I hope our daughter has thawed out. She’s been living in an ice palace for the last two weeks, and it all happened despite her best intentions.
Several years ago, she purchased a thermostat for her furnace with the cozy name of the “Nest”. She was excited about its promise to be environmentally friendly and also reduce her electric bill. Supposedly, sensors in the device would track her movements and warm the rooms she was in. In addition, she could program her desired temperatures for various times of the day, such as when she returned home from work or headed to the bedroom at night.
From the start, the Nest was not behaving well, but she was coping with it. That all ended about two weeks ago when its artificial intelligence took over completely. Think of the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, when HAL says, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
She came home from work after a recent cold snap and the house was a uniform 53 degrees. Every attempt to manually reset the Nest to a higher temperature failed. The only way she could eke out a few degrees was to walk around in circles in front of the diabolical device.
My husband, the guru of all things computer and electronic, was consulted. Fearing that hypothermia was in our daughter’s future, he took on the Nest. He quickly read all the techie instructions on how to gain back control of the temperature settings. He then began reciting the steps to her only to discover she had tried them all repeatedly to no avail.
A joint decision was made. He would make a house call and kill the Nest. She would go to Home Depot and pick out a new thermostat that would allow her to regain control of her life.
Our daughter returned with the new thermostat and informed us it was “$35 and lobotomized.” Then my husband turned the furnace off, murdered the Nest and, in less than an hour, wired up the new one. When the furnace was turned back on, it purred and purred and purred, filling the house with warmth. We all began shedding coats like butterflies emerging from their cocoons in springtime.
If A.I. is the way of the future, we predict that the A.I.H.R. (Artificial Intelligence Homicide Rate) will soar. And, F.Y.I., the Nest is a Google product.
There’s a reason that they call that intelligence “Artificial”!
And there is a reason why they call virtual reality “virtual”.
The exact same thing happened to Ryan and his family on New Years’ Day!
Russ makes house calls!
Sounds like Mother Nature is clawing back some of her turf… And just when we were thinking we are the Lords of all we survey…
Bad, bad mistake to forget that nature rules!
One crazy story. I hope the new stat is programable. We’ve had setback stats, easy to program and override for years!
Yes! Programmables with override are great, those with AI need more development. Ours is also portable and has worked great for at least 10 years. No more “Hal” experiences wanted.