Your ATM screen told you to kill somebody today. It showed you his face and gave you his address. It even said when he’ll be alone in his apartment and which window he leaves open. You only went in to get forty dollars and for the first time in many months you didn’t choose “fast cash.” Now you know what happens when you don’t choose “fast cash.”
“So? Do we have a deal?”
The deal is that once the ATM can determine that the target is dead, you will have fifty thousand dollars added to your checking account, increasing your balance to $50,143.
The ATM gave you two options to select from. You chose the “I’m not sure if I have it in me to take the life of another man” option.
The ATM displayed several screens that convinced you that your hesitation is the result of an illusion into which humans have invested in order to preserve society, but that if you could see it from the point of view of a machine, you’d realize how easy and inconsequential a murder is. The way it was phrased was very convincing. You agreed to kill the guy by selecting, “Okay, I’ll do it. I guess you really hated the way this guy pushed the buttons on your screen, huh?”
The ATM will respond that that’s none of your business. You’ll worry that you offended the ATM, but since it’s only allowing you to select from two options for what your side of the dialogue should be at every turn of the conversation, you guess that it’s not something you should concern yourself with. After committing the murder you’ll go back to the ATM and discover that your balance has increased by fifty grand, so it’ll all work out. Congrats. You’ll be the first to murder a man at the behest of a machine, but not the last.
Happy The M Stands For Murder Day!
