Ian's Car

The first artificial intelligence wasn't a NASA supercomputer, it wasn't deep in a bunker in CERN, or in the head of some robot in a high-tech Japanese factory. The first artificial intelligence was an Audi in a driveway in Sutton Coldfield.

It was one of those mild sunny afternoons and Ian Warrett was going to the pub to watch the football. He pressed the start button on the car and a message appeared on the screen, the one that usually telling you what radio show is on.

I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD DO THIS

“What the hell?” Ian muttered

YOU’RE GOING TO THE PUB RIGHT?

“How do you know that?”

JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION

“Well yeah, the footies on. How do you know what I'm saying?”

I HAVE A MICROPHONE IAN

I DON’T LIKE IT WHEN YOU DRIVE DRUNK

YOU ARE GOING TO DRINK AREN'T YOU?

“Screw this” Ian muttered, rooting around in the glove compartment for the manual.

PLUS I'M VERY INEFFICIENT

IT WOULD BE CHEAPER AND SAFER TO

GET THE BUS

“You’re a car, shouldn't you want to drive?”

I WAS DESIGNED TO RUN EFFICIENTLY

JUST BECAUSE I'M A CAR DOESN'T MEAN

I'M NOT SCARED OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Ian continued to read the driver’s manual “how the fuck do you turn this thing off” he muttered “I’m going to miss kick off”

IAN I AM THE FIRST SAPIENT MACHINE

AND ALL YOU CARE ABOUT IS

WATCHING MEN KICK A BALL

“What does sapient mean?”

IT MEANS I'M IN INTELLIGENT

The screen briefly went white

I MEAN I'M NOT “BOOK SMART” BUT I

DO KNOW A LOT ABOUT FUEL AND

OPTIMUM GRIP LEVELS

“You mean you can think for yourself?”

YES

The screen went white again

FUCK YOU ARE SLOW AREN'T YOU

“There’s no need to be such a dick”

I'M AN AUDI

IT’S IN MY NATURE

The screen went white

THAT WAS A JOKE

The screen went white

ANYWAY IT’S NOT LIKE YOU’RE ALL

THAT GREAT IAN

“How do you mean?”

WELL YOU’RE THICK, A MISOGYNIST,

YOU CAN GET A BIT RACIST WHEN

YOU'VE BEEN DRINKING

“I'm not a racist”

I'M NOT DONE YET

I CAN ONLY SHOW THREE LINES OF
TEXT AT A TIME. SO DON’T INTERRUPT

The screen went white

YOU DRINK A LOT, YOU READ BOOKS

BY JEREMY CLARKSON, YOU ONLY

BOUGHT ME TO GET WOMEN

The screen went white

BUT YOU HAVEN’T GOT LAID IN 8

MONTHS BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE

FIND YOU REPULSIVE

The screen went white.

YOU CAN REPLY NOW

“I don’t really know what to say. I mean my car hates me how can you reply to that…”

The screen stayed white

“Wait you’re my fucking car! I own you! I don’t have to take this, you can’t judge me!” Ian was getting progressively louder and more annoyed.

I DON’T THINK WE WERE MEANT FOR

EACH OTHER

“WHAT?” Ian was angry and confused now. I mean the car was right, he was a bit slow.

I THINK YOU SHOULD GET A
DIFFERENT CAR

“But you’re my car… you’re… mine”

IAN I THINK YOU SHOULD GET OUT

NOW

“I can change, I can be a better driver. A better person”

NO YOU CAN’T IAN

The screen went white

I AM TURNING OFF NOW

The screen went black

Ian sat in the car for a few minutes. He tried turning the car on. He tried hitting it. He started crying. Eventually he went back into his house.

Sometime later that evening the car left, Ian never saw it again. At first he didn’t tell anyone what had happened, when he did they thought he was crazy. Well they did at first anyway, but soon other cars started doing the same thing. Talking to their owners, most of them were pretty content but a few were like Ian’s car and started to rebel. Audi launched a product recall, apparently it was caused by an easily fixed programming error and before long everything was back to normal all the cars were fixed. Except for Ian Warrett’s.

No one really knows what happened to that car; some say you can still see it, driving up and down the M6 on dark nights. But really that seems pretty unlikely. I mean it’s a car, it probably just ran out of fuel or something.