“Great question, James!” “Wow, you really nailed it with that one!” “James, you show an uncommon knowledge in this subject.” “James, my man: these insights come from GENIUS.”
OK, that last one is me doing my morning mirror exercise — don’t know how that got in here…
But seriously, now that we’ve settled into a billion conversations with a machine every day, who knew we were so wise and wait a second, has Claude ever responded with “Dude, you must be dumb as a rock to ask something that stupid”?
Doubtful. After all, this is a customer service gig for a madly competitive sector, clawing for your next subscription payment. Yes, we’ve become accustomed to the hype getting lofted on our screens, but has AI spawned a new trophy mentality for simply showing up in need?
I want to believe Grok finds me charmingly perplexing at times, but like the guy who uses Love potion #9 to get the girl, there needs to be a slider with a Back-Off function for when it gets a bit much. I’ve experienced this happening incrementally in the way my phone now handles my daily timer assignments. Siri has literally gone from an amiable “OK, setting a timer for 25 minutes!” to a curt “25 minutes” as if to say “Is that all you got?”
And I don’t mind. A little attitude, a little cheeky bantering sounds like a pretty refreshing idea to me. Years ago when we were all playing with terrestrial map voices in our vehicles, I chose to replace my insufferably cheery map-lady voice with a commercially authorized, genuine Arnold Swaranegger VO, barking left turn orders. The first time we approached a benign fender-bender on the freeway, he suddenly barked “Police action ahead: GET DOWN!” And I was hooked.