The Fully-Automated Presidential Candidate©
"Better...Stronger...Faster."
- The Six Million Dollar Man
America possesses more power, technology, and wealth than has any society in the history of mankind. It is the world's only remaining superpower, capable of making and breaking nations, trade policies, and international organizations. Only one fault stands in the way of greatness: those pesky human politicians, with their fallible minds, fascetious campaign promises, and phallic proclivities.
Yet the solution has, quite literally, been right before our eyes for decades: computer technology. Artificial intelligence has reached a level of advancement which, I posit, is more than sufficient to create a robot which could fulfill the job duties of one's average United States President, or one's average tree-dwelling marsupial. I propose to call this mechanical analogue the Fully-Automated PResidential Candidate©, or FARC© (pron. FAR-ce).
The FARC© would have many advantages over its organic counterparts. Consider:
- The FARC©, using up-to-the-minute poll data, could alter its deeply-held moral and political convictions with much greater rapidity than even the most experienced human politician. Sagaciously, however, its ethics algorithms would allocate equal or larger weight to lobbyists and CEOs of major multinationals, thus maintaining the balance of power which America knows and loves. Essentially, its political programming would be the apotheosis of "fuzzy logic."
- Its skin tone and facial characteristics would be an amalgam of all major ethnic groups, pleasing all while alienating none. It would easily be made a striking androgyne, attracting all sexes and sexual preferences to its campaign trail on the bases of both inter-gender camraderie and a vague sexual attraction.
- Its memory recall would surpass that of any human, as it would be connected to the World Wide Web, as well as specialized government databases. Its ability for oratory would supercede both Southern preachers and Harvard dons, as it would have the entirety of world literature to draw upon. Naturally, it would be fluent in all languages and dialects, including Bureaucratese.
- Lacking a sex drive, it would be immune to public-relations nightmares involving cigars and fast women. However, appropriate security measures would have to be implemented against the possibility of the Japanese creating a Fully-Automated Presidential Secretary (stacked with enormous dual processors) designed to lure the FARC© into creating a VPN and thus leaking vital state secrets.
- The FARC© would be run by proprietary Microsoft™ software, so when Bill Gates and his Army of Darkness take over the world in 2023, crushing the writhing masses of humanity under their collective mainframes, the United States government would feel practically no disruption whatsoever, and American citizens' lives could continue almost as normal, except for the torture, slavery, and mandatory MS-DOS training.
- Finally, instead of going through the tedious process of campaign fundraising, the FARC© would convert corporate blood money directly into nuclear energy using an on-board reactor. This would also have the advantage of bypassing all existing campaign-finance legislation.
In sum, the
FARC© would combine the advantages of both
man and machine. As
Herbert Hoover said,
"We are in danger of developing a cult of the Common Man, which means a cult of mediocrity." With the
full implementation of the Fully-Automated Presidential Candidate, this
danger would be averted, and
mankind would live in
happy harmony, with our
mechanical overseers making no mistaEKS*@.*^%.
Embrace the future. Vote FARC© in 2004.