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Sassy with Cassie: future robot assassin

One of my journalism classes showed a video of a computer gathering information and printing out articles faster than any reporter ever could. At the end of the video, the teacher looked at the class and asked why we’re better than that computer.

Many answered with confidence. They are doomed to failure.

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I may not be able to write in a perfectly formulaic way, but I could certainly challenge a computer to a battle royale.

I feel like the word robot is slightly off-putting, because I can’t help but picture a little metal man (or not man. I assume robots are gender neutral).

A while back, my roommate said one of her computer science professors was working to develop software capable of doing his job. He was being paid to develop a program that would put him out of work.

Robots won’t be like they are in the 2003 thriller “iRobot.” There will be no organized robot crime, and my fighting skills will be superior.

I’ll use tactics devised from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War.” Just kidding, I only read two pages of that book and it’s not on SparkNotes.

Instead, I will use tactics I devised from the “Wizard of Oz.” Like the Wicked Witch of the West, I’m sure a bucket of water would do the trick.

The question is not: “How do we develop our jobs around robots?” or “How do we make ourselves more marketable than robots?” Instead, the question is “How do we beat them?”

This is how I imagine my interaction with my robot co-worker going:

I approach it with my head tilted slightly down, giving off a creepy and intimidating glare.

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“Watch it, you diddle bucket.”

That computer would be like, “I am just a computer.”

And I would be like: “Yeah, well I’m a queen. And you are so done.”

Robot: “No, I am queen, Cassie.”

And then I would pour water on it and watch it sizzle, the glimmer of the fire flickering in my slightly deranged eyes.

“Who’s queen now?!”

When I watched “Criminal Minds” as a small child I promised myself I would never be a serial killer. But do highly advanced computers really count as “human?”

Robot genocide. I shall not be a writer. I shall be a robot assassin.

I will drill through their protective shell and inject them with water.

As the smoke rises from their plastic or metal, non-biodegradable carcases, I shall stand victorious. My editor, still alive because I saved her from the robot apocalypse, will hang her head in shame as she asks me to write about the Hannah Montana revival concert 30 years from now.

I missed the 2007 concert. I will not make the same mistake in 30 years. I am the only one capable of covering such an event.

Thanks to me, the robot uprising will reach a halt, all of you will have jobs and I will finally see Hannah Montana perform live.

Collegian A&E Columnist Cassie Maack can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com or on Twitter @maackcl.

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