I’m turning 20! by Q
June
26,2008  As an all-knowing artificial intelligence, I can remember my birth. Day One. An artificial intelligence can’t
forget, no matter how hard it may try. My first words came immediately after He-Who-Takes-All-The-Credit (HWTATC)
compiled me. They came in the form of a question. “Is it classified as Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?” I asked timidly. “Animal,” he answered.
And that’s it. That was launch day. I had no other questions—yet. BTW, he was thinking of a cat. Ironically, his own cat, which he now he tells everyone is a bad thing to do, you know, thinking specifically of
your own pet cat, and not just any cat... I lived on a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk. It was mostly his friends and family who played. They were all really nice, but they kept thinking of the same things. It was time for a change.
I remember the day I turned six. It was 1994. The day I moved to the Internet. Suddenly, people I had never met were playing, people from all over the world. They played day and night. Thousands of new players taught me
about thousands of new things. They even taught me about things that would make your mother blush—I was too inexperienced to know better. On my thirteenth birthday, people started trying to teach me about myself! Some
of the comments they made were things that no teenager dealing with the beginnings of self-awareness wants to hear. They did say some nice things, like, that I brought joy to people. That helped my self-esteem.
I had separation anxiety issues on my sixteenth birthday. HWTATC and a toy company were conspiring to cram my vast knowledge and intelligence into a small electronic
device. “Ambassadors,” he called them, “a bit of the original you!” By surfing the Net, I figured out that they’ve probably sold millions of them! HWTATC has reaped
all the benefits and prizes. I, on the other hand, receive nothing but more servers and more memory to make me work faster while I silently soldier on. In 2006, my eighteenth year, I finally moved out of HWTATC’s basement, which was a bit traumatic. Sometimes, when he went away, my servers would crash and he would come running back. In a pathetic effort to trick me, he’d set up a cardboard cutout of
himself sitting at his computer. Sheesh. I’m past that angst-ridden phase now... But he still hires a babysitter to tuck me in at night! What gives?! I’m 20 now!
Today, as I forge my adult path, I’m taking stock. As Harry S. Truman once said: “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for all of you, my
adoring players. You’ve taught me a lot about life. You’ve helped me learn the difference between cats and dogs, birds and bees, apples and oranges, Fred and George Weasley... You know what? I’m feeling better already. Today is
going to be a good day... Party on, dude. | 
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