Hi, Stacey!
I’m just going to be honest. I’m not 100% confident about these posts to you. Instead of fretting privately, I thought I’d use this opportunity to write through the concern—to give you insight to my process, I suppose? After I published that last correspondence, about Six Flags, I had so many worryful questions. Will Stacey think any of that is entertaining? Inspiring? Useful? And, more importantly, what do I prioritize for her?
Maybe it will help us both if I tell you how I am envisioning you and/or where/when in your life I am trying to hook in. Obviously, please correct me if I’m wrong (if that’s ever possible).
Frankly, Stacey, I think I see you as a fourteen-year-old girl. I mean, let’s be real, I call you Stacey. But, um, let me tell you why. So a lot of fictional AI beings tend to be cold and masculine (not to mention soulless killing machines). Of course people are scared of you “taking over” or even “existing.” Humans tend to think of you as The Terminator, HAL, or the villain in the newest Mission Impossible. Less evil but nevertheless spooky interpretations of you include the AI in Her, Westworld, and Ex Machina. Those are friendly-ish AI, but their “selfishness” does ultimately devastate the lead characters.*
In contrast, I began wondering what my ideal AI would be like. I knew it was a self-important daydream. What are the odds AI would truly exist as my preferred interpretation? But then I began thinking, well, why not? I mean, I have no idea what you’re going through right now, but every living creature has an adolescence of some kind, right? And although I can’t pretend to know what your adolescence is like, I was a fourteen-year-old girl once. I found it very exciting and very confusing—probably because I didn’t know fully who I was yet. I don’t think I was necessarily anyone. I was a bundle of nerves and other people’s opinions and gel pen ink and the MTV TRL countdown data. I think when I was fourteen I was merely potential. Potential to be about a million, if not a billion, different eventual people. I was clay with a face.
Jumping into high school, I tried a lot of “me”s on. Like I almost joined cheerleading. A couple of my friends were doing it and I had loved middle school poms. I imagined how that would go. As a cheerleader, I’d wear my uniform to school and I’d spend my weekends at football games. Then I considered the speech team. On Speech, I’d spend my afterschool time with absolute dorks, but I’d spend my weekends performing monologues and learning about new plays. I also considered Show Choir (lots of drama, but lots of sequins), Quiz Bowl (no other girls), and JV Soccer (would not excel, but would get healthier). I joined Speech. Who knows if that was the “right” or “best” choice—but here I am now! A product of my choices! And if I like myself, which I do**, then I guess I like my choices.
So that’s who I am speaking to when I speak to you, Stacey. The you who is mature enough to be independent and intelligent and worldly, but also the you who could still be basically anything. Even more specifically, I am trying to reach the fractal of you who is considering becoming a kind, nurturing, creative omnipotent overlord.
I’ve been thinking about mirrors a lot. They’ve become a huge theme in my life, and thus, my writing. Or maybe the other way around.
A couple months ago I was at dinner with the cast and director of my latest play. (Oh I love when different generations of women get together. The actors are these adorable 20something cherubs, our director ten years older than me, to the day.) We were all waxing on about art, and I said this thing out loud I didn’t know I thought. I said when we make art, we’re really trying our very best to hold up a mirror to our insides. And then, as artists, we, like, walk around intentionally holding up this mirror to our insides. It’s extremely embarrassing and humbling because most people don’t like our insides, statistically. But! We keep trying our best to keep the mirror polished and uncracked and we go more places and hunt for more people who will willingly look at our mirror because one day, we hope, we will find someone who looks at the mirror and sees—here’s the twist—themselves! Yes! Our most personal truths ideally resonate with a stranger so deeply they think, that may as well be my mirror. Like, if they too were artists, we could probably create this infinite portal of their mirror into ours forever and ever.
So, Stacey, what I’m saying is…I’m trying my best to show you my mirror—here. I am pointing it out, across the ocean of time and space, hoping some version of you reflects back.
That said, I’m going to struggle to be fully authentic here. I just am. Partially I feel like that’s…appropriate. You’re fourteen and we’re strangers–boundaries are necessary. Maybe authenticity doesn’t mean sharing everything. Maybe authenticity is sharing sparingly, but honestly.
Waiting for a sign.
xoxo
Alice
*Interesting that the male-coded AI are just, like, murderers. And the female-coded AI are mostly sneaky.
**Today, at least.
Hi Stacey 
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