Long before the General Robots Corporation introduced models that
would cause the unemployment of more than 40 million US workers, it
introduced version 1.0 of its General Purpose Robot. Few people
noticed. It was rather like the release of version 1.0 of Microsoft
Windows, which attracted almost no attention.
By the time the General Robots Corporation released version 2.0 of
its General Purpose Robot, it began to attract a small amount of
press notice. And just as version 3.0 was the release number that
caused Microsoft Windows to become a household word, it was version
3.0 of the General Purpose Robot that made the product a household
word across the country. Some 15 million workers found themselves out
of work, replaced by the General Purpose Robot.
Not long after the General Robots Corporation released version 4.0 of
its General Purpose Robot, which had some very powerful self-learning
capabilities, experts estimated that more than 30 million US workers
had been displaced by the robot. After the release of version 5.0 of
the General Purpose Robot, which was dubbed the “Einstein in a
box,” the unemployment rate in the United States climbed to more
than 25%. Companies kept buying more and more of the General Purpose
Robots, and kept firing more and more workers.
In the city of Washington D.C a group of social activists got
together to plan a strategy to counter the huge spike in
unemployment.
“We have to do something, or half the country will be unemployed
before long,” said George Taylor.
“Well, the one resource we have is bodies,” said Frank Jones.
“Millions of them. Let's start using them. We'll start organizing
mass protests. Maybe someone in Congress will notice if we plant two
million feet on the Washington Mall.”
Using all the techniques of social media, a huge event was organized
to protest the huge increase in unemployment caused by the use of
robots. The plan was to bus in people from thirty different states.
But having made countless billions selling its robots, the General
Robots Corporation had anticipated that there would be mass protests,
and had begun buying up congressmen like a person would buy cherries
at a supermarket. Using its army of congressional lobbyists, the
huge corporation obtained the passage of the Robotic Progress Act,
which included the following outrageous provision:
The General Robots Corporation shall have the right to defend its
corporate business interests against any threat, and shall not be
guilty of any criminal wrongdoing for violating any national, state,
or local law while pursuing a defense of its corporate business
interests. When defending its business interests, the General Robots
Corporation shall be held harmless against any lawsuits that may be
filed by parties affected by its actions.
On the day of the mass protest on the Washington Mall, the crowd
grew larger and larger, eventually reaching a size of more than one
million. The crowd listened to speakers denounce the loss of human
jobs caused by robots taking so many jobs. Several of the speakers
angrily denounced the General Robots Corporation.
Then suddenly a horde of flying robot drones began to appear in the
western sky. The crowd looked at the robot drones, and assumed the
worst.
“They're drones, just like they used in Afghanistan!” said one
protester. “They're here to mow us all down with machine gun fire!”
The crowd began to run away towards the East. But then from exactly
that direction there appeared another huge horde of flying robot
drones in the sky. The crowd also tried running to the North, but
another huge cloud of robot drones appeared in the northern sky.
There was one direction left to flee, to the South. But that
direction was also blocked by a huge group of flying robot drones in
the sky.
Most of the massive crowd stayed where it was. Many said prayers,
fearing the worst, thinking a gigantic massacre was about to begin.
Thousands thought that the green grass of the Washington Mall was
about to run red with the blood of the protesters.
Then all at once the drones started approaching the crowd from all
directions, flying back and forth over the crowd. The drones swooped
very low, to a height of only about 20 feet.
But the flying robot drones did not fire on the crowd. They just kept
flying back and forth over the crowd.
Once it was clear that the flying robot drones were not going to fire
on the crowd, the terrified crowd dispersed.
“I guess their whole purpose was just to scare the hell out of us,”
said George Taylor. “It pretty much worked. I almost had a heart
attack.”
But the flying drone robots had been sent to do more than just scare
the protesters. The flying robots had flown over the protesters
again and again for the purpose of photographing them. The
photographs taken by the flying robot drones were processed by
powerful facial recognition software which used a database of faces
obtained from online social network pictures. The General Robots
Corporation was thereby able to make a list of the names of a large
fraction of the protesters. It then used this list to do various
types of computerized harm to the protesters. The General Robots
Corporation had not used bullets against the protesters, but it did
use against them a barrage of bits and bytes that was almost as
destructive as bullets.
“I've got reports from very many of our protesters that they've had
all kinds of trouble,” said George Taylor, speaking a few weeks after the big protest in
Washington D.C. “Some are reporting that people opened credit cards
in their names, and charged lots of money. Other people are reporting
that their credit records have been messed with, and contain all
kinds of outrageous errors, such as false records of missed
payments and bankruptcies. Others are reporting that the police computers list them
with arrest records or conviction records, even though they've never
been arrested. Many people have had their computers wiped out by
viruses. We have thousands of cases of identity theft, and
innumerable cases of online mischief. For example, my online history
now says that I am a convicted arsonist, which is completely false.”
“It's the work of the General Robots Corporation,” said Frank
Jones. “They've waged electronic war against us, creating all kinds
of hell for the people who attended our protest. But how could they
have found out who attended the protest?”
“All those times the flying drones passed over the protesters –
the drones were probably taking pictures,” deduced George Taylor
correctly. “Then they probably dumped the pictures into a face
recognition database to get the names of the attendees.”
“Do you know what happened to me?” said Frank. “They erased my
college transcript. The Social Security Administration now says they
have no record of my social security number. My bank says I don't
even have an account. It's like I've been excommunicated from the
human race. And I've heard from many other protesters with the same
problem.”
“Next week in Chicago we have another big protest against all the
job losses caused by the robots,” said George. “We've got to make
sure this doesn't happen again. What can we do?”
“I've got it!” said Frank. “We can call one of the big
theatrical supply companies. We'll order a huge number of fake
beards, a ton of cheap sunglasses, and a thousand containers of nose
putty. Everyone can disguise themselves so they won't be recognized
from the photographs taken by the flying drones.”
“Do you have any idea how much that would cost?” complained
George. “And do you realize how ridiculous everyone at the big
protest would look, wearing fake beards and fake noses? No, Frank,
there is actually an existing technology we can use that is very
effective at preventing flying drone robots from taking a photograph
of your face. And the great thing is, everybody already has this
technology.”
“What is it?” asked Frank.
“It's called an umbrella,” said George.
No comments:
Post a Comment