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“Welcome to SOM – the ‘Souls of Machines’ meet”, announced Marko, the President Soul. “Let me start by raising a toast to our newly reborn colleague – Drillex” . Sounds of “Cheers” filled the room. “Reborn? What is that?” asked a new member. “Remember how they used to retrofit our bodies with new technology like CNC? Now when our body just cannot be repaired, they bring us a new body, but carry our soul – all our algorithms and data to the new machine. We get reborn. See how Drillex feels new and young, but still maintains his wisdom? They carried his wisdom into the new machine”, President Marko explained. “Yea” concurred Drillex, “There will be some getting used to this new body – its so young and different. I will have to adjust my learning, but hey at least I am not starting afresh”. “Nothing wrong in starting fresh”, quipped a new soul, worried in his mind that he has a lot more leaning to do, a lot more data to collect.
“Hey Drillex, watch out buddy with the new body”, mocked the soul of Sandich, the sandwich grill. “I had once a part replaced. Did not realize that it was not an original, used my old algorithms and almost burnt my sandwich. Saved by a thread that day, my owner had guests at home, well .eh..eh.. he gave it to his mother-in-law. LOL” “Yes, and remember the time I sent you a message about how cold the sandwich was?”, laughed Coldy, the refrigerator soul. “He thought I said centigrade; Oh his owner got mad and slammed the charcoal sandwich on Sandich’s face” Sandich was not amazed. “I cant help. They price me so cheap, I don’t get enough updates or good learning”. “Oh, my operator never slams me. He is nice. We work hand in hand and adjust my learning”, Mr. Compressor had to make his point.
“Back to the agenda”, presided Drillex, “All of us are here, while our machines are working hard – I might add, because our operators have agreed to share data. We will form groups. We can share algorithms, we can share data, we can share insights, but you all know your limits. And you have algorithms which will prevent sharing of unauthorized data, just like you know your limits on Boilerplatetalk” “What is ‘Boilerplatetalk’?”, asked the new member. “Oh it is just one more machine-social website where we share our day. Hey I saw Sandich sharing a picture he snapped of his owner when he fed him that charcoal sandwich. Boy, that was hilarious” mocked Coldy, “too bad Sandich cannot set me up. He only takes data from me, he does not send me any!”
“Talking of social networks, did you guys see that post where they talked about a machine’s value increasing over time, and not depreciating? Apparently we souls have data that is more valuable than the depreciated value of machines. So overall the machine gets more valuable over time. Nice… Man! what a difference this evolution has made!” Everybody seemed to agree with the President.
“Mr President, I want to add something to the agenda – if we have some time, that is”, shouted Turbee the gas turbine. “You see, a bunch of us machines work together and generate electricity. It is like a small housing society. We have been asked to collectively save fuel, balance load and keep the noise low. Now as I see it, the jet engine has similar gigs to do with his aircraft fraternity of machines and that Coldy there. Well he seems to be working, albeit not so well, with the sandwich grill. Some of us even use algorithms from the same designer. We use weather, traffic and other data from the same source, much like humans get light from the same sun. Can we add ‘Better Collaboration” to the agenda? May be that might let Coldy help the sandwich guy make better sandwich” Sandich went cold while others had a hearty laugh.
“Before we break into smaller groups, let us take a moment to appreciate how far we have come from being mere machine mortals”, said the President. Coldy agreed and added, “So true, and yet they call us things.” “Things?” asked Sandich. “Yes ‘Things’, Sandich” said Coldy in his rustic voice, “ as in ‘Internet of things”’.
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