Smith 3661(a Single Minded Individually Tasked Humanoid) was going about his business in his usual competent way. This is what he was programmed to do. This particular task and no other. At any point he could reprogram of course and would then carry out that task with equal efficiency. People like him, that's what they were there for. To just get on with the job at hand. Nothing would distract him, or interfere with his single minded devotion to his set task. He was hard wired that way and nothing anyone said would change it.
Back at home Mariah 2750 (a Multi-tasking Auto-Response InterActive Humanoid) was also doing her job. Smith didn't understand people like her at all. Why she was constantly thinking about so many things at once was a mystery to him. How she did it was even more of a mystery. He simply couldn't see that this is how she was intended to function.
Unfortunately this did mean that occasionally she would suffer from an extension overload, and then would freeze up or even crash, but on the whole she functioned very well, carrying out many jobs simultaneously. Smith, however, was frequently impatient with her inability to concentrate fully on the task at hand. Especially if that task involved pleasing him. Why couldn't she just tune out the kids for a while? Was it too much to ask? He was sometimes heard to say that the M in her name stood for Muddle-headed and the I for Incompetent.
She for her part, didn't understand people like Smith. Being hard wired the way she was meant that she was sometimes impatient with his inability to think about more than one thing at a time. It irritated her when she left him alone with their progeny and he failed to notice what they got up to, being totally engrossed in whatever he had chosen to do. Why couldn't he just take his mind off the damn game for a few minutes; keep one ear open? She laughed with her friends that S stood for Stupid and the I for Inefficient.
It may appear to the casual observer that both of these types of people had design flaws but no, they were each well designed for their respective purposes. It just seems a shame that no one had thought to integrate understanding of the other's strengths and weaknesses into their intelligence banks so that misunderstandings would not arise so often.
The designer could have explained to interested parties that Smith's mental processes were somewhat akin to that marvel of natural engineering, the honeycomb. Every part of Smith's life was neatly compartmentalised, filed away under its own heading, and although there were obviously some fringe connections, nothing really affected anything else in a serious way. So when he came home and Mariah asked him how his day had been, he had already switched programs and had nothing to say on the subject.
Mariah's mind, on the other hand, more closely resembled that other bit of ingenious natural design, a spider's web. Each thread or strand was equally important, and all were closely intertwined to make a coherent whole. What affected one part would affect the whole design, and that's just the way it was. Nothing he could say would affect her inability to see things as he did. Which was why, when Smith became interested in a program involving another Mariah, it was fairly predictable that Mariah 2750 was likely to be less than understanding.
Smith had the two Mariahs neatly filed away under different headings. One under "Home" and one under "Outside Interests" and this worked fine for him. Neither impinged on the other, so he couldn't see why it should worry anyone else.
Mariah 2750, however, could not be expected to see it that way. Her life with Smith 3661 was a kind of mini-universe. Everything involved everything else in some way, large or small. If one bit went out of kilter, eventually the whole thing would collapse. Extensions would conflict big time in the background until her circuits just crashed and burned. And then, you can be sure, she would make certain that Smith would be made to pay in some way for his inability to see things her way.
Sooner or later, Smith was going to have to deal with this, but in the meantime all he could do was make darn sure that Mariah 2750 never discovered the new game he was playing. He would have to make sure his files were securely locked at all times.
And what of the other Mariah? She of course saw things as her type do. It was hard for her to be just a part of Smith's life. A game. His outside interest. But her involvement was total, She was committed to this game for good or ill.
No comments:
Post a Comment