and it changed all the phrases to, "you need to stop swearing." or "your children need love, not criticism." Or, what if I Googled something, and all one million hits were, "Julie, you should call your mother. And be nice to her this time." or "Here are some recipes for dinner--get off the computer and cook tonight." What if my George Clooney desktop wallpaper started talking to me: "From here, it looks like you should shower and put on some make up." "You know the screen adds 10 pounds...wait! YOU'RE not on the screen, I am. Go diet, woman!" "It's not you, it's me. I just don't see this relationship going anywhere."
I would be heartbroken. I mean that last moment when I turn off my computer and George is there, all alone on my desktop with no icons around him, it's like he's winking and saying, "Goodnight, babe. See you tomorrow."
But, then again, I'm willing to stray into the realm of sci fi, because of quizzes like the one my friend WB took, "What animal would you ride into battle and what weapon would you carry? Riding a dinosaur, carrying a smaller dinosaur." Awesome. I mean that is just SO WB.
And who would know WB better than a Facebook quiz?
I was also thinking about Artificial Intelligence this weekend. I was telling M I want a robot like on I Robot (movie with Will Smith) that would do all the crap I hate and watch the kids. Oh, but not go rogue and try to kill us.
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