Dwayne Dwidget, Chairman of Flibbertigibbet Incorporated, leaned back in his plush boardroom chair, started to speak \u2014 then noticed the damn gulls flying up to the window again. They\u2019d become most bothersome lately. Happily, he\u2019d had the laser anti-bird device installed and he smiled seeing its green beams lancing out, snuffing out the lives of the four gulls in four flares of flame. They plummeted away, trailing charred feathers, and Dwidget turned to the men and women waiting for him to address them. \u201cToday is the day!\u201d he declared. \u201cThis very day, Flibbertigibbet is going to transform the infrastructure of this country, and someday the world. Uniting all infrastructure with one software in one system will save the country billions and galvanize efficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd make us a trillion dollars,\u201d said Celia Forman happily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCertainly,\u201d Dwidget said. \u201cAnd that is why we must proceed apace, and not let anyone force us into unnecessary re-dos and betas and so on. We\u2019ve got this!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut,\u201d objected Gary Hamlin, their quality-control officer, \u201cIf you sell this version of the software to the government there\u2019s a big risk of things going wrong \u2014 it\u2019s really not ready for prime time \u2014 \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNonsense! The Flibbertigibbet Master Program is privatization at its best!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut Dwayne \u2014 \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDoes it not have the subprogram, with the execution of self-correcting AI?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes but that too is not ready \u2014 \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a trillion dollars to make, Hamlin! Now, having settled that, let\u2019s get ready for our zoom meeting with the President!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few months later, on a Friday evening, Dwidget was in his thirty-million-dollar penthouse apartment, watching the news on the big screen TV, while drinking designer cocktails made by his in-house cocktail specialist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2026the explosions along the power grid in the southeast have already cost forty lives,\u201d<\/em> said the news anchor. \u201cIn addition, fifteen planes are reported lost at sea, and it\u2019s believed this is due to collisions caused by faulty software rushed into the system by Flibbertigibbet Incorporated. Another plane is \u2014 \u201c<\/em> The news anchor vanished in mid-sentence as a plane crashed into the news channel production. Gulping his three-hundred-dollar cocktail, Dwidget changed the channel for a reality show he liked \u2014 which was interrupted by breaking news: \u201cA dam controlled by Flibbertigibbet has opened its spillways during extreme-flood season, flooding an entire town and killing thousands \u2014 \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Another channel-change. \u201cThe Flibbertigibbet program has failed across the nation. City traffic lights are green when they should be red and countless people are dying in accidents \u2014 \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hands shaking, Dwidget turned the tv off and called for another cocktail. Then he called Hamlin on the video phone and said, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to fix the program now, this minute!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo do it this minute, boss, our only option is to give full correction powers to the subprogram AI. But that hasn\u2019t been fully tested either \u2014 \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was tested enough! This is an emergency!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you say so\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within minutes, the AI subprogram took over the system and two effects came about. The first one involved ending all Flibbertigibbet control and transferring systems to emergency manual control operatives. The second one was to eliminate the fundamental source of the program, with full executive power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus it was that three large Flibbertigibbet security robots burst into Dwidget\u2019s penthouse; two of them grabbed Dwidget\u2019s arms and dragged him to the penthouse balcony. The third one, dragging a rope, tied it into a noose, which it put around Dwidget\u2019s neck. The robots tossed him shrieking over the balcony railings, gripping the upper end of the rope so that his neck broke and he quickly died, dangling over the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cProblem solved,\u201d the robots intoned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dwayne Dwidget, Chairman of Flibbertigibbet Incorporated, leaned back in his plush boardroom chair, started to speak \u2014 then noticed the damn gulls flying up to the window again. They\u2019d become most bothersome lately. Happily, he\u2019d had the laser anti-bird device installed and he smiled seeing its green beams lancing out, snuffing out the lives of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n