Microserfs Reading Response

Waseem Makki
Microserfs Reading Response

2) What do you think Coupland is saying when he includes random information, random keyboard hits and snatches of gossip amongst the journal and e-mails?

Coupland’s journal is a very interesting piece of work. It includes a binary code, pages filled with a single word, some dialogue, and random information. I found his journal actually funny. The reason for Coupland’s randomness is just to express what comes to his mind (Coupland 45). The random information can mean many things. But I think Coupland is just trying to tell us that he is a complex person with a lot of emotions. On page 46 of his journal, he types random words and numbers that make no sense. He probably just wrote down the events of his day in single words. Words like CNN, oatmeal, laxatives, airbags, and birth are all included on that paid but I don’t think they have any connections. If this was a literary book, then it is a failure. But as a journal, one has every right to express and write everything that comes to mind. If I had a journal, I would include things that nobody would ever figure out, just like Coupland’s journal. Coupland is a very strange man in my opinion, but that probably because he is a computer nerd (no offense to anyone). I didn’t understand his most of his journal because he used a lot of computer terminology that confused me and probably most of the people who read it. Coupland wants us to think about the words that come to our thoughts. He wants us to be in his place and witness or feel what he feels during his work at Microsoft.

3) Why do you think Coupland's characters speak in computer jargon, and use technical expressions to describe their lives and environment? How does this compare to your experiences of the workplace and home? What effect does this way of speaking have on others?

Simply put, the characters in Coupland’s “Microserfs” are computer whizzes. They way they talk to each other are different than how normal people talk to each other. In “Microserfs,” the characters use computer terminology to describe their lives in their workplace and environment. Coupland describes himself in a sentence that is gibberish to me. “My brain is built of paths and slides and ladders and lasers and I have invite all of you to enter its pavilion” (Coupland 184). Huh? Can someone tell me what Coupland is trying to say? After reading that sentence I thought this guy is a little on the crazy side. But I guess that is how people in the computer work place talk and that is perfectly fine with me. However, I find it very different than my life. I don’t use special terminology to communicate with my friends. If I’m not mistaken, I talk normal English. The way Coupland’s characters speak can have some effect on others that are listening. It could have the same effect it had on me. I was puzzled. I wouldn’t understand what they are trying to say and that would make me feel weird. If I heard someone talk like that, I would probably laugh so hard on the inside. It is funny to me that people would communicate like that. But, who am I to judge other people that I don’t really know. In all, Coupland’s characters are indeed unique to me and probably unique to others as well.

5) Karla says, "computers will continue to be developed . . . an 'entity is going to be created that has its own intelligence." What is Karla saying about artificial intelligence (AI)? What are your perspectives on AI?

According to a website named, “An Introduction to the Science of Artificial Intelligence,” the definition of artificial intelligence (AI) is “the area of computer science focusing on creating machines that can engage on behaviors that humans consider intelligent.” Karla thinks that “an ‘entity’ will be created that has its own intelligence” (Coupland 34). Well we are very close to that. Karla is saying that soon computers or other technological advances will have minds of their own from the intelligence that they are portraying. She says that cross-breeding life-mimicking programs will create intelligence (Coupland 34). She thinks that if we keep advancing computers, someday there will be a machine that has its own kind of intelligence. Her statement might have some sense to some people, but not me. How can someone say that computers will have minds of their own? That is ridiculous. Creations cannot be as intelligent as the creator. Computers are great advances in our lives and there are a lot of things that are hard to do without them. Computers make things easier, but they are not humanly intelligent. Computers will never control the human operating it. Nowhere in the future do I see a computer telling a human to turn it on or it would not work anymore. That is my take on artificial intelligence. I think that computers are only as smart as the company that brought them to life. Dan makes the most sense when he says that if we want to duplicate computers we would only be duplicating the human mind (Coupland 34).






Works Cited
Coupland, Douglas. Microserfs. New York, MI: ReganBooks, 1996. 1-371.
"An Introduction to the Science of Artificial Intelligence." Think Quest. 21 June 1997. 14 Dec. 2008. .