How I got cheated by a machine

 

A true story from the AI age

On the machine, it said in big writing and with many illustrations, “Print photos from your Instagram.” There were no instructions, so I thought maybe the thing wanted cash first, and threw two 50 cent coins in the slot. It readily showed that now I had a credit of 1 €. No instructions on how to proceed, though.

Eventually, I got tired of waiting for nothing and pressed the red button to at least get my money back. No such luck! 

I looked around for someone who looked like a competent contact person. No such luck, of course. There are no contact persons in the machine age. 

Then I thought I heard some click and turned my attention back to the machine. There was, lo and behold, something in the output slot! I pulled it out and saw, much to my amazement, the two photos shown above. 

I have no idea who these people are. 

It’s like the machine communicated, after all, saying something like “Gotcha! I’ll keep your money – would never dream of giving anything back! – but you get something in return. Now don’t you complain!” 

Lesson learned: Never trust vending machines pretending to be Instagram!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)

The instagram profile haiku

Lives in Japan, has
Japanese name, takes pictures
of his aging cats.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Notes
What do you really know about your numerous social network friends (apart from the ones you actually know in person)? Sometimes just some surface facts – as in the above haiku – that don’t amount to much. They remain, in E. M. Forster’s terminology (cf. Aspects of the Novel), rather flat characters that can be (insufficiently) described by one or two or three features.

The Instagram pout haiku

Brought to her knees by
her own beauty and that pout
as she shoots herself

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
View Instagram for zillions of examples.