It all started in
early part of twenty-first century. In early days of email we were thrilled with its speed and reliability, far superior to "snail mail" but there's always somebody who has to go and spoil things for everyone else. In case of email it was purveyors of namesake of a certain pork-based substance. They became such a nuisance that large teams of robots had to be employed to keep them under control.
As porkers got smarter, robots had to become smarter still. At first, everybody agreed that stringent measures must be taken to defeat porkers. Ever hear phrase "throwing baby out with bath water" or "the cure is worse than disease"?
The number of spam merchants multiplied over and over. Eventually, only way of controlling them was for every email user to have his or her own robot to filter their mail. I did not want a robot filtering my mail but I didn't have much choice: nobody was allowed an email account without a robot to monitor its use. Every time I log into my email, I pause and listen for faint metallic scraping and a slight pneumatic wheeze as robot wakes and prepares to filter my mail. No matter how quiet I am, he always knows and is instantly awake and alert, ready to do his job. I did not request robotic help, don't want it, don't need it but robot is here to stay.
I think my robot is like paranoid android in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: slow moving and depressive, so I call him Marvin (not to his face, of course). I don't suppose my Marvin feels that censoring my mail is a suitable occupation for a robot of his caliber, any more that his namesake thought attending car park at end of universe was a great career for a robot with a brain size of a planet. On my part, I am sure that I am old enough to take full responsibility for my own correspondence. There is no need for Marvin to wear out his circuits on my account but it appears that we are stuck with each other for duration.
The extent of Marvin's power first caught my attention when a regular newsletter which I enjoyed failed to arrive. Delivery just stopped altogether.
I asked my email provider if there was a problem with this particular mail and they said there was nothing wrong with my mailbox, it must be a problem with sender. I asked sender why delivery had stopped and they said it hadn't, it must be a problem with my mailbox. I gave up and just resubscribed myself to newsletter. Every time delivery stopped after that I wondered what else I might be missing in way of interesting mail.
It was shortly after this that it became apparent to me that Marvin has a bad attitude. Now I can sympathise with him because I know how it feels to be stuck in a boring job while brain cells shrivel. That doesn't mean I think he should behave badly, he should do job to best of his ability (even if it is beneath him) and not make mischief.
