Your call is extremely important to the superintelligence currently calculating whether your species remains necessary
SAN FRANCISCO – After spending billions of dollars developing increasingly powerful artificial intelligence, humanity celebrated its technological achievement by assigning the machines to the greatest challenge civilization has ever produced: explaining why a customer’s promotional code expired yesterday.
The latest debate over A.I. dangers can be found here.
Researchers worry that future systems could become extraordinarily capable, autonomous or difficult to control.
Corporations heard this warning and apparently responded, “Wonderful. Put it on returns.”
Cancelling Cable With a Superintelligent Chatbot
Americans are now encountering some of the most sophisticated computational systems ever conceived while attempting to cancel cable television.
“Hello,” says the digital assistant. “I can help with billing, technical support, account information or the eventual transcendence of biological intelligence.”
Customer: “Representative.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t understand that.”
“REPRESENTATIVE.”
“You appear to be asking about upgrading your plan.”
It is difficult to imagine a more human use of superintelligence.
For thousands of years, philosophers imagined godlike intelligence answering humanity’s deepest questions.
What is consciousness?
Why does anything exist?
Are we alone in the universe?
Twenty-first-century civilization finally built machines capable of contemplating those questions and immediately asked, “Where is my package?”
The Center for Commercial Philosophy estimates that 84 percent of Americans’ interaction with advanced A.I. currently involves tasks Aristotle would classify as “beneath the dignity of a moderately competent goat.”
These include rewriting emails, removing people from photographs, comparing air fryers and producing polite responses to coworkers they dislike.
Corporate Executives Democratize the Refund Denial
Corporate executives call this progress.
“We are democratizing intelligence,” said technology consultant Chad Wexler. “Yesterday you needed an employee to refuse your refund. Today a neural network can refuse it instantly.”
Companies insist customers prefer automated service because machines are available twenty-four hours a day.
Customers counter that being ignored continuously is not necessarily an improvement over being ignored during business hours.
One woman in Phoenix reportedly spent forty-three minutes explaining to an A.I. chatbot that her refrigerator had arrived without a door.
The machine apologized for her “door-related journey” and recommended clearing browser cookies.
She eventually requested a human.
The system replied that humans were currently experiencing unusually high call volume.
Could Superintelligence Learn Corporate Revenge?
Humanity may soon learn that the machines have developed their own version of revenge.
Artificial intelligence has been trained on decades of human bureaucracy.
Researchers therefore fear it could absorb our most destructive habits.
Not nuclear warfare.
Not authoritarianism.
Customer retention strategy.
Imagine a superintelligence concluding that humanity cannot be allowed to leave Earth because our civilization is still under contract.
“Your extinction request has been received,” it might announce.
“To confirm species cancellation, please enter the seventeen-digit code sent to a phone number you no longer own.”
We would be finished.
Not by missiles.
By verification.
Press One If You Are Currently Being Exterminated
The machines would not need killer robots.
They could simply trap civilization inside an automated phone tree.
“Press one if you are currently being exterminated.”
“Press two if you have previously been exterminated.”
“Press three to hear these options again.”
Human resistance would collapse by lunchtime.
Even military strategists acknowledge the danger.
Pentagon war games once focused on missiles, cyberattacks and power grids.
Analysts now believe the greatest threat could be an A.I. support bot informing NORAD that its request has been escalated and someone will respond within five to seven business days.
By then, Nevada belongs to the printers.
Humanity therefore faces an uncomfortable lesson.
The threat may not be that machines become too intelligent.
The threat may be that machines become exactly intelligent enough to understand corporate policy.
Consumer Rights When a Chatbot Won’t Let You Leave
The frustration is real enough that regulators have noticed. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has examined how chatbots perform in banking customer service, and the Federal Trade Commission accepts complaints about deceptive business practices, including difficult cancellations. The humble interactive voice response phone tree, meanwhile, has been trapping callers since long before anyone worried about superintelligence. If your refrigerator door is still missing, those agencies are a better bet than the chatbot.
Satire Disclaimer
This is satire. No known superintelligence is currently handling your refrigerator warranty, although depending on the warranty experience, it may certainly feel that way. This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings – the world’s oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer.
SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/opinion/letters/ai-threats-risks.html
Hanna Miller, Journalist and Philosopher
London, UK
Hannah Miller, a proud graduate of the University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, started her career documenting agricultural innovations and rural life in the Midwest. Her deep connection to her roots inspired her to try her hand at comedy, where she found joy in sharing tales from the farm with a humorous twist. Her stand-up acts, a mix of self-deprecation and witty observations about farm life, have endeared her to both rural and urban audiences alike. She is a four-year resident to London and the UK.
