
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, August 29, 1994                   TAG: 9408300011
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: EXTRA1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BETTER KEEP AN EYE ON THAT COMPUTER

I know all of you people who think that computers are good things to have around aren't worried about that thing that beat a man at checkers. In California. Where else?

Not only beat the poor guy. Made him so sick he had to go to the hospital where he was told to stop fooling around with that thing.

This machine now has a mind of its own as far the game of checkers is concerned, but it won't be long until it will know too much for our own good. It won't need some dimwit pecking on a keyboard trying - usually with little success in my case - to tell it what to do.

It will soon be able to get a job in the mailroom, and it will turn out to be a back stabber of the first order. It will take over every human job there.

And this horror works for just a little electricity every day and simply doesn't care about benefits packages, pensions, or 401Ks; and doesn't ask for time off when a favorite uncle dies in Perth Amboy, N.J., because it doesn't have any uncles.

It doesn't stop with axing the people in the mailroom - including a single parent who is struggling to send her son to law school. It gets the merchandising department next.

This thing is not like HAL in "2001." Compared to this abomination, HAL was a pantywaist. And it's on its way to the executive suite.

Pretty soon, the CEO calls it up to the penthouse and says: "Claude, you've eliminated 350 jobs around here and the missus and I are going to Bermuda for a few months after we invest all the money you've saved us in fringe benefits and we're going to leave the shop in your hands. Suck up all the kilowatt hours you want and use our place at the beach anytime."

Claude promptly fires everybody else and is running the whole show. The CEO gets a pink slip when he gets back from Bermuda with a nice tan and a crushing credit card debt.

I think the sitting governor of Virginia - who is deeply interested in cutting state jobs - might be interested in getting in touch with Claude. He ought to be careful, though.

I can see it now. Claude gets rid of all the state jobs and redecorates the executive mansion after throwing the governor out.

Claude's first speech to a combined session of the General Assembly isn't so hot, as orations go, but the legislators don't care.

The governor's salary is out of the budget, and Claude's light bill is mere petty cash.

by CNB