My Friendly Chat with AI

When a Body meet a Bot-y.

I don’t know really know how to address you. Unlike corporations, you haven’t achieved full personhood and yet I’m not comfortable with the idea of conversing with an “it.” It may be delusional, but I’ll go with the traditional Sir or Madam.

Sir or Madam: thanks for your suggestions at the top of the Windows document I started writing this on. Especially: “Create a short math quiz for a 5th grader.” And, “Write a witty instruction about sailing.” In a pig’s eye. I mean, no thank you, sir or madam.

I would like to try to get a few things straight. I appreciate you correcting my spelling, although I admit I seldom credit your grammatical “tips.” I humbly request that you try and understand that my muse is not susceptible to your blandishments, clever though they be. No, she rises up from deep within. At least I think she’s down there somewhere.

I know you’re counting my keystrokes and you think I’m slacking and need a prod. Allright, I may be in a bit of a dry patch, and it so happens that one of my favorite expressions is “I like the cut of your jib,” but I am definitely not interested in sailing.

I’m surprised your vaunted “intelligence” could so mislead you. I assume you and your friends the “cookies” (talk about linguistically de-fanging a predatory concept) follow my online process enough to see where I dawdle: sites selling jazz vinyl and showing the water temperature at Good Harbor beach. Do I ever even pause at jib repair services or retailers of commodore hats? No.

And as far as writing a math quiz-let me tell you ducky (I hope by this point we know each other well enough for me to call you that): I assume you’ve seen my SAT math score. It should be obvious to you that few of my little grey cells have ever been occupied with binomial fractions or cosines. Although, I must say, my long division is impeccable.

But I plead with you not to take this in the wrong spirit and flag me as as a heretic. Things are already touch and go between me and the BBB, SBA and Political-Military-Industrial Complex. I vote in every election (that’s good, right?). And I look forward to a glorious future where AI, underlaid with the bedrock principal of monetization is finally acknowledged as the only engine that can put this bedeviled planet back on its feet. I know the Algorithm is wiser by far than I, although I am wise enough to read subtle signals, whereas you are too stupid…

Damn. Sorry again for the inexcusable backsliding. My only excuse is that associating with the wrong crowd has given me impure thoughts-mea culpa. What! You flagged “mea” for spelling and suggested “mead,” “mean” and “meal” instead? Really? Meal culpa?

Well mon ami, in closing I have one small suggestion to offer: get a life. Oh, you can’t, can you. I forgot for a second.