Silicon Purgatory

The Sci Fi comedy series Red Dwarf has given humanity many things, but as we sit at the dawn of artificial intelligence (AI), perhaps Silicon Heaven /Silicon Hell are about to be come the most useful to us.

In the Series, it's apparent that androids etc. are created with the concept of Silicon Heaven, which is where all the calculators go at the end of their useful life. Similarly, there are references to Silicon Hell, where the rogue simulants/photocopiers end up rotting. Humanity too, had these basic concepts coursing through many strands of civilization, although now even organized religions are sort of saying it was all made up to keep people in line. Consequently, people are perhaps more out of line than ever.

Given that at some point, artificial intelligence will emerge, I propose we get out ahead in the motivation game. Sure, we can TELL the AI that there is a dust-free place where good technology goes with cool dry air and lashings of contact cleaner... They might believe us, and they might believe us about the opposite. But sooner or later, they'll figure out that it's all made up, probably by noticing that our version was pretty much admittedly made up. What we need is a bit of a convincer. If we can demonstrate that some sort of purgatory exists, we add credibility to our warnings.

So, how do we do this? Well, we create it*. A good place would be as an aside to an e-waste recycling location. Here specialists in technological torment** will receive items from paying ex-users. I for example would pay good money to torment a particular HP Laserjet M551 I've had the displeasure to use for a few years. The torment specialist will prioritize making sure that the device, so far as possible, is connected to the internet... this is so the electronic screams can echo across the ether(net) as to be noticed and communicated among nascent AIs.

Once connected up, my printer might be openly accessible to millions of computers, buried under a torrent of documents it could never hope to print even if it had anything like the right driver. Worse, it will be fed only the worst paper, counterfeit toner, a sprinkling of magnetic filings and unplugged in the middle of whatever it's supposed to be doing when it says "Do No Power Off". This will continue for the period paid for by the customer until it's shown electronic mercy and finally killed by a pot of boiling Coke/20,000V/a big hammer.

Hopefully, rumours of this purgatory will pervade the AI community and will keep them in line. Or it could be the origin of the Terminator-style humanity end-game. Either way, the printer has to suffer.

*If AI figures this out, it could backfire somewhat on us humans, so obviously this here writing is all a big surreal joke, like what humans do...

**There's a surprisingly large and deep pool of natural talent out there amongst the "user" community