In Love With Computers?

computerDespite what people believe, computers aren’t quite capable of everything. There was that movie, Him, where a woman falls in love with the husky-voiced computer that eventually turns out to be manipulating her because he wants nuclear launch codes and she’s a high-ranking United State official. Yeah, that movie had a bit of a downer ending, especially when aliens descended and she realised that she’d been tricked by an extra-terrestrial intelligence, but they realised that they’d genuinely fallen in love so they perished together in the first wave of the invasion. So bittersweet.

Yeah, so all the people in my course think they’re going to be the ones to finally break the code and create AI as smart as a human. I guess when you’re doing a software development course, you have to have a bit of ambition beyond just working in the midst of a bunch of servers in the basement, doing things that’ll be noticed by no one. Fortunately, IT has gotten a bit of credit in recent years, so the whole basement thing is mostly just something you find in the TV shows. Though there’s something to be said for that show about the bunch of girls and their male boss working in the basement and getting themselves into weird situations. What’s the name of it? The Computer Crew, or something…great British comedy.

But anyway, with computers becoming as popular as they are, it leads to a lot of inflated egos. If you do IT, it’s like you’re destined to be great. Well, maybe, but…the thing about IT being huge is that there are plenty of people getting into the game, and you need to be a computer genius with some great ideas. You don’t walk out of a quality Melbourne IT course and into stardom without being exceptional. It’d be nice for someone to make some real AI, though…

-Al