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Reprinted from the Feedback column in New Scientist magazine of 27 March 2004:

Feedback hates helpful computers. Being merely obedient is what computers are for. Whenever a computer smirks “it seems you’re writing a letter…” we start snarling. We know perfectly well what we’re writing, thank you.

But sometimes a supposedly helpful computer can be downright cruel. A friend of reader Andrew Ferguson, whom he is delicate enough not to name, was using her boyfriend’s computer to search for ideas for a surprise 30th birthday party for him. As she began to type “party planning” into Google, the auto-complete function kicked in to help her – and suggested instead “painless break-up”.

Of course, as anyone who actually thinks about this for a minute will realise, this isn’t a case of “computers say the darndest things”. The web browser is making the suggestion based on something that has been searched for on Google previously.

So a lighthearted snippet intended to leave the reader with a smile at the end of the magazine left me feeling sad. The woman’s boyfriend intends to break up with her, and she doesn’t realise it. The only question left is, does he want it to be painless for him or painless for her?

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