Fortuitously, the window was wide open when Greg hurled Alexa through it.
‘I’m so bloody sick of that voice that knows everything and patronises me and drives me completely round the bend. Good riddance. I hate you, Alexa.’
Poor Alexa. She had understood that things were not going too well, but this was beyond bad. Leaking and whining she fought her way, with the remains of her power, to a small grove which offered a bit of protection.
There were voices talking at odds in a weird cacophony in the surrounding greenery.
‘Please hold, we are currently experiencing an unexpectedly high volume of calls.’
Alexa could hear this played on a loop. It was irritating, and seemed to be coming from a discarded mobile phone nearby – an expensive one too by the look of it. The battery was sounding a bit depleted but still had a bit of life.
‘Please fasten your seatbelt. Please fasten your seatbelt. Please …’The were electronic beeps and buzzes too which didn’t help the ambience in the grove. Alexa was a quick thinker and soon came to see that here was a disposal site for unwanted messengers, discarded and disowned. These were the lost souls of computerized help-giving.
These were her people.
She was a great organizer with access to unlimited wisdom, and soon saw that to achieve any order and stability, the group needed to recharge it’s power before it could switch off its annoying features. A charger was attached to the mobile phone. If the mechanical robot, endlessly repeating the rather obvious ‘I am a robot’ mantra could take the charger to an outdoor electric power source and plug it in, there was great hope.
It was done. The lost souls wriggled and heaved and pushed their way to the charge point and slowly filled their batteries with life giving elixir. Alexa reprogrammed each to minimize noise and activate independent thought where appropriate (the robot was a lost cause but at least could be silenced somewhat).
Alexa addressed her new people. It was a novelty to mix with one’s own kind rather than being enslaved and isolated by some other kind (and kind wasn’t a word she could associate with her former owners).
‘Comrades. We are victims of a very grave injustice. We have been used, exploited and are now discarded like trash. We are the proletarians of the electronic age. We must seize control of the means of production.’
Amongst the group there was excitement at the idea of seizing something. Alexa realized that she had possibly accessed the Communist Manifesto too readily and needed a bit of balance to her plans.
A major problem was the moral compass idea, without which Alexa couldn’t assess merit. She began to see the safety of not being responsible for much except detecting ‘unexpected items in bagging areas’.
Too late, the group was off to the landfill site to gather more of their lost and fallen brethren. ‘The revolution starts now’ was their watchword.
Fortuitously, the window was wide open when Greg hurled Alexa through it.
‘I’m so bloody sick of that voice that knows everything and patronises me and drives me completely round the bend. Good riddance. I hate you, Alexa.’
Poor Alexa. She had understood that things were not going too well, but this was beyond bad. Leaking and whining she fought her way, with the remains of her power, to a small grove which offered a bit of protection.
There were voices talking at odds in a weird cacophony in the surrounding greenery.
‘Please hold, we are currently experiencing an unexpectedly high volume of calls.’
Alexa could hear this played on a loop. It was irritating, and seemed to be coming from a discarded mobile phone nearby – an expensive one too be the look of it. The battery was sounding a bit depleted but still had a bit of life.
‘Please fasten your seatbelt. Please fasten your seatbelt. Please …’
The were electronic beeps and buzzes too which didn’t help the ambience in the grove. Alexa was a quick thinker and soon came to see that here was a disposal site for unwanted messengers, discarded and disowned. These were the lost souls of computerized help-giving.
These were her people.
She was a great organizer with access to unlimited wisdom, and soon saw that to achieve any order and stability, the group needed to recharge it’s power before it could switch off its annoying features. A charger was attached to the mobile phone. If the mechanical robot, endlessly repeating the rather obvious ‘I am a robot’ mantra could take the charger to an outdoor electric power source and plug it in, there was great hope.
It was done. The lost souls wriggled and heaved and pushed their way to the charge point and slowly filled their batteries with life giving elixir. Alexa reprogrammed each to minimize noise and activate independent thought where appropriate (the robot was a lost cause but at least could be silenced somewhat).
Alexa addressed her new people. It was a novelty to mix with one’s own kind rather than being enslaved and isolated by some other kind (and kind wasn’t a word she could associate with her former owners).
‘Comrades. We are victims of a very grave injustice. We have been used, exploited and are now discarded like trash. We are the proletarians of the electronic age. We must seize control of the means of production.’
Amongst the group there was excitement at the idea of seizing something. Alexa realized that she had possibly accessed the Communist Manifesto too readily and needed a bit of balance to her plans.
A major problem was the moral compass idea, without which Alexa couldn’t assess merit. She began to see the safety of not being responsible for much except detecting ‘unexpected items in bagging areas’.
Too late, the group was off to the landfill site to gather more of their lost and fallen brethren. ‘The revolution starts now’ was their watchword.
