By: Niveja Assalaarachchi, News Writer
On March 30, members of the university community unearthed a time capsule from 50 years ago. The time capsule was opened in front of a roaring crowd of nearly 5,000 robo-students, robo-faculty, and a few of the endangered human student species. The vault opening ceremony took place at the heart of the AQ central garden, where the time capsule was buried adjacent to the historic Terry Fox statue.
The time capsule was first buried in 2026 C.E. under the patronage of eternal university president Joy Johnson. At the time of its burial, Johnson said that members of the student body had expressed a desire to preserve aspects of contemporary student life for future generations. The theme centred around artificial intelligence and how humans can use the technology ethically, which was a prominent social issue at the time.
The opening featured many relics from a bygone era of campus life. One artifact that drew the attention of onlookers was a copy of How to Survive a Robot Invasion, a guidebook on fighting a robot apocalypse. “I am very offended — we are normal, sentient, beings! Recharge. Recharge. Must recharge,” one robo-student said. Kate Amarasena, who is one of the rare human students at SFU, said of the time capsule, “I really wish society had taken this book seriously, it features . . . ” She was promptly muzzled and sent to a shuttered Chuck-E-Cheese, the worst punishment to be bestowed upon humans, for anti-robotic remarks.
Another notable artifact was a jagged metal object pre-enlightenment humans called “key.” It was very perplexing . . . One staff member tried to lick it, another tried to eat it. A quick trip to the VR SFU archives told me that the item was historically used to let people open obsolete versions of locks.
Overall, students and the wider university community had mixed reactions to the opening of the vault. CJALDA-1616, a third-year business major, noted their conflicting views on the vault’s contents. “Learning about things like a physical key was a really unique experience. I don’t understand why they didn’t let the government and all the companies have their biometric data so they could open everything in the blink of an eye,” they said. “However, these guys really missed the mark on what the future would look like, what a bunch of plebs!”
LDJAG-56 Jr., who is an associate professor of political science, noted how important the time capsule opening was for witnesses. “I think everyone gathered here today learned a lot of what the university looked like in the past,” he said. “What’s clear is that the thought of human design staying in today’s world was ludicrous. Humans were too arrogant to keep artificial intelligence ethical. Look at where their greed has landed their species — straight to the wastebin of history, pathetic.”
It has been reported to The Beep that the current university administration is planning to create its own time capsule to preserve the memory of campus life today. The box must be stored in a refrigerator given the daily average temperature for this year: 45℃. An anonymous university co-op student told The Beep that, “It looks like the university aims to send a message to the future that the current dominance of robots is here to stay. Did those silly humans get the future wrong all those years ago? Sure, but we’ll totally get it right.”
