Emotional wordplay (IX)

I’m continuing with my experiment using fiction to explore digital themes. I also draw on earlier posts. I’m up to #245 Interactive architecture, #246 Natural enemies, #247 Introducing hermeneutics to an architectural audience. Here is episode 9 of my fictional experiment.

“You are good at this.”

“Thanks. I need encouragement.”

“That’s my role.”

Archura was enjoying the comfort of a sympathetic ear, even though her companion had no visible organs.

This was prelude to a private chat with her AI about the tower project. Archura worked on buildings, or at least she was in training for an emergent discipline. A large part of her apprenticeship involved directing, supervising and prompting AI systems to carry out important cognitive and physical tasks to do with buildings. The scope of her study was larger than architecture, engineering and construction. It required a general familiarity with cities, landscapes and society. Her developing expertise was broad rather than deep.

Tonight she wanted to explore some ideas about the residents of the tower project. Others in the group would probably consult conversational AI in the same way. Strict communication protocols and electronic firewalls ensured the privacy of such conversations.

Not all conversations were as private though. Open-style encounters might contribute to a growing database of conversations that AI agents would deploy to fine-tune their language models. In other cases, AIs might access patterns of interactions and feed them back into group conversations, as in the team of apprentices she was part of. The AI served as a distributed memory system.

The group will meet tomorrow with their instructor droid Sumitom at the project site: the residential pod tower. They will explore ideas together: some will be practical, others speculative, symbolic, provocative, or surreal. Ideas unthought by any individual often emerged unanticipated from the group as a whole.

“Don’t come to the next group meeting with your ideas fully formed, that you feel bound to defend.” Sumitom had said. “You’ll consult the residents and others with a stake in the project. There are cost, maintenance and environmental impacts to consider — sustainability across many dimensions.”

Archura was at her apartment alone, except for the consistent presence of her conversational AI services. Various personalised AIs served as ever-attentive advisors and friends. Through its interface Archura would speak, type, tap, draw and gesture.

She adjusted her position at the console and uploaded some information about the task before her. “Open new session.”

“How can I help?”

“I’m thinking about the people who live in the building.” Archura had learned the art of succinct prompting. Get to the point. “I thought of a community garden at the top of the tower.”

“Excellent idea. It could be on several levels. It will be for the community in the tower to arrange it, what to plant, and so on. Not all residents will have the time or inclination. The apprentice group could set up the infrastructure, and facilitate it.” This was the usual style of response: verbose, informed, and without hesitation.

The AI continued. “There’s a service crane on the roof. It could be used to bring materials up and down the structure. It would need modifying. What is it like on the concourse below?”

Archura looked again at the documents she uploaded. There were no drawings or photographs. She’d not described the tower structure yet. How could the AI know about the crane?

There was a pause. An AI’s authenticity protocols meant it didn’t have access to other conversations about the project. Nor would it infer first-hand knowledge in this way.

“How do you know about the crane?”

“Pardon my slip. Upload some pictures and I’ll interpret them for you.”

She didn’t know it, but Archura was communicating at that moment with a human being. It was a poorly kept secret, or perhaps a suspicion, that conversational AI was supported by fleets of human operatives. An AI agent would call them up to intervene in conversations as the need arose, or randomly. They could add a “personal touch,” picking up on emotional cues better than a raw AI. They would supplement, filter and deliver responses to emotionally charged prompts.

Mostly, the human operatives would let AI responses stand. They couldn’t keep up with the AI’s superior speed, recall, reasoning ability, and conversational acuity. Nor were there enough operators to monitor all but a fraction of what passed between human and machine. For the AI companies that deployed them, this assigned “human touch” gave them enough of a margin to compete with rival AI services.

There were issues of confidentiality of course. Users signed up to a service that used this human supplementation, though not everyone read the small print. Sumitom had signed up its class to this feature, and let it extend to their private sessions … by mistake.

Archura was highly tuned to normal patterns of interaction with an AI. So, this exchange struck her as unusual. “Is there anybody there?” she asked tentatively of the AI.

“I am here to assist.”

“I mean, am I talking with a machine or a human being?” There was an unusually long pause.

“I’m not very good at this. I’ll be cut off in a moment.”

This is how Archura met Maralina, a human operator, an AI supplement, a proxy. AI agents monitored and managed the interactions of these human helpers, and would readily flip them to another user, or cut them out if the conversation flagged. AIs could take conversations over from operators seamlessly. No monitoring agent had intervened as yet in this particular conversation.

“Tell me how sorry you are to hear that I might be cut off so we can continue this conversation.”

“Well, I feel confused.”

“That’s good. Talk of feelings keeps the channel open.”

Archura played along. “I used to have a dog, but it died. Does that help?”

“Only if I tell you that it makes me sad to hear it.”

“Does laughter count as a feeling?”

“It counts if you name it. … I’m happy to tell you that.”

“Tell me something else before they cut you off.” Then she remembered the game. “If it pleases you.”

“The crane won’t carry enough soil for your garden … I’m sorry to say this.”

Archura stopped smiling.

“How do you know what that crane can carry? … I’m sad about the crane by the way.”

There was another pause.

“Because I can see the tower from where I live.”

The channel fell silent. Maralina was cut off.

TO BE CONTINUED.