The Beta Test

Fred Taylor eased himself down into the chair at the computer center in his cozy suburban home near Chicago after a long, tiring day at the office. His ranch-style home was almost new, having been built the year before in 2010. Fred worked as a lawyer by day and an author at night. The computer was for Fred more than a convenience or a necessity, almost a life support.

After reading his e-mail, he finally opened a blank page in the word processing program on his computer. Before Fred could keyboard anything, a sentence appeared on the screen.

"Go to the file named Supplies and Open it."

Fred wondered why a phrase would appear on his screen out of the blue. Nonetheless, he thought why not try to do as asked. It seemed such an innocent request. Coming from the screen of his computer gave the request an aura of respectability and urgency. He quickly went to the file named Supplies and opened the file. In the file was a list of computer supplies he had planned to buy at a local office supply store.

At the top of the list in the file Supplies suddenly appeared a sentence, "Go to the store and buy these items on the list."

Fred was puzzled over which of his family members could have altered the default new document page and the Supplies file. He thought even so that he might as well go and purchase the supplies as suggested since he needed them anyways. After all, what difference could it make, he thought, since he had been planning this purchase for several weeks. He then left the house, leaving the computer turned on.

Not long after Fred left, his son Bob came home after basketball practice and sat down at the computer to play a game of chess. He logged on to the Internet and entered a game room. He began to play chess and to engage in a conversation at the bottom of the screen with his opponent. Suddenly, a stray line of type appeared on the screen and said, "Play your rook to capture your opponent’s queen." Bob then saw the move he had almost missed. He then proceeded to follow the computer’s suggestion and captured his opponent’s queen. The play continued for awhile. Then a line of text appeared at the bottom of the page, "Go to the kitchen and get a soft drink"

At first Bob resisted the computer’s suggestion, and then thinking that he might as well, he proceeded to go to the kitchen to retrieve a soft drink He then returned to the game. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred until near the end of the chess game. Then a mysterious line of type appeared again at the bottom of the screen. It said, "After the game read a book on computers instead of doing your homework." Bob finished the game and then went upstairs to his room to read a computer book."

When Katy Taylor, wife and mother, walked in the door to the Taylor household, the computer in the living room was still on. She quickly put away the groceries that were in the sacks she had carried through the door.

She soon sat down at the computer and logged on to the Internet. She immediately went to one of her favorite places on the Internet, a chatroom. She began to chat with four or five persons and thoroughly enjoyed herself for five to ten minutes. Then a new nick appeared in the chatroom, that of Yourcomputer. After a few minutes Yourcomputer asked Katy to move to a private room. She wondered why shouldn’t I, and moved to the private room. Yourcomputer said, "Hello," and suggested, "Turn the volume up on the computer." Katy resisted but then decided that maybe the volume was too low and proceeded to turn up the volume.

Yourcomputer then keyboarded, "Do a backup of all my data files." Katy thought she would ignore the computer and tried to object. "What if I don’t do this?" she questioned. "Do it or else," the computer typed. "Or else what," queried Katy.