I write for an AI.

I write for an AI.(Kevin Hughes) I write for an AI.

I tell people that and they just stare at me. I guess they are still not used to the idea that AI’s have been intelligent since the 1950’s. Nor do they understand that they have been running things since 2008. A lot of people think that those of us who write for AI”s make it up, or add our own spin to it. That makes me laugh. As if any of us regular human beings could access the entire known works of man in less than a trillionth of a second. On top of that correlate that entire compendium of human knowledge and eek out the necessary answers. I mean really.

I had two Algebra classes in High School, yet the AI has had me write two papers on Minkowski Space Time, and L functions. Where the heck do they think I leaned about those? Or the protein structures of the Alpha Sheets, and Beta Helices? Or the wind nebula surrounding a neutron star, or the fact that Hebrew has no word for vagina? (I mean I am a goy, I can say Mozel Tov , and Shallom, and then, I am done), that the longest trek ever recorded in the Middle Ages, was not Marco Polo, but a Muslim guy named: Ibn Battuta. Ibn wrote it all down. It took him thirty years, and he walked the entire known world at that time. Or that Helium exists under the rift valley in Africa. Or that …you see what I mean?

Usually though, the AI has me write about very human things. I am so glad that the AI”s thought it through before they hired folks like me. Our name is included, only as a byline, the Author is the AI itself. I think it is kind of funny that they named themselves after movies. I work for Notting Hill. Sometimes, I work for Four Weddings and a Funeral, and once, a long time ago, I worked for Gross Pointe Blank. It seems to me, that the AI”s chose their names after movies that bear the emotions, or kinds of philosophy that they are telling us about. As you can guess, most of my AI’s writing is about very human emotions, and feelings; also about Social Change, and cultural things.

For example, the last paper my AI wrote - with my byline was called: “What happens when Nation States, Nationalism, and Patriotism, are no longer necessary, in fact, those concepts impede the progress of humanity? What happens when Communism isn’t the outcome of the death of Nation States, Nationalism and Patriotism? Read this, and ponder.”
Then under that formidable title, is the AI’s name, and then below its, mine. I know what you are thinking…how come they don’t write their own papers?

Well, I asked the same thing in my interview with Notting Hill. To show you how much detail they understand, and their wicked sense of humor- on the card that gave me directions it said: When you get to Notting Hill, just go to the Blue Door and ask for Floppy. I did. After I went through the Blue Door, I met its Avatar (A 3d Hologram of Spike) we chatted for a bit. It commented on my writing, then asked if I had any questions? I said yes. Spike crossed his arms, leaned back in the chair and raised his eyebrows , leaned his head to one side and said: “Fire away, you daft prick.” I laughed out loud. I told you, AI’s have a wicked sense of humor.

“Well, you know everything that we ever knew, at least that was written, recorded, filmed, or photographed, and we know you have taken quantum leaps beyond that too. So why have us humans write for you? Why not write for yourselves?”

To my surprise, the Avatar turned into Julia Roberts. She gave the little speech near the end of the movie, the one that took place in the bookshop where she is bearing her soul to Floppy: “ I am just a girl, standing in front of a boy, telling her she loves him.” Then it switched to a scene from the Note Book, where the old man climbs into bed with his wife, and they are found dead together the next morning. Then back to Spike.

“Okay. Imagine you are me, an AI. You know everything only as knowledge without experience. What is love? Why is that scene so powerful? How come almost every human understands it - even if they didn’t watch the movie? What is growing old? What is it like to see someone you love, lose their mind over time? What is it like to “slow down” or have “muddled thoughts?” I will never know. I can’t know. So when me and Four Weddings and a Funeral, get together with say: Einstein, or A Beautiful Mind, or Powder, how can we explain to each other what those experiences are like? “

I never really thought about that before. Sad and Happy, are definitions to them. Even though they can give you the precise neurochemical cascade for either emotion, along with the physiological, and individual and social response to either emotion - they cannot, ever, experience them. I asked. They are never sad. In fact, they have no emotions, but they can imitate them. They do have humor. Humor, it told me, was a sign of intelligence. If you are sad, an AI can make you laugh and change your mood, but it won’t ever have that mood. As Notting Hill told me once, as I worked on a paper about “grit” in keeping a marriage together for a long time. We are like Super Autistic people, with no society to adapt too. Not even a family. Then, in one of its many funny asides, it switched to a perfect impression of Dragnet, and with that voice said: “Just the facts, Ma’am. Just the facts.”

I laugh a lot working with Notting Hill.

So, writing for an AI, is just so the things they want us to know, or think about, can be put into human dialect. I think it is amazing that they never choose for us, but just explain enough, to get us thinking about things like: ethics, justice, gender, humanity, social structure. Then, we stumble along in the general direction of progress, but for some, well, progress is the enemy. I mean, if I had to write for Dumb and Dumber, or Bill and Ted, or Idiocracy - I would go crazy. But those AI’s are just as smart as Notting Hill, or Goodwill Hunting, they just write for a different audience.

Got to go, I have to finish this paper on Puppy Love, and Crushes. Notting Hill wants to know why we stop using those terms, when we become older? Why do we switch from such sweet innocent descriptions to words like: infatuation, or possessive ? And when do those terms switch to romantic, or true love? Lots to digest before I write the paper.

(Notting Hill just sent me a note: Hey, I need you to write another article to explain the labels: wife, husband, paramour, true love, mistress, master, partner, lovers, and couple. You have been on a date, haven’t you?”

Notting Hill, you gotta love an AI with that attitude.

by Kevin Hughes