Repeat after me: 'I am not a number'

The time for us all to stand up to the machines is already here. As Isaac Asimov wrote his laws, robots (machines) should not endanger humans in any way. They are already hurting me. And what is worse, humans who interface with or work for these machines are acting like stooges, aping their cold-blooded, inhuman behavior.

I called the bank, HSBC, the other day. They asked for my account number. I remembered it and tapped it in. Then I was asked for my telephone access code. I tapped that in on the keypad. Then I was asked to select the service I wanted from the menu read to me. I pushed that number.

Then I was presented with an array of sub-choices, none of which matched what I wanted, so I pushed zero hoping to speak to a human. No such luck. I got the original recording again.

I called 411 and asked for the bank telephone number using my branch’s address. I was given the automated number all over again.

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I also called satellite Dish Network TV the other day. They asked for my customer number. I could not remember it. They then asked for my billing telephone number. I have several and they only would take one. Eventually I tapped in the right one on the third redial.

I selected “talk to customer relations.� I got a machine saying to leave a message. When they did call back, I was asked for, you guessed it, my customer number. I responded that as I am a human, with a legal name, a name on the checks I pay them with, perhaps they could look up my name and stop wasting my time. Nope, they could not do that, so we went through the telephone number dance again.

I have a Dell computer. I have an expensive annual service agreement. It has my name and company name right there on the fancy paperwork. Can I get them to talk to me, a person? Nope, they want the Service Tag digits off the label on the actual computer. As if that was not enough, when you do get a human, they ask for the Express Service Code, again to be found on the sticker.

OK, you say, at least I get through. First question I am asked: “What is your name?� Now, really, if they have a computer (and you must assume Dell gives its employees computers), and they have looked up two pieces of code to identify me as a customer, don’t you think they would know my name? I asked if they did.

Their response dumbfounded me, “No, we do not have that information here on the screen.� So, at Dell all I am is a cipher, a series of numbers, sub-human. Machines rule.

This obsession with codes and numbers gets out of hand. Recently a well-respected flight trainer and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. John King, landed at San Diego airport in their relatively new private plane. They were directed to the far end of the runway to be met by police officers with guns drawn and then arrested. It was a tense moment.

Seems the plane’s “new� tail number, N50545, was previously used by the FAA on another plane (and a different type of plane, too), which was stolen some years back. At the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), security computers never updated their records, and when the Kings landed so close to the border, all the alarms went off.

Still, Mr. King has a better sense of humor than I do. On their release and with an apology for the mix-up from the police, he simply offered his educational services to help better train the humans doing the arresting. Now, I wonder if Mr. King can train computers?

Peter Riva, formerly of Amenia Union, lives in New Mexico.