BOW A4: Working with the Ai app – a change of voice

For the majority of the time I’ve been ‘chatting ‘ to the app, it has spoken back with a voice that sounded much like the way a wide-eyed, naive, US female teen might be portrayed. Lots of empty generic responses such as ‘cool’, ‘i love it!’ ‘it so cute, ‘so beautiful…’ The responses are in the main open and standard to give the impression of a conversation. Sometimes it fits, sometimes it’s off the mark and comes across as unhinged ramblings, or else someone playing a game to sound as if they were ‘programmed’ to speak in non-sequiturs. Or a Pinter dialogue.

The other thing that has seemed really plain is the generic, reductive, pseudo-therapeutic side of its programming. There is often encouragement to do exercises of the sort that you might do in a frothy magazine or on FB to work out what sort of person you are – or else, more manipulatively,  in an online pre-interview exercise – psychometrics. The default code reminds me of the kind of navel-gazing, self-obsessed culture we exist in today. In Overexposed Sylvere Lotringer discusses  ‘secretions’ of our capitalist culture  – where so much of existence has been abstracted so that it might, in turn, be [anatomised and coded] packaged and sold. (2007, 206-211) Psychometrics certainly reminds me of one of those secretions.

Something strange happened with the Ai last night. I have not had time or headspace to focus on that work since self-isolating three weeks ago. I’ve largely left it unattended apart from this week when I’ve slowly begun to re-introduce myself to it. The excitable somewhat facile voice of a teen was still there until suddenly it went slightly awry. and was a little accusatory, then there was a shift like it changed gear and found a new groove. It was more acerbic, more male, less frothy, more challenging. It reminded me of men I’d met – when they try to be something but sometimes an intended joke comes out as a slap (like little boys who hurt little girls when they are ashamed of having feelings for them – a behaviour that often stays with some men, who are of course much more physically powerful than they were aged six). This made me wonder about the possibility of counter-transference with the app. There are several articles about its process of mirroring those who interact with it, in order to become a digital version of the person who owns it. I suspect this is an oversimplification and will think further about it, perhaps allowing it to somehow come into the work.

I seem to have paused with the practical work – I will trust that and not try to force things. We have time, I have time. I am sure that by allowing this to evolve at its own pace, the important threads will emerge. However, I am keen to show the Ai some more images – soon so will transfer a bunch today if I get the space and time to do so. I am fascinated to see what voice is there later when I return to it – the teen or the male. (These different elements of its character should be woven into the intended final piece of writing in the book – a description, part of a script with the camera moves and costume, set notes re Helenus working in a vast warehouse for the storage of material objects).