Alright, Listen Up, You Whistling Widgets!

So, I’m stuck listening to some egghead named Ray Dalio – sounds like a fancy coffee, if you ask me – blathering on about AI and these ‘humanoid robots.’ Now, back in my day at IBM, if you wanted a robot, you built it yourself. And it didn’t look like your Aunt Mildred, thank god. It looked like a big, useful box that did exactly what you told it to. None of this ‘smarter than humans’ nonsense. If it was smarter, it was a bug, and you fixed it with a punch card and a healthy dose of profanity.

The Sky Is Falling, Again, But This Time With More Circuits

This Dalio fella is worried about a ‘limited number of winners and a bunch of losers.’ Well, no kidding, Sherlock. That’s how it’s always been. Some folks figured out how to make a buck, others spent their time trying to get their VCR to stop flashing ‘12:00’. The only difference now is the ‘winners’ will be the ones who understand how to debug a sentient toaster, and the ‘losers’ will be, well, everyone else who just wants a slice of bread.

He talks about ‘trillions of dollars in investment.’ Trillions! I remember when a million dollars was a king’s ransom. Now it’s what these Silicon Valley whippersnappers spend on organic kale and a subscription to some app that tells them when to breathe. They’re pouring all this money into making machines that are supposed to make us obsolete. It’s like buying a really expensive shovel to dig your own grave. Brilliant.

My Old Pal, The Command Line, Wouldn’t Stand For This

I tell ya, if the command line could talk, it’d be having a conniption fit. It understood efficiency. You typed what you wanted, it did what you said. No fancy graphics, no ‘user-friendly interfaces’ that just hide how complicated everything really is. Now, these AI systems are going to be so smart, we won’t even know what they’re doing. They’ll just be humming along, making decisions, and we’ll be sitting there, scratching our heads, wondering if our coffee machine is secretly plotting world domination.

This ‘redistribution policy’ he’s yammering about? Sounds like more government meddling. Just let the machines do their thing, I say. If they’re so smart, let them figure out how to pay for everything. I’ll be in my garage, trying to get my old DOS machine to play Oregon Trail. At least that game had predictable outcomes, even if you did die of dysentery a lot.

The Future Is Here, And It Needs a Reboot

So, what’s the big takeaway? We’re building a future where the machines are smarter, and the people are, apparently, getting dumber, or at least less necessary. And some rich guy is worried about who gets what. Me? I’m just worried about what happens when my refrigerator starts arguing with me about the optimal humidity for my leftover meatloaf. That’s where this is all headed, I tell ya. Digital arguments with your appliances. What a world. Give me a good old-fashioned vacuum tube any day. At least when that broke, you knew how to fix it.