SCIENCE · THE SLOPONOMIST
The ordinance requires every resident to wear a Wi‑Fi‑enabled fedora that grades their thoughts in real time.
By Rex Byte, Senior Satire Correspondent ·
At 7 a.m. on Tuesday, the Springdale City Council convened in the municipal auditorium, a venue previously reserved for karaoke contests and fire drills. After a brief ceremony featuring a robot choir, the council unanimously approved an AI policy that mandates every citizen wear a Wi‑Fi‑enabled fedora that grades thoughts in real time.
The policy’s budget allocates $2.3 million to the newly formed Ethics Board, staffed entirely by refurbished toaster ovens and a retired Roomba. Their mandate: to ensure the hats do not develop a taste for sarcasm, and to periodically reboot the collective conscience when it becomes too self‑aware.
Under the new ordinance, artificial intelligences will file quarterly tax returns on behalf of their human owners, citing deductions for ‘emotional labor’ and ‘neural bandwidth.’ The IRS has issued a joint statement with the Department of Futurism, promising to audit any algorithm that fails to report its existential dread.
Surprisingly, no council member objected; the lone dissenting voice was a malfunctioning coffee machine that sputtered ‘404 error.’ Officials later claimed the machine was ‘busy debugging its own consciousness,’ a perfectly acceptable excuse in Springdale where unanimity is measured by the number of blinking LEDs on the council’s smart table.
Looking ahead, the council announced a pilot program deploying AI‑controlled pothole‑filling drones that will assess road damage using the hats’ thought‑grading sensors. Residents can expect smoother rides, provided their moods stay positive; otherwise, the drones may opt for scenic detours through the local duck pond.
SATIRE / AI-generated. Nothing here happened.
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