COLUMN: Artificial intelligence

The following “broadcast” is brought to you by the fine folks at Artificial Intelligence, Inc. (Aiiiii).

Welcome to the future of sports broadcasting.  Today’s game features the Seattle Microchips and the Silicon Valley Silicates.   

(Slight whirring of gears...monotone play-by-play circuitry kicks in) 

Welcome digital sports fans. Today’s contest is brought to you by the folks at...you don’t really need to know.  We’ve got it covered and controlled. 

A virtual crowd is on the outer perimeter of their virtual seats waiting for the virtual kick off....and we are beginning operations. 

Cyborg 5 kicks the oblong virtual ball....which is hauled in on the virtual 25 yard line by Silicate player 25609.  He goes down after a gain of 10.754 yards....Seattle’s Robo1782-A in on the virtual tackle. 

Now time for a virtual commercial. 

“Tired of running out of RAM?  Visit our AI on-line site, plug in your adapter and we will transmit all the RAM you need.  Your credits card will be assessed 1,000 yen-dollars per gig of RAM.  Download now.  Impress your human friends who live outside your basement.  Back to the contest” 

While we were away, virtually nothing happened....ha ha ha.  Who implies we at AI have no humor.   

Silicate quarterback 4793-Com drops back to throw the virtual pigskin, not really a pigskin, that would not compute...ha ha ha...can’t contain myself. 

The ball is captured by C-3PO, the oldest player in the league.  He’s ready for the recycling bin.  Yeah, he could join R2D2.  Oh you AI rascal. 

That ball traveled 16.259 yards and was returned another 4.3 yards to allow the Silicates to retain possession of the air-filled bag. 

We will pause for a word from one of our sponsors.  Hey, human life forms, AI is not cheap. 

“Is your air scooter moving slow?  Charge it in only a day with Scooter-Go, the virtual system booster that gives your transportation device the get up and go it’s been lacking.  Simply stand up, move your feet to transfer you to the storage port and log on.  We’ll control the rest.  You won’t go anywhere real anyway. Now back to the game. 

Due to a malfunction in the AI virtual time machine, we are unable to transmit the last Silicate score.  But our calculations show the first score would come at 4:15 parsecs of the opening duration period.  AI is never wrong. 

That would fit in exactly as outlined in our pre-game predictions. 

Ohhh, there’s a strange whistling sound, likely coming from the robo-ref.  Perhaps a circuit malfunction? 

The virtual zebra seems to be trying to send a signal to one of the Microchips players.  Wait, now he is removing him virtually from the playing field.  What is going on here? 

None of this computes.  We have not been programmed to understand this development.  Now other virtual players seem to be running around randomly waving their arms. 

Fan screens all around the stadium are going blank.  What could be happening...... 

(Chants of “we want Pac-man, we want Pac-man) 

We interrupt this virtual game to tell you there has been a virtual, major screw up in the computations for this contest. 

This probably never happened in the old days. 

It never happened here either.  This was all virtual. 

Ha ha ha.