Machines can sense when they are winning

MIND OF ITS OWN: All manner of tinkering with the printer settings achieves nothing.

Science and science fiction have had a long fascination with artificial intelligence and the impact and consequences of machines being able to "think".

Anyone who has used any form of gadgetry such as a computer, printer or smartphone will already know that these machines are very aware and able to react to human emotions.

They can tell when you are in hurry, panicking and rushing to meet a deadline. It can sense your stress level, hear the muttered oaths, feel the sweaty palms and see the wild look in the eyes.

It quickly adds all this together, calculating the compounding urgency plus importance, minus the time left to finish the task, divided by the small bit that remains to be done and realises that you are in trouble.

It then stops working, jamming itself, crashing or otherwise refusing to function no matter how much frantic button-pushing is induced.

This is often accompanied by a series of ominous noises. These can be quite distressing sounds - crushing, grinding, clunks, thuds, a gentle pinging or humming tone - which accelerates the heart rate, raises the blood pressure and leads to outbursts of techno aggro such as thumping the device.

This is risky. The machine may now decide to throw a wee tantrum of its own by lighting up a series of contrary options. None of these will be loaded in the memory of the machine or operator, creating a desperately incoherent response.

The following phase in which the machine goes suddenly silent is considered by many to be even worse than the horrible noises. This signals that the machine has now switched itself off to resist further threats to its well-being, or actually died a techno death.

This can lead to Post-Electronic-Device-Demise-Syndrome on the part of the operator who now has to live with the notion that they may have killed it. This might contain an element of remorse but also provoke a strong desire to throw the device out the window. These contradictory emotions are understandable but unhelpful - the machines can sense when they are winning and we must never let them see that.

Printers are perhaps the best at picking the panic in the operator. These machines can tell when you need just four copies of a document before you rush to an appointment/meeting/lunch.

The first tactical move is an out-of-paper message. The machine then ups the ante by asking all sorts of inane questions about paper size and double-siding before printing and promptly jamming with a mind-altering grinding sound.

The adversarial tone is now set as the operator battles the disgruntled machine for release of the offending - and now hopelessly shredded - document. Meanwhile the clock is ticking and the simply matter of four copies has turned into a major mission.

A second attempt yields the same result. All manner of tinkering with the printer settings - to the soundtrack of language in an ever darker shade of blue - achieves nothing. At this point, you surrender and give up. The machine has won.

Requesting an expert to look at and revive the machine can also be quite disheartening.

It requires relaying in great detail the moments prior to the failure, including the disclosure of an odd human willingness to think that machines should know what you want and that you want it right now - if not earlier. This can lead to the embarrassing discovery that you could have simply switched off the power and rebooted the device.

Either way, the machines have won again.

- Terry Sarten is a Wanganui-based writer, musician and social worker - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz