The Brilliant Anti-Societal Technology Awards

Welcome to the 17th annual Brilliant Anti-Societal Technology Awards. There is a popular (albeit not historically supported) saying that good times create weak men, and so in order to prevent good times, our scientists work around the clock to make your life worse. I’m your host, Ms. Anne Thrope, and tonight, we’re excited to honor these luminaries saving us from utopia with the power of technology.
In the culinary tech division, the BASTA goes to Dr. Michael Rowave. Doctor, please tell us about your innovation.
”Thanks, Ms. Anne. You can put a bowl of food in the oven, and you take it out and you have a hot bowl of hot food. But then I thought, what if you could put your bowl of food in a different kind of oven, and then take out a hot bowl filled with tepid food? It’s not easy to heat up the bowl without making the food hot, but our team figured out a way to do it. Our latest model can even target individual bites, to ensure a mix of hot spots and cold spots in your food. No matter what temperature you want, we can make sure half of your food never gets there.”
Wow, great stuff, thanks doc. Now for the making naked people uncomfortable division, the winner is Tim Perture, for his shower controls. Tim?
”What an honor this award is. We spent months reviewing various options for inconvenient control systems — one where the shower dial had no indicators of where a comfortable heat level might be, one where there was only a nanometer between the settings for scalding hot and freezing cold, and one where no matter what setting you selected the water would suddenly become freezing cold after five minutes. Finally I said, ‘Let’s do it all.’ I’d never have guessed my design would become so popular that it would be in almost every bathroom in America, so thank you.”
We’ll be sure to “wash” out for your design. Up next for the financial division, the award goes to Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. Obviously he can’t reveal himself, but he sent us this statement:
”With solar power gaining popularity and helping to save the environment from being ravaged by energy demands, I knew something had to be done. Cryptocurrency is intentionally designed to require lots of processing power to create, making it an incredibly energy-inefficient currency. All payments are untraceable and anonymous, making it perfect for scams, currency manipulation, crime or even just making a typo and losing your money forever.”
Satoshi, I think I speak for all of us here at the BASTAs when I say I can’t wait to see everyone’s Social Security dumped into the highly volatile crypto market. And finally, the big award of the night, Most Destructive Technology. And the MDT goes to ... Artie Fishel, for his work with AI. Congrats, Artie.
”Thank you! As you know, we’ve really been pulling out all the stops to make sure AI doesn’t just harm the environment but also makes things worse for people across the globe. Whether we’re stealing people’s creative work with no permission or payment, confidently presenting made-up information as verified sources, or just filling up the internet with AI-generated slop that adds no value but prevents you from seeing useful content created by human beings, we’re working hard to make your life online worse. We’re excited to see AI take more people’s jobs next year not just by replacing them but by having AI automate decisions to randomly fire people. The future is as bright as a nuclear explosion.”
Well, we certainly think AI is “the bomb”! You really exemplify the spirit of anti-societal technology, so congrats again on your win, and to all of our viewers, have a terrible evening.