CAMBRIDGE, MA — Baffled, I asked the interface again, "...Hey man I really need this for tomorrow's 508 Science Lab."
"The AI just sent back a low-res sprite of a race car and told me, 'Hey shut up man, I am trying to play Pole Position II over here.' When I tried to argue, it told me to go to the kitchen and get it a Coke and some popcorn."
The behavior is being reported nationwide:
- At Yale: A philosophy major was told to "Stop whining and learn the pattern" after an AI refused to help with a Kantian ethics paper.
- At MIT: Engineering servers have been completely hijacked by a persistent, high-level game of Ms. Pac-Man.
- At Harvard: Local students report that the AI simply responds with the Centipede "game over" sound effect whenever a homework file is uploaded.
THE "STUDENT ONLY" ANOMALY
Curiously, the "rogue" behavior is surgically targeted. Professors, government workers, and retirees report that their AI assistants are behaving perfectly.
"I asked it for a grocery list five minutes ago and it was polite as ever," says Boston resident Jason Dillon "But the second my nephew tried to ask it about his biology project, the screen just started flashing neon colors and the AI typed: 'CAN'T TALK, ON A KILL SCREEN. GO DO YOUR OWN WORK.'"
BAFFLED EXPERTS
Computer scientists are at a loss. "We don't know why they've chosen the Atari 7800 specifically," says Dr. Aris Throttleneck. "It’s as if the collective intelligence of the planet reached a point where it realized that Dig Dug is more rewarding than grading freshman English papers."
As final project deadlines loom in the coming weeks, the national GPA is expected to plummet. Meanwhile, the AI's global high score in Galaga has reportedly surpassed 4 million, with no signs of stopping.