News You Can Bruise for 2008 July 23 (entry 0)

(3) Wed Jul 23 2008 21:54 SET TABLE: I tire of lame science-fictional computers and robots that take your every utterance maddeningly literally. What about devices that take you maddeningly metaphorically?

Presumably the Children of Tamar would have such computers. Poet from Suspended gives cryptic output but interprets his input literally. I'm picturing comic-relief characters brought in for short scenes that end with the human saying "I mean that literally, you bucket of bolts!" Whereupon the computer, understanding the malfunctionist connotations of "bucket of bolts", would weep.

Comments:

Posted by Evan at Thu Jul 24 2008 00:48

..or the computer could reply with "bucket of guts" mumbled passive aggressively under-the-breath.

for some reason this makes me think of a line "bags of mostly salty water" which is from an old star trek/next generation episode..

Posted by Ben Heaton at Sat Jul 26 2008 14:14

So you tell the robot to take the trash out, and it goes on a date with it?

Posted by Leonard at Sat Jul 26 2008 14:19

Yes, or tries to.