BOFH: Peeling back the layers of the magic banana industrial complex

New fruit detected – please update hype cycle

Episode 12 "I got an interesting email this morning," the Boss says, lurching over to the cafeteria table where the PFY and I are seated.

"Oh yes?" the PFY asks, encouraging him to share, for some inexplicable reason.

"Yes! It was from an industry body that..."

"Was it an industry body, though, or did the email just claim to be an industry body?"

"Well, I'm not sure, but they were talking about a new standard for..."

"Is that a new ratified, international standard, or is it a new banana standard they just made up, to try to make themselves appear relevant?"

"IF YOU WOULD LET ME FINISH!" the Boss snaps. "They were talking about a new standard for interaction with AI."

"Ah. A banana standard then," the PFY sighs.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because we're still in the hype stage of AI," the PFY explains, "and no standard ever gets created during the hype stage. People talk about standards in this stage, they share opinions on what should be in a standard, but no one actually agrees on a standard."

"Why?"

"OK, imagine you find a new species of banana out in the jungle somewhere," I say.

"Why would I be in a jungle?"

"I don't know. I gave up wondering why you do things ages ago. In any case, you find a new species of banana. You bring it home and somehow show it to a marketing person. Immediately, before they know anything about the banana, they will call it the miracle banana."

"Why?"

"Because it cures cancer," the PFY says. "And male pattern baldness."

"It's a MAGIC banana," I agree. "And the marketing will tell people that this magic banana is a game-changer, and that they should be filling their tanks with magic bananas because magic bananas get 50 miles to the gallon, and they help clean the atmosphere."

"They'll want money to fund research into other applications of the magic banana," the PFY says, "and to isolate the source of the magic."

"Meanwhile, people will be eating magic bananas and going on YouTube to talk about how good they feel now."

"The magic banana recipe book will come out, followed by a magic banana TV show, where a celebrity chef will drive around in his banana-powered electric vehicle, meeting people whose lives have been changed by the magic banana, saying how it saved their lives or their marriage. Then they'll cook a couple of magic banana recipes and everyone will eat them and feel great."

"I..." the Boss says.

"But THEN there will be the backlash. People will say that magic bananas are a threat to our way of life – to our very existence – and that they threaten our food industry. Magic bananas will put people out of work, destroy the rainforests, and they may actually cause the cancer and baldness we're so worried about," I say.

"MEANTIME," the PFY interrupts, "educators will appear, like turds on the surface of a septic tank, and there will be two types. The people who have seen a trend (and revenue stream) and will simply summarize available magic banana information and extend the hype with suggestions that magic bananas have the potential to unlock the colonization of Mars and determine whether the Higgs boson is an elementary or a composite particle."

"And the second type?" the Boss asks.

"The second type of educator is the one with 'X' years of banana experience, a person who has been telling us for decades that bananas are underrated and that one day we will find a magic banana that will be the key to mankind's future."

"And we never listened to them?" the Boss asks.

"No, because we had them put in psychiatric care – where they belong. But that won't prevent them from getting magic banana airtime."

"Then what happens?" the Boss asks.

"After the educators come the standards people. They will want to create a standard magic banana – determining how much it should weigh, how much magic it has, etc. The magic banana industry group will form, and the magic banana standard will be ratified, with a standard unit of banana magic, say, the millimusa."

"The... millimusa?"

"Indeed. But the magic banana industry will want to standardize magic banana trade and magic banana consumption. Meantime, groups of banana growers will form a totally separate industry that will seek to rename normal bananas as magic bananas – because bananas have always been magic. Each of the banana players will release their own banana standards."

"But by this stage the Magic Banana industry group has branched off into Magic Banana 2 and is already most of the way to Magic Banana 3, which has an order of magnitude more magic than Magic Banana 2. You may only need to eat one Magic Banana 3 to prevent – or cause – cancer and/or baldness, opinion is divided."

"And then what, Magic Banana 4?" the Boss asks.

"Oh, did you not hear? Someone has found a new type of Gooseberry. They're calling it the Superberry."

"It can raise the dead," the PFY adds.

"So... you're saying I shouldn't go to the standards seminar in the email?" the Boss asks.

"I'm saying move that message into the junk folder and give us both 20 quid."

"Because we can cure wallet calluses," the PFY adds. "We're magic."

• BOFH: Previous episodes on The Register
• The Compleat BOFH Archives 95-99