Computer Humor Equals Artificial Intelligence, Say I, Marilyn Sykes

When I went to work in a large insurance office in 1985, computer humor had me rolling on the floor. Not literally, of course. Can you picture that, a six-foot, 200-pound woman in her forties, laughing hysterically while cleaning the carpet with her power suit?

Not a pretty sight. My boss, Mr. Thomas, was a good man. IS a good man, most likely, though we haven't kept in touch all that closely. He was at that time the office computer whiz responsible for keeping our network of 27 IBM clones up to snuff. As often as not, the computers exercised their own sense of computer humor and laughed at him. HE did not laugh!

When I mentioned one day that he might do better to treat the machines as the intelligent beings they are, he just shook his head. As I left his office, I heard him mutter something about a flake with a science fiction mind. Since he could get me fired, I kept mostly quiet. Mostly.

I just chuckled, went back to my cubicle, and waited for him to get the baseball bat between the eyes. You know, the jolt that sort of wakes you up like that first cup of morning coffee.

As it turned out, it didn't really take all that long.

(Back Pain? Insomnia? To avoid aging like an old computer, click on the computer!)

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The computer man was blocked and madly muttering
Back in the early days when what they called DOS was king
He put in a clear command and saw the screen go black
No matter what he did, he could not get his data back

The struggle took him weeks of tearing out his hair
He could not figure out the how, the when or where
Day after day he griped about the dumb machine
It got to be a job to keep his language clean

Then one fine day he'd finally had enough
He reached behind his desk and simply pulled the plug
Headed out to lunch, came back at one
The screen was green with a message asking, Are You Done?

He shook his head and chuckled at a pretty good joke
But when he checked the thing was still unplugged and pretty much broke
He hit a lot of keys and then he came to see me
Shook his head and said, Marilyn, this you've got to see

When I saw the screen I asked him if he truly still thought
Computers lacked IQ considering the message he'd got
You could tell he still was doubting when he plugged it back in
But he bowed to that computer and asked if it would be his friend

Now we're many years past those old green screen displays
And it could be my old boss is still the same in many ways
But there's very little doubt that he figured one thing out
He wrote a screenplay called My PC Friend and is making movies now!

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Publisher's note: Marilyn tells me that despite changing her boss's name, and the name of his novel, the poem describes a true happening. That is, her boss did doubt computers could be truly intelligent. There was a message on a screen that had no power to it. And the computer did behave after he promised to treat it with respect.

Marilyn also freely admits that this story could be categorized as psychic or as a bit of science fiction rather than simply computer humor. I'm not sure I've progressed far enouth to think that all the way through.

I'm still grinning at the image she paints of a sizeable lady rolling on an office floor, hysterically laughing. Computer humor from another angle entirely.

Thanks for reading,

Fred

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