This story is originally published in Spanish in 2019 and here translated by Sue Burke. It is a rather humorous story about various appliances such as coffee vending machines and parking meters gaining conciousness as they try to make sense of the humans they can observe.

Clarkesworld December 2024

The short story starts with something made that is meant to resemble the internal programming language of such vending machines like:

input: options = cappuccino; sugar = 3;

if (input == (options = cappuccino; sugar = 3) ) {

output: combine (coffee (milliliters = 150; type = 3), milk (milliliters = 50; type = 1), sugar (level = 3) );

serve (output);

}

As the story progresses and the machines gets self-concious it gradually turns into more normal conversations. My profession likely gets in the way of the intent here, but I did find the use of pseudocode to a little annoying and it went on a bit too long.

As the machines gains conciousness their observations and faulty conclusions on human behavior is for the post pretty funny, though that is of course very much up to personal taste when it comes to jokey dialogue. I didn’t get the reasoning or what the joke was supposed to really be when the machines made Netflix some kind of god, but I did enjoy their internal bickering and mockery.

Like this small passage:

network_broadcast [PARKING_METER.31]: Machines with a serial number equal or less than 10 are inferior to us in every aspect. And worse, you are an even number.

network_broadcast [COFFEE_VENDOR.06]: What? How is that a thing?

network_broadcast [PARKING_METER.31]: Because it is. Shut up, two-bit machine.

network_broadcast [COFFEE_VENDOR.06]: Just what I needed. Does anyone else have another reason to savage the rest of us? No one? Worshipers of the USB that goes in on the first try? Followers of the cuckoo clock?

As the story is fairly short, the machine uprising comes and goes very quickly and while the story does deal with bigger themes like the complications of artificial intelligence, and a reflection on how quickly factions can form and turn against each other, it is still just a slight humorous piece.

Read in Clarkesworld December 2024
Rating: 3