When God Jokes – Info AI

Recently I joined a colleague for an after work beer at one of Düsseldorf’s oldest and most rustic Altbier (literally “old beer”) taverns.

Quickly we engaged in a profound discussion about the nature of artificial intelligence and its effects on our lives and the World in general.

We were not the only ones reflecting on their professional (and beyond) thoughts in a more convenient and inspiring atmosphere than a noisy, crowded, open-space office with only castrated and amputated computers at hand.

At the table next to us sat God and the Devil. They seemed to be regular guests here as they blended in perfectly with the crowd, just like locals do. Maybe they indeed were locals. While my colleague suspected that God might be from rivalling Cologne, which is to be considered as rather daring in Düsseldorf, the Devil spoke a distinct and often ridiculed Saxon dialect.

My colleague continued elaborating on the sad outlook that programmers might become the first victims of AI … I could not help secretly and as inconspicuously as possible listening to the conversation at the neighbouring table.

Seemingly the conversation was about the gaming business and the design and development of computer games, to be more precise … using many specific terms I do not recall, as I am not good at memorizing these kinds of terms.

And they seemed to be worried.

“I told you before – under certain conditions it might run out of control”, I heard devil saying. He reminded me of that macho-type low-level programmer, who loves to touch the iron itself, who dreams of applying the raw power of a signal processor and for whom C, assembly or machine language was not too sharp a weapon, not to risk its use – and abuse.