My friend Brygg points out that Arthur C. Clarke's 1963 two-page short story Dial F for Frankenstein starts with the Net gaining consciousness just two days ago with a baby's cry on every telephone in the world:
At 0150 Greenwich Mean Time on December 1, 2005 , every telephone in the world started to ring...
I'm still waiting by the phone, just in case...
Posted by bug to Snippits at December 2, 2005 10:10 PM | TrackBackSF has done self-aware AI as heartless and hostile; calm and benevolent; and mistakenly cruel. But what if AI turns out to be chatty and lazy? What if the net locks up because its elements begin ceaselessly jabbing with each other?
Posted by: at December 8, 2005 8:44 AMThat would certainly explain AppleTalk...
Posted by: Bug at December 8, 2005 11:59 AMNot in my copy of the story. I'm looking at The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, and "Dial F for Frankenstein" begins thus: "At 0150 GMT on December 1, 1975, every telephone in the world started to ring."
I suspect that your friend Brygg read a version of the story that some misguided editor had tried to "update".
Posted by: Pat Berry at March 22, 2008 10:54 AM