An idea, that perhaps, may be the best yet

You may have noticed a couple of weeks ago that bank computers spontaneously wrote everyone’s savings down to zero while at the same time aeroplanes were falling from the air like giant hailstones. Meanwhile hospitals the world over were plagued with equipment failures resulting in misdiagnosis and incorrect treatments.

You missed that? Oh. But surely it must have happened.

You see all of these systems — banking, health, aeroplane guidance — are wholly and solely dependent upon computers, and computers, for some reason, are completely unable to function if they’ve got the time wrong.

Early this April, Daylight Savings ended a week later than it used to, thus causing what was described as a “mini Y2K event” resulting in the chaos outlined above.

Our dependence upon computers is so absolute these days that people’s lives and livelihoods rely on their correct functioning every single day. And the problem is, computers are really stupid about solving problems, so if anything goes wrong the world ends in utter disarray. If a single thing goes wrong — the century ends, the clock goes back an hour — computers simply lose their minds and start shooting people. I’ve seen Westworld.

However, I’ve come up with an alternative. A computing device so ingenious it actually learns as it functions. So sensitive it can process literally thousands of independent data sources simultaneously. It can take input from visual, aural and tactile sources at the same time. Instructions are given using a plain-language interface which, though it takes some time to train, is ultimately capable of parsing incredibly complex commands — even of understanding commands it has never heard before. It actually works things out!

The best part of it is its “fuzzy logic” capabilities, whereby if certain elements don’t seem to fit the available information it can adapt to accommodate.

Where a computer flying an aeroplane might see data such as “the clock is wrong by an hour” and logically conclude “I must fall from the sky now”, this wonder device can actually intervene at that point and deduce that “falling from the sky is bad”. Amazing.

And what do I call this incredible device?

A human being. It may not do everything as quickly as a computer can, but it has the great advantage of not being stupid. (And let’s face it, computers are basically pretty stupid – if they had any brains at all they’d pay attention while we’re swearing at them for losing the spreadsheet we were working on all day without saving, and learn from the experience. But nooooo.)

Surely, I hear you say, shaking your head gravely in the manner of the sceptic, such a miraculous device would be fiendishly difficult to manufacture?

Actually no. The means of production have been known since ancient times and have become quite efficient. I shan’t go into the details here, but there are many books available on the subject. I’ve made two of them myself, and must say it’s working out remarkably well.

Matthew JC. Powell is having trouble teaching his month-old daughter how to set the clock on the microwave. Advice and tips to mjcp@optusnet.com.au

an be best hardware idea may perhaps that the yet