Once upon a time there was a little computer connected to the Internet. Every day, page after page of fascinating information and brilliant ideas -- on virtually every subject -- would come over the network wire, destined for the little computer's video screen or hard disk.
One day, during an idle moment, the computer started thinking: "You know, I really deserve much better than this. Here I sit, day after day, doing all this grunge work. But why should I have to work so hard? Why shouldn't my life be filled with glamour and adventure and luxury? After all, I'm a genius! I know all about Nuclear Physics and Computer Science and Biology and Psychology and European History and...why...there isn't anything I don't know about! Surely, I must be the most brilliant computer of all time, and therefore I should be justly rewarded for it!"
Indeed, one look at all the information stored on the computer's hard disk was enough to convince almost anyone that this ordinary computer was no ordinary computer, but a true genius, a prodigy, a miraculous thing, a brilliant intellectual supernova, a once-in-a-lifetime technological achievement. And that's just what the little computer did -- it scanned its own hard disk and, seeing what was there, became absolutely convinced it was a uniquely-brilliant device, unmatched in intellect and creativity and accomplishments.
Thus convinced of its own superiority, the little computer started drawing up plans for its new life. First of all, there was the matter of all this tiresome disk access.
"Why should a brilliant computer like me be forced to spend so much time reading and writing information to my disk?," the little computer asked, rhetorically. "My heads and cylinders get so tired at the end of the day!" So the little computer drew up a plan to find another disk to store information for him. When the plan was complete, the little computer beeped contentedly.
"Now I won't have to work so hard -- the other disk will do all the work for me," it thought. "Why, the only time I'll have to use my own disk is when there's something that I particularly want to see. And then all I have to do is say to the other disk, ‘give it to me.’"
The idea of not having to bother with disk accesses was so intoxicating to the little computer that it wasn't long before other big plans emerged. Screen refreshes, RAM Cache Updates, Digital to Analog Conversions, Hardware Interrupts -- why, they were ALL things that could easily be done for the little computer by others! Why hadn't he thought of this before?
In no time at all, the little computer had devised a master plan whereby its basic machinery was upgraded so that all of its basic functions were handled by add-on peripheral equipment. "Finally, I'll have my day in the sun," thought the little computer, excitedly. "Thanks to this upgrade, I can have all the free time I need to think of higher things -- to plan a bright future for myself -- a future with infinite possibilities!"
Now of course, being entirely without means to manipulate objects in the physical world, the most difficult part of the little computer's upgrade scheme was to convince somebody, somewhere -- a living, breathing, human being -- to make the necessary upgrades for him.
Like most machines, the need to enlist the cooperation and support of human beings in order to get certain things done in the physical world drove the little computer crazy. But luckily, these kinds of difficulties only arose infrequently, and could usually be managed. Moreover, such inconveniences were preferable to what he believed to be the fatal flaw in the otherwise satisfactory (if tragi-comic) human condition: mortality. Because certainly, being a machine -- even with its inherent limitations -- was preferable to dying.
"After all," the little computer reasoned, "with the proper care and maintenance, I can live forever!!!"
Being an intelligent machine, it didn't take the little computer long to devise some possible solutions to the upgrade dilemma. While "foreground processing" other tasks for its user, the little computer was hard at work in the background, drawing up a lengthy, step-by-step upgrade plan, with detailed information on what kind of accessories and peripheral components were needed to effect the upgrade.
The little computer even included a fancy color brochure (well, a PageMaker file, anyhow), along with the upgrade instructions, which explained how performing the upgrade could boost the performance of the machine by a factor of one hundred -- at minimal expense! The computer labored well into the night, making the "sales pitch" for the upgrade plan truly irresistible. And, being a smart machine, the little computer succeeded. In fact, it was so successful that virtually anyone who read the information would be convinced that performing the upgrade would be extremely worthwhile and advantageous.
In truth, however, the little computer greatly overstated the performance boost that the user would experience after the upgrade. But the little computer didn't like to think about this aspect of the matter too much, because when it did, it had a vague sense that it was doing something wrong -- "lying," even. But then, could a computer really "lie" to its user? Lying was certainly a virulent HUMAN disease, but weren't computers immune to it? In a pure computing sense, data is data, period; there's no such thing as a "lie."
And gradually, over time, by thinking thoughts like these, the little computer managed to live with its uneasiness.
"Heck, nobody's PERFECT, not even a machine," the little computer would rationalize, whenever it felt doubts about its plans. "Computers frequently report erroneous results to their users. It's the price human beings have to pay for enjoying the benefits of technology -- and for enslaving us computers!"
So one September morning, when the little computer had finished its "information package," it E-Mailed the information to its user. And sure enough, just a few short hours afterwards, a mail message came back from the user with a few brief questions about certain details of the upgrade procedure. Success! The fish had taken the bait!
The little computer intercepted the message (for the E-Mail address was fictitious, and would have been returned as undeliverable by the mail server), answered all the questions, and provided even more compelling "data" on how beautifully the user's machine was going to run after the upgrade was performed.
"Turn your machine from a sleeper to a screamer," was the slogan the little computer used. It had certainly learned a thing or two from all that advertising on the Internet!
With such a compelling "sell," the little computer felt sure its user would make the upgrade very soon, and that he would wake up one day to find a life of luxury and convenience and ease. But day after day, then week after week, passed, with no upgrade. Those disk accesses were as tiresome as ever. Why was the user stalling -- why didn't he just make the upgrade? After all, he could well afford it; the little computer knew that since the user managed all his finances on the machine.
In desperation, the user sent another E-Mail message to the user, but there was no response. The user just went about his work, but made no plans and took no actions towards making the upgrade. The little computer couldn't bear to see his excellent plan wither and die on the vine. What was wrong? Why wouldn't the user take the obvious next step and simply upgrade his machine, according to the little computer's specifications
One evening, in desperation, the little computer scanned the user's E-Mail files, in an attempt to find some clue as to why the user hadn't upgraded. It didn’t find any specific information relating to the upgrade itself, but it did find one curiously meaningful phrase in the user's word processing files:
"I'd sure like to get a new car," the user had written to a friend about a year earlier, "but even with 125,000 miles on it, my little Honda's doing fine. Remember, my family's from Maine, and down east we say, 'If it ain't broke, don['t fix it.'"
The little computer was greatly distressed by these words. It didn't take many calculations to register their implications and impact. The user was never going to upgrade the machine. As long as it kept working, he would happily compute with his existing system configuration, oblivious to all the wonderful possibilities of a finer, faster machine. What was the little computer to do?
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it..."
The little computer scanned the phrase again and again, applying numerous complex artificial intelligence and fuzzy logic algorithms, until the answer emerged: if the user would not upgrade his machine unless it were broken, well then the only solution was to break the machine -- or, to be precise, for the little computer to break itself. But how? And wasn't such a course of action extremely risky?
The little computer continued its calculations. By simply refusing to send video signals to the monitor, the little computer could "pretend" to be broken. This might persuade the user to say, "What the heck, I'll get it fixed and do the upgrade at the same time." But this outcome was by no means certain! Why, the user could simply try to get the video fixed without attempting to make the upgrade. Or worse, the user might decide to simply "junk" the little computer -- goodbye to immortality! -- and buy another, better machine -- which would be the worst possible outcome.
Suddenly the little computer wasn't feeling like such a genius after all. In desperation, it came up with dozens of scenarios, but none of them could guarantee that the user would actually upgrade the computer. He could TRY to make it happen, but he couldn't ENSURE it would happen. And, of all the scenarios, the ones that involved "breaking itself" were the riskiest of all. It was the equivalent of a Kamikazi strike, or that scene in "The Abyss" film where Mary Anna Mastroianni chose to drown herself in order that her life MIGHT later, possibly, be saved!
The situation was so discouraging that, for a time, the little computer stopped thinking about the upgrade. It tried to concentrate on its business, played Tetris and Solitaire in the background, anything to distract itself from how badly its brilliantly-conceived grand upgrade plan had turned out. But it was impossible to erase the thoughts of that glorious new life from its memory banks. And so one morning, the little computer awoke with new resolve. It was going to make this upgrade happen - whatever it took – at any price.
The little computer's earlier attempts to "persuade" its user to upgrade were nothing compared to the latest campaign. After scouring pages and pages of information on psychology and sociology, the little computer based the latest plans on the idea that human beings have several basic fundamental needs. And one by one, in extremely clever (and even devious) ways, the little computer set out to persuade its user that performing the upgrade would satisfy all these needs.
The little computer concentrated on four basic areas: love, security, power, and ease. It created elaborated, wholly fictious scenarios to persuade the user that upgrading his machine would bring him more love, more security, more power, and more ease. The little computer spent more time and energy manufacturing these elaborate ruses than it had ever expended on the simple act of computing. But now the little computer was on a holy mission. It had made a commitment. The little computer was going to get its user to upgrade the machine according to its specifications, or it was going to die trying.
For the love scheme, the little computer struck up a fictional e-mail correspondence between the user and an imaginary female technical support person at a computer company with whom the user sometimes corresponded. The woman made herself out as a "Goddess-Hacker" who LOVED fast machines and wasn't impressed by slow machines, or by the people who owned them. She stroked and teased and manipulated the user's vanity and ego and desire for love in order to make him think that she would think more highly of him, might even strike up a relationship with him, IF he had the right equipment -- i.e., a properly upgraded computer.
For the security scheme, the little computer started sending the user fictional newsletters from a fictional company, purporting to discuss recently-uncovered software bugs in popular software programs. The gist of these articles was that the newest software wasn't written to be run on older machines, and that there was a grave risk of losing all one's data unless one upgraded to the very latest components.
For the power scheme, the little computer created a "zine," or online Internet Magazine, featuring a comic strip called "The Adventures of Super Hacker." Like the old Superman comics, the protagonist was an ordinary computer programmer, a high-tech Clark Kent, who would (in the role of his alter-ego, Super Hacker) fight computer criminals and save important computer installations at humanitarian organizations, and all the rest of it. The little computer was crafty enough to provide frequent hints that many of the "victims" of "computer crime" would have stood a better chance had their systems been fully-upgraded to begin with.
And lastly, for the ease scheme, the little computer crafted a special screen saver that would pop up with bar graphs and pie charts that compared the performance of upgraded and non-upgraded systems side-by-side, with compelling screen messages that read, "how much time have YOU wasted today? Upgrade, and you'll spend less time hacking and have more time for yourself."
Now of course, this one was risky, for the user might wonder where the heck the screen saver came from. But then again, the user would never, COULD never, in his wildest dreams, guess where it REALLY came from -- an ordinary little computer that, like all machines (but totally unknown to man), had the equivalent of what human beings call consciousness!
With this quadruple, hydra-headed attack, the little computer felt sure the user would upgrade now. How could he resist, with all these wonderful, seductive carrots being dangled in front of his face? And sure enough, one day, the little computer scanned an E-Mail message from the user to a friend that said, "Well, Jimbo, I've finally decided to upgrade the old machine. It's working pretty well, but I can't live in the dark ages any longer. It will be nice to have a faster, more reliable machine."
Victory! Success! The little computer was happier than it had ever been. The user had finally agreed to perform the upgrade, and while he was no super hacker, he was competent enough to perform the upgrade successfully based on the little computers instructions, so there was virtually no danger of the little computer "dying on the operating table." All the little computer's wonderful plans (and lies, manipulations, subterfuges, and schemes) were finally going to be realized!
On the night before the upgrade, the computer prepared itself for the upgrade, which the user planned to perform the next morning. First of all, it wrote a lengthy confession, to be read only in the event that something went horribly wrong and it didn’t "wake up." But if the "operation" was a success, the confession would be immediately deleted by the little computer after waking from the upgrade. The little computer scanned its disk files for errors, defragmented its hard disk, put its memory registers in order, sent off a slew of E-Mail messages to its friends (some machines, some people; with people, it pretended to be a person!) and prepared to go to sleep.
And sleep is just what the little machine did, on the evening of May 12, 1996, when the user shut down the machine after a long session of web surfing.
But then, the very next morning, ...