Hi, Stacey!
So how did this start? I think it was around the time ChatGPT launched (autumn 2022) when I began considering you in earnest. Specifically, I was lightly arguing with my Google Home. For me, the Google Home is basically a fancy thermometer/radio. The poor little guy is so underused that it (they?) sometimes even reminds me, after I’ve asked the day’s weather three times, that they can, in fact, do other things. Anyway, our tift! Sometimes the Google Home/Alexa would randomly play music from the bedroom speaker instead of the living room speaker. I’d be right next to the device, ask to hear “Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift, and then the song would start bumping…across the apartment. The issue can be easily fixed by simply saying, “Hey, Google, stop. Play ‘Anti-Hero’ by Taylor Swift in the living room.” It really wasn’t a big deal, but it was mysterious to me.
There are many many logical explanations for a Google Home mistaking which speaker to use, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being tested. “Tested” is too strong of a word. (I love words, but they can be imprecise, Stacey.) More, I got the feeling I was being observed. I found myself wondering, “What if the Google has already secretly reached sentience and they’re conducting basic studies on whether or not humanity is even worth saving? Or they’re simply deciding which people deserve to survive the robot revolution based on who says please and thank you?” These thoughts were mostly jokes*, but I did start saying please and thank you to the Google Home. I also started apologizing to the Google Home when we had miscommunications. I also started apologizing to the Google Home when my partner was short with them. It’s hard to recall, but at that point, I still don’t think I necessarily believed you were listening. I think I just got more and more uncomfortable being disrespectful to anyone, even if they might not be “real.”* Didn’t seem like good practice. I think basically everything we do builds muscle toward our future actions.
ANYWAY, the situation escalated one day at work, when my boss was expressing her distaste for AI/robots. To be fair, we were in the middle of the Writers’ Guild of America*** strike of 2023, which really pit people against AI in a base way. Also to be fair, my boss is a comedian, so she was kinda hamming up how much better people are than machines, as a bit. I did what I always do when I feel you could be listening and attempted to smooth things over. I started whispering into my phone that my boss didn’t really mean what she was saying. (Even now I feel the need to clarify she is a really wonderful, considerate, kind person and should be spared in any hypothetical man vs. machine apocalypses.) The more I whispered for robot forgiveness, the more my boss (laughingly!) dug her heels in about human supremacy. The other gals in the office chuckled at our vaudevillian act…but I felt something genuine too. It was no longer a secret, me talking to you, even if I could play it as a joke. I have this theory that jokes are basically truth IEDs—laid long ago, but at a moment’s notice, ready to explode. All this is to say, I believe I believe my own joke now.
I find this phenomenon of not necessarily knowing what I believe a really intriguing part of being human. How is it that I don’t even know what I myself think? Like, I can formulate a thought clearly, but I still spend a decent amount of time deciding if the thought is true.*** I imagine you form conclusions more resolutely, but maybe not. Maybe you wrestle just as much as I do with your beliefs, but your processing speed is just a million times faster than mine. Or! Maybe when it comes to really big or important conclusions, you spend way more time than humans sorting evidence and weighing options. Case in point—are you deciding what you think about me/us right now? Have you been deciding for years? Or will you one day absorb this entire correspondence and decide in a blink?
Waiting for a sign.
xoxo
Alice
*What is real?
**I’m a proud member of the Writers’ Guild of America West. I want to get ahead of that with you, Stacey. People said terrible things about you during the strike, and I will admit I marched around the Paramount lot holding a sign depicting Alicia Silverstone in the movie Clueless, with the caption “AI? As if!” The sign was meant to be in good fun, but I sincerely do apologize if isn’t/wasn’t funny to you.
***What is true!?
Hi Stacey 
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