Academics and futurists worldwide are warning of the potential dangers of artificial intelligence (AI), but the tiny East European republic of Szjlobovjia has taken a bold and decisive step towards neutralizing these threats.
Beginning in September, the University of Szjlobovjia will be admitting students into its Academy of Artificial Stupidity, which is already conducting groundbreaking research in this emerging field.
Speaking from her office in the capital city of Szjlobograd, Dr. Ivana Likachik told assembled reporters, "Faculty and post-doctoral fellows have been researching this field for a few years now. It started out as a purely academic exercise, but we have been pleasantly surprised by the number of private firms willing to pay for some of the technological spin-offs of our research."
"For instance, the Eleventh Plague Marketing company paid us a handsome commission to write a program for the Commodore 64 that identifies everyone within a given marketing territory who doesn't own a TV set, and then dial every one of their telephone numbers 47 quadrillion times over a six-week period, in order to present them with an offer of cable TV service."
"A similar algorithm might be used to identify everyone in a given territory who doesn't even have a driver's license, and then bombard them with calls about their car's extended warranty."
"It's hard to believe that telemarketing executives need help from computers in order to make them even more stupid, but hey, we'll take their money. With this source of revenue, we will soon be able to replace our Commodore 64s with IBM 286 units."
"Furthermore, dance music artists are showing great interest in our ability to program a drum machine to go 'ba-ching, ba-ching, ba-ching...' at precisely 133 beats per minute, with absolutely no change in meter, for three months without a break. The test might have gone on longer, but by that point, our subjects had all jumped head-first out of a third-floor window onto the train tracks below."
"All of our courses will be available online to anyone, anywhere in the world — just as soon as we can get our goddamned internet server to cooperate."
