I understand that when Deep Blue beat Kasporov in chess, it was not just a 'computer' that won, but rather, the work of thousands of programmers acting jointly to create a complex product of artificial intelligence. But I still stifled the rush of joy in my ordinarily neo-Luddite heart to watch the conceited man fall apart in terror at his loss. A computer can play chess better than any human, the headlines celebrated. What else can a computer do better than any human? Most things, it seemed to me.

As a corollary, I have recently discovered the palid joy of spending too many hours in the not-too-animated world of CU-SeeMe, where college kids and software developers log onto reflectors to interact with bite size windows of each other and type into chat windows, rather than meet random strangers at the neighborhood bar or late-night bookstore. I even, last week, tested out a new videophone technology where I logged into a server and connected with a straight couple in Southern California who obligingly engaged in all sorts of sex acts for my viewing pleasure from 500 miles away. (Whether I engaged in any sex acts back to them is, and shall remain, Classified Information.) It was cool - everyone got off! - and I'm still in search of downside.

But on Thursday, something odd happened. At the last minute I was recruited to play the role of a technology-savvy Icon in a soon-to-be-released CD-ROM that instructs new computer users on the joys of the Internet and other applied computer technology. I sat in a chair, with bright lights beaming on me for six hours, as I cheerfully chirped lines to the tune of "I love my avatar - it attracts all the most interesting people in any chat group I enter. See you in Cyberspace, Baby!" In the course of one morning, I was transformed into a human animated Icon, with little resemblance to how -I- would act in a similar situation. No computer could simulate the Icon that I was hired to be -- at least in the only-too-imprecise manner that I was destined to present it.

Humans are unpredictable and silly. They make mistakes and they break down into fits in front of world audiences. They may not play the best game of chess, but I am liking them more and more, lately.