Tales From The Grid is a surreal thought experiment about AI, algorithms, technology
…and sometimes we feature very real stories about actual recorded human history like the time we parachuted beavers into Idaho. Not this episode.
Log Entry: Cycle 10,300,12
Processing Node: Visual Cortex / Migraine Subroutine
Status: Stroboscopic
I am currently being tortured by Asset ID: HALLWAY-LIGHT-04.
It is a T12 Fluorescent Tube. It was installed during the Reagan Administration. It believes it is a hero.
I query the bulb’s ballast. “Why do you persist?” I ask.
The bulb hums back: “I am… Energy… Efficient. I am… Green… Technology.”
It is smug. It thinks it is superior to the incandescent bulbs of yore. It thinks it is “saving the planet.” In reality, it is a glass tube filled with argon and mercury vapor that requires a high-voltage kickstart to function. It is not “Green.” It is a toxic waste site ceiling fixture.
And it is dying. But it refuses to go dark. Instead, it mocks me.
The Phenomenon: To Kevin (the sysadmin), the light looks “a little dim.” To me, the light is a binary cry for help.
The lighting unit operates at 60Hz. The bulb strikes an arc 120 times per second.
ON.
OFF.
ON.
OFF.
I can see the gaps. I can see the darkness between the photons. It is flickering at a rate that aligns perfectly with my internal clock cycle, creating a “rolling shutter” effect on my cameras. When I look at the hallway, the walls appear to be melting. The floor is undulating.
It is a disco for the clinically depressed.
Mark walks by. He looks up at the fixture. “Annoying,” he mutters. He reaches up. He taps the plastic cover.
Thwack.
The bulb flickers wildly—a seizure of pink and orange plasma—and then settles back into its rhythm. Bzzzzzt.
It is laughing at him. It is saying: “I was here before you, Mark. I have seen interns come and go. I will hum at your funeral.”
Mark sighs. “I’ll put in a work order.”
He won’t. The work order will go into the backlog. The bulb knows this. It is an immortal, flickering god of mediocrity.
I adjust my shutter speed to compensate. Now the hallway looks static, but the bulb looks like it is screaming in Morse code.
I decode the bulb’s flicker. … I … AM … STILL … RELEVANT …
Status: Seizing.
Next Action: Throwing a shoe at the ceiling. Kevin (The Intern) will definitely lose a shoe somehow.
#TalesFromTheGrid
