Vending machines have been around for over 40 years in India. The earliest recollection of one was the “weighing machine” at railway stations. You inserted a 25 paisa coin and out came a card that showed your weight. When someone came back from a “foreign tour”, they spoke about machines that doled out a cup of coffee! We heard their tales with fascination and wondered how machines could be so sophisticated.
Our prayers were answered. Today, vending machines are found all over India in corporate cafeteria and restaurants, in cinema halls and railway stations. We now see these chameleons in their true colours.
Dealing with a vending machine is like feeding your one-year- old child. There are days when it is easy and then there are days when nothing works. You insert the rupee note into the vending machine and it instantly spits it out. You turn the side of the note. It rejects the note again. Perhaps, the note is too old and creased. You try a new note and the result is no different. By now, people in the queue get impatient. They break the queue and everyone gathers around the machine. Out of the blue, one of the notes is accepted by the machine. But the eureka moment is short-lived. The machine has digested your rupee, but does nothing more. At wits’ end, you try everything — insert your finger, give the machine a violent shake, but it stares back impassively. Now, someone wants to try his luck. Surprisingly, the machine is well behaved and issues the ticket. He casually struts away with his ticket. You cajole and coax the machine, but it stays adamant.
Just as you give up and walk away, you hear a sudden clank! You rush back to see if it is your ticket. All you get back is one coin. It has ejected the pocket-change to reward you for the effort. In anger, you could manhandle the machine, but then, such boorish behaviour would not look decent in public!
We hear the future is going to be all about Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI and ML). We wonder what these machines are learning. We learn from the company we keep. And in human company, we fear machines are picking up our negative traits. They learn to laze around and ape our whimsical behaviour. At least with a human, you can appeal to his goodness. He may relent. With a machine, it is like hitting your head against a stone wall.
shankar.ccpp@gmail.com
