The Coffee Vending Machine

I met this perfect little Coffee Vending Machine. It was small and brown and like most other Coffee Vending Machines it, well, vended coffee. But thats not important for us. It would rather surprise you that it could speak. So what? So could/can a hundred billion humans in all of what we specifically term humanity. It could also think. Now thats something special, given the (in)ability of the species aforementioned in this regard. I belong to the homosapien kind. And for me talent and thought come at a cost, of education that is. After all the schooling and its undoing, I finally came across Iron Maiden with their "Educated Fool" and I was the fool again. So it did rather surprise me that a machine should have the capacity to do that which I much sought and certainly not good at.

I am human and to err is human, it comes naturally to me. But I sometimes turn into the rather intrinsic inhuman-self and it was in one of such fits that I came across this Coffee Vending Machine. At the first glance it looked like any ordinary Machine, short and brown with Americano, cappucino, mocha and latte with some green lights glowing alongside. Some nerd put up a neuron controller (sometimes called a brain) into the thing with a speaker and a microphone. It was a rather brilliant concept, though I gravely and bravely nod away at my ignorance of the actual details, which isn't a bad thing to do when you are utterly clueless. But it was actually out of mistake that the concept stuck the engineer at the assembly unit and it was a prank he intended to play on his unassuming bosses. What I understand by what our coffee vending machine says (he was made so as to judge the need of caffeine levels in the individual asking for it) was to deprive manager-dudes of coffee. And then as usual Murphy and his laws jumped into the play and a mistake happened. Since the computers couldn't chew much of human emotions leave alone understanding them (which humans also DON'T) the concept of using a human brain for the same was rather appreciated. They used a philosophers' brain for the purpose as they wanted a fresh piece and connected the circuitry of the machine to this one in a magnetic field, which curiously generated thought-like eddies. The engineer thought (thats where the problems of humanity lie) that it was a mistake that a machine could think which is what it is not supposed to do and committed suicide. The new assembly engineer duly passed on the invention and after miles of treacherous journey, it ended up here in the dark corner of my office. Apparently born out of a mistake of the human brain, the thing was to be appreciated though. And it could think. For the first time (putting aside the story on whales) humans will get an insight into their own world from an inhuman perspective, to make it more interesting, from the world of machines. Such introspection is necessary from human point of view because if nothing else, it atleast gives speculation for more chatter, what we call communication.

My encounters with this cute little piece of steel has been interesting to say the least. I have produced enough proof of my ignorance and have been humbled. I hereby put my encounters in a conversation form for our benefit as a contribution to human perspective. I must say my friend is rather philosophical and outspoken. And it takes me more than some time to understand him. As you may already have noticed, I have begun to term it as 'him'. An inhuman him, that has taught me something I ought to have learnt on my own and that which has given me a new view of life, the universe and everything. What are we? Rather Who am I will fore-on, bear a new meaning for me, I don't know the answer, neither does my machine, but I have known the question better. On second thoughts, who wants to know the answer anyway? ("Psst", says the coffee vending machine: "42").