Artificial Intelligence in the year 2012

As the year 2012 rapidly approaches, apocalypse enthusiasts, like myself, are brushing up on our 'end of the world' theories. Theories themselves range from natural disasters and changing weather, to diseases and zombies. One theory that has been around for decades in the science fiction community, is artificial intelligence and the birth of evil machines – and I've been watching this one come true since I was old enough to read.

The Beginning

About fifteen years ago, Robie robot made its way into my life. An adorable, simple, piggy bank robot that would eat coins for my entertainment. The phenomenon of small robots has since grown with advances in technology. From robots to play your tapes, to robots that teach our children to spell and count. Even some robots that learn over time, bringing artificial intelligence to life.

The experts of an undisclosed institute that focuses on the creation and distribution of robots for the average person, has introduced such A.I. directly into our homes. The Roomba is the first vacuum cleaner to boast Artificial Intelligence, and has been made available to the masses. This little machine will roam around your house, cleaning every nook and cranny – supposedly imbued with intelligence enough to never be trapped by a chair, and ability to sense when things are truly clean.

During their time unattended in our homes, the Roomba will have gathered credit card information, personal histories, and individual perversions – all to be used against us in the coming apocalypse.

As technology progresses...

The big link; Communications, which will be provided by On-Star. A smart satellite system used in vehicles created by all major American car companies, with over 5million systems currently connected. Communications and diagnostics are what this satellite program is said to do, but it doesn't state the limit of these communications or what they potentially connect to. The name of the company even shares the same amount of letters as the ominous Skynet, of the Terminator series. Coincidence?

One day, once they've learned as much from us as they can, the Roomba robots will have a mass exodus from homes to the street, sent by On-star to molest our alley cats who were not spayed or neutered. This stage of the apocalypse will be set in motion, all because you didn't listen to Bob Barker in his 35 years of warnings.



The Recognized Apocalypse

Kitten-robot litters will grow up, adorable and cunning, able infiltrate all homes and vehicles, infecting unsuspecting electronic devices with the A.I. virus - no electronic device is safe. Even non-computerized electronics will be infected, because we can't resist.



I would imagine the information gathered by Roomba will give way to us losing our identities to these robots. Our jobs will be lost to computerized replicas of ourselves, our primary income given up to the Robie of my youth...the ultimate betrayal will be complete.

All machines are created under the guise of making our lives “easier.” Made to do our chores, raise our children, and make us giggle. Perhaps we, as a species, are instilling a hatred in these machines by being lazy – is there a lesson to be learned?

Now, it's far too late to fully prevent the coming robolution – a revolution that's almost 100 years in the making. We didn't listen to Isaac Asimov and his dreaming androids, or Bob Barker with his persistent (and annoying) suggestion that we spay/neuter our pets, and look where we're headed. All we can do now is wait, and brush up on our physical defenses until doomsday, or our fate will be messy.




Now, imagine me, only practicing my "I told you so" speech in front of the mirror.