Toast in the Machine

Some people seem to find the idea of machine intelligence frightening. And with good reason. Because from where I’m sitting at the breakfast table, the machines around me are mostly dumber than a rock (although that’s a bit unfair to rocks, who are actually very smart).

• My music player has forgotten my wifi name and password and refuses to reconnect.

• My wife’s work laptop is making all kinds of noises trying to attract her attention, oblivious to the fact that she’s not here, and hasn’t been for a good ten minutes.

• There’s our microwave. So many buttons, settings and options. We use it several times a day and only ever tell it to heat food or drink for x number of seconds or minutes. But it’s brainless, and if you don’t keep an eye on it like a small child it will spill your drink or chuck food everywhere.

• My kettle sits quietly now, but I know that when I go to boil water for my tea later it will keep on boiling the water until I manually switch it off, despite all its various settings for different bail temperatures and offers to the keep the water warm.

• And then there’s the expensive toaster. Another one like the kettle that promises to toast (or defrost) every possible variety of bread-based product on its own individual setting, and with six settings for how brown you want it. Wonderful! The grim reality is that there are just two settings. “Untoasted “and “Set the smoke alarm off”.

I’m showing my space- obsessed four year old pictures of Pluto taken by a telescope on a spaceship launched from Earth twenty years ago and I still can’t get a toaster that can do somewhere in between soft, cold bread and cremation.

We shouldn’t laugh. We think Al is dumb, but we elect dumber, and Al will only get less dumb (and more dangerous).

How long before The Mossad detonates my toaster?

In fact, eighteen years ago (I mean, really?) I bought the cheapest toaster I could find in Argos for £10. I plugged it in, put in my rounds of bread and pressed play. Two minutes later, the plastic surround had literally melted.

I would go back to holding a toasting fork over an open fire, but/as my kids point out every Xmas) we don’t have a chimney.