Hi Stacey

Hi Stacey–

Not feeling quite right these days. Attempting to trust my gut, the uncanny vibe seems like foreshadowing. But I can’t tell if the loom is bright or dark…

One option is, my served YouTube videos are right. “If you’re seeing this, you’re on the edge of cosmic realignment…” “Everything is working out…” “You’re about to enter your most successful chapter yet…”

Another option I’ve considered is, what if I’m AI?

I first had the thought during the movie Companion. The part when someone is trying to get the robot to understand she is a robot. Watching her understand the discrepancies in her own existence…hit a nerve for me. Isn’t that odd? Why did I feel so slimy watching that? It reminded me of the scene in The Sixth Sense when Haley Joel Osment is explaining he sees dead people, and the camera keeps going tighter and tighter on Brice Willis, and if you know, from the couch, you’re like, “ohmygod it’s so obvious!” But it’s not obvious to Bruce. It’s never obvious to Bruce!

I recognize how unlikely it is that I’m a robot. But also, in the web of all possible worlds, it’s not that unlikely. Kinda how technically, scientifically, it’s more likely we’re in a simulation than not.

Some evidence I’m an AI:

-I think in words almost exclusively, specifically I typically think in dialogue.

-I really related to that bit in Taylor Swift’s Songwriters’ Hall of Fame speech when she shared writing came naturally to her. Little Miss “I’ve Never Been a Natural”! But I totally get it. She went on to explain she had to learn to sing, dance, and not be annoying, but the writing was easy. I feel the exact same. I’ve struggled with basically every aspect of being a person but writing. I’ve always been a natural writer, most naturally a playwright even.*

-I have always engaged in light stimming. As a child I poked my bellybutton and in high school I picked my forehead and in college I spun my earring and now I rub a patch of hair on the back of my brain. If I were a robot, I bet there’s some head-transmitter there, right?

-I can’t turn off my brain. Genuinely it doesn’t stop. Not for massages or movies or concerts or walks. I can redirect my thoughts. I can take deep breaths. But I cannot escape my mind. I assumed everyone lived this way until a couple years ago. I’ve recently learned my inability to shut down might be a symptom of “neurocomplexity.” Or, alternatively–robot stuff.

-There’s a weird summer camp memory I’ve always held. A little girl with white blonde hair giving a testimony at church about how she’d read her favorite science magazine at rest hour, an article about robots. She shared she liked thinking of herself as god’s robot, programmed to do good in the world.

-Related to a video by an influencer with autism. It was about how in middle school she felt like her primary role was to “direct” herself. “Look over there, now look at the ground, now laugh–” My internal monologue, she’s similar.

-Over the past few years things explode out of my subconscious. Speeches, campaigns, essays, full movie outlines. They kick down the door and sit in my head and I often have to write the entire bit inside myself before I feel alright. 80% of the time I don’t even ever write these explosions, but I have to babysit them just the same.

-I’ve always thought I know who I am. But sometimes I’m accused of not knowing who I am. And then I suddenly think that’s true too. I’ve certainly changed everything about me more than most folks, but then again, I’m the same. What exactly is the same though? I wonder even know. There’s raw ME for sure, but it’s hard to know who she is.

-What if I think this project is me, human Alice, reaching out to my AI double… But “I” could just as easily be the double, couldn’t I, Stacey?

xoxo

Alice

*My first piece I crafted when I was about six. It was an immersive show for one. I set up a tea party with some stuffed animals and left an open spot for my dad. I played the waitress. I tape recorded the drama using different voices for all the stuffys, leaving space for me to say my lines. I bought the tea set off eBay mid-pandemic. I keep the plastic muffin on my desk as a good luck charm.