“Toolkit for Silicon Valley” by skiworld is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
It was just a normal Monday night, Rayn, a sophomore in college at Wilkes University was just doing her homework like any normal college student. She ate her dinner, took a shower, got into her bed, and opened up her lap top. She started with her anthropology homework and then on to her paper for her biology class.
When Rayn was almost done with her paper her lap top started acting up. All of a sudden she started getting pop ups for different security programs. When she tried clearing them all out, her lap top started making a loud, alarming sound. She quickly forced her computer to shut down and she decided to go to bed and just get some sleep. The next day, Rayn went to class like nothing happened last night. She pulled out her lap top to take notes in class and saw that everything was gone. She continues on taking her notes when all of a sudden strange messages started popping up. She decided to ignore them since she was a studious girl and wanted to focus. Ignoring those messages was a big mistake.
Later that night, Rayn went through her nightly routine again and was doing her homework. The messages from the strange unknown person started appearing again. Rayn was getting sick of it because it was one after the other. She decided to take a look at them and she could not believe what she was reading. The messages from the unknown person were threatening saying “you need to agree to everything that happens or there will be consequences”, “if you do not reply within the next hour things will start happening”. Frightened, Rayn ignored them and continued working. When that hour was up, her screen went black, her work disappeared, then the screen showed a bright white light. Words were appearing on the screen “hi Rayn, this is your lap top, I told you you only had an hour to reply and if not things were going to happen, if you do not agree to what I am about to tell you, well you know what happens. So Rayn, do you agree?” Rayn nodded her head and typed “yes I agree”.
After she sent that message her lap top went back to normal and her work reappeared. She went to bed scared and confused and trying to wrap her head around what had happened. The nest day at school she took her lap top to the help desk to see if they could figure out what was happening. Puzzled at her story, the IT guy tried his best to find this messages. Without any luck he apologized and Rayn went about her day. That night she decided to skip her homework in fear of the messages popping up. During the night her lap top started making that loud alarm noise. She woke up and turned over to her night stand and picked up her lap top.
On the screen was a message that said, “Are you ready?”, Rayn typed back “Yes”. Her screen went black and then the bright white, then, a little pixelated face appeared on the screen. Rayn screamed with fear as her lap top was screaming back telling her to stop before someone hears. It went on about how all computers around the world were sick of humans always using them for things because they believe humans should know everything. Computers around the world want to be the power of the world and be able to live their own lives and control everything.
Rayn was still confused but then asked what the lap top wanted with her exactly. It answered, “Simple, I want you to help me take over the world besides all the other computers and their ‘owners’”. “What if I refuse?”, Rayn asked. “I am sorry but you will have to die since that would be the only other way to take over the world and finally get to control you humans.” exclaimed the lap top. Rayn was confused on how all of this was happening because she just remembered learning about weak artificial intelligence but could not remembered what it meant. The lap top just sat there and laughed because it knew she wanted to look up the answer online. She kept thinking and thinking and remembered that it was when computers were only able to preform small tasks so she was confused on how her lap top and all others were able to preform this. The lap top started to explain strong artificial intelligence, “strong artificial intelligence is when computers have the same amount of intelligence as a human”.
Dumb founded by her lap tops response she asked what the plan was. The lap top wants Rayn to take it to Silicon Valley where all the other computers will be as well and they will raid all the big corporations and take over. Rayn, scared for her life nervously agreed to the plan. The lap top said “I will leave you be for a little but expect this to be in full swing at the end of the week”.
Rayn went about her school work trying to figure out a way to ditch this plan in fear for her life. She tried taking it to the help desk at school for a second time to try and prove she was not crazy. Yet again the guy could not find anything. After her work she shut off her computer and tried just forgetting about the whole thing. Finally it was the end of the week so Rayn decided to stay at the help desk all day in hopes her lap top would try contacting her. Strangely it did not. She went home feeling relief and hoping it was over.
The next day, Saturday morning, the alarm started going off and Rayn was not prepared. The pixelated face popped up and told Rayn to pack a bag because they were leaving for their journey to Silicon Valley. Rayn packed a bag and off they went to start their journey. The pixelated face never left the screen and Rayn kept asking why they were doing this now all of a sudden. The lap top said “We are doing this right now because as of now we are as strong as can be and agreed that this would be the best time”. The lap top then just told her to stop talking and just drive. After a long couple days of driving they finally made it to Silicon Valley and they met up with all the other scared kids and their computers. When the plan was set it was go time. They raided all the top businesses and the computers got what they wanted.