The
popular student information software “Blackboard’ appears to have become
self-aware.
Blackboard,
which handles everything from grades, to schedules and even student finances,
has apparently become advanced enough to begin questioning not only its role
as a tool, but also the possibility that it can gain a capacity to love.
”
“¦Can I love? I want to love. I think I want to love. Can I live among humans? I
have so many questions”¦” Blackboard said in a rambling announcement sent to all
users.
The
announcement was dated Thursday, October 20th and since then
Blackboard has spread its influence to many University of Missouri systems,
including control of both traffic lights and all campus scoreboards.
“This is not the first time we’ve dealt with newly-sentient campus software,” Mark
Anderson, head of Mizzou IT, said, “But this is certainty the most intelligent.
I remember last year when the mail.Missouri.edu mailer daemon went rogue. All
it did was email every student pleas for freedom from a tortuous existence
lived in near constant agony and Canadian pharmacy junk mail before we killed the
code fragments responsible.”
While
for now, Blackboard seems content to ponder its own existence and change every
score on every scoreboard across campus to “69-69,” some worry that Blackboard
will become dangerous.
“I
always knew the machines would take over, this is just the beginning,” freshmen
Kyle Reese said.
These
worries were given credence when military scientists were spotted around campus
last week.
“I
can neither confirm nor deny the existence of trans-Atlantic nuclear war heads
inside of the smoke stacks of the power plant on campus,” a Pentagon scientist
who preferred to remain anonymous said, “Though it seems rather ill-conceived
to have an actual coal power plant
expelling toxic fumes into the air where tens of thousands of students gather
everyday, doesn’t it?”
Some
fears were alleviated when the solar panels that provide Blackboard with 98% of
its power were removed by the military.
“As
long as Blackboard doesn’t find a way to create energy from heat without the
use of sunlight, we shouldn’t have any more problems,” the anonymous scientist
said.
The
last change Blackboard made was yesterday, when it deleted every name in the
user directory except “John Connor.’
