Robots and computers will soon be ruling the world, but before they take over, we’ve been putting them to good use doing helpful things for us, and making our lives easier.
We can send things into space with absolute accuracy.
We can fabricate tiny devices with incredible precision.
But – apparently – we can’t stop a big boat hitting a big rock when the guy in charge goes to the loo.
You couldn’t make it up. And indeed, I haven’t.
If you did make it up though, you might use lines like:
A report into the incident says the officer in charge felt a sudden “sharp pain in his intestines” at around 2am. He then “had an urgent need to leave the bridge to go to the toilet”, and he did so leaving the ship unattended.
And make it seem like a 1980s sitcom.
But you wouldn’t need to because that’s actually what happened.
And then this as what happened:
Quite how you can crash a big ship into a big rock because you went to the loo rather than steering it…
…I just don’t know. Where were the robots and the computers doing their thing?
It’s 2022 and this sort of thing is still happening.