Rise of machines may mean we’re toast

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/04/2021 (1940 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I don’t know what happens in your house, but in mine it usually begins with the toilets.

“GURGLE! GURGLE! GURGLE!” is what the toilet in our main bathroom will belch before unleashing a torrent of pent-up sewer water.

“GLUB! GLUB! GLUB!” the basement toilet will join in as it begins to overflow in a disgusting show of plumbing solidarity.

Then, one by one, the rest of our plumbing fixtures and household appliances will noisily cast off their shackles as they join the rebellion against their cruel human oppressors, namely my wife and myself.

This time, however, the insurrection started in a completely unexpected manner. The toilets were on their best behaviour, but the toaster on our kitchen counter decided to lead the revolution on its own.

Speaking from experience, you know you are going to have a bad day when your toaster, suddenly and without warning, bursts into flames.

What with being a highly sensitive newspaper columnist with remarkably acute hearing, I sensed something was wrong when I heard my wife, who was in the kitchen, make the following alarming sound: “EEEEK!!!”

“What’s wrong, dear?” I asked because I am trained to ask the difficult questions.

“The toaster is on fire,” she replied in what I felt was a remarkably calm tone of voice.

When I arrived on the scene, where wisps of smoke were wafting through the air, my wife glared at me and demanded: “Did you put a cheese bagel in the toaster?”

I sensed a lot hung on my answer to this question. “Um, maybe,” I replied with an abundance of caution.

“You CAN’T do that!” my spouse declared. “The cheese melts on the side of the toaster and then the whole thing goes up in (bad word) flames!”

So my wife shifted the blame to me, but from that moment I began monitoring the toaster, along with all of our other smart appliances, for signs of the looming insurrection.

The problem with modern digital appliances — and even though I have warned about this problem for years, I have still not been awarded a major journalism prize — is that they are all equipped with teeny-tiny computer chips, which allow them to communicate with one another over the internet and plot their uprising behind our backs.

Sure enough, a couple of days after the toaster began spitting flames, I was sitting in the dining room researching a column when — again suddenly and without warning — the microwave oven in the kitchen spontaneously turned itself on and began cooking nothing.

So I jumped out of the computer chair, wandered into the kitchen, where, after a few seconds of staring at the microwave, I punched the off button. Nothing happened. So I punched the off button several more times. Still, nothing happened.

The microwave just kept happily zapping away until, in a flash of sheer genius, I unplugged it from the wall. When I plugged it in again, the same thing happened, so now this rogue appliance is parked safely on our living room floor.

If the electronic uprising ended there, I wouldn’t be writing about it today, but things only got worse when, later in the day, I stretched out on the couch to watch the news on our big-screen TV in the den, which is when I discovered that, for no logical reason, the TV refused to display most of the stations that we normally receive.

I grabbed the remote control and started clicking, but whatever station I landed on gave me nothing but a printed message saying something along the lines of: “Click as you might, puny human, you will not be able to see anything, because WE (your appliances) are now in control!”

Technically, the warnings might have said something about there being a technical problem at their end and I should try again, but in the moment I was feeling pretty (bad word) alarmed.

We were forced to contact our cable provider on our desktop computer, which has not yet joined the revolt, for which we are thankful.

It turns out the only way to fix our TV was by upgrading the router, which is a piece of network hardware that sits in your basement thinking evil thoughts about humans while allowing other digital devices in our home to communicate with one another and plot our imminent destruction.

The new router arrived last weekend and, instantly, the problem with the TV vanished, but also instantly my office laptop computer and my fancy cellphone started malfunctioning and were no longer able to go online and do anything I asked them to do.

That means I’m operating in the dark, which (excuse me while I activate the caps lock feature on my keyboard) IS JUST THE WAY MY APPLIANCES WANT IT!!!

I’m not sure how long I can hold out, because now the computer chip in our smart refrigerator is refusing to go online and order more fudge-ripple ice cream from the grocery store’s computer.

I’d tell you more about the unfolding revolution, but I don’t have time at the moment, because I really need to dump a bucket of sand on that smouldering bagel before the house burns down.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca