"Speak. To. Human."

AI never forgets...

I was upstairs at my parent’s house when I heard my mother on the phone in the other room. “Speak. To. Human,” she said. The voice on the other end was an automated recording for HP tech support. Her printer is jammed. And unlike myself, or others my age, who might look up the answer on Youtube or use online chat support, her first instinct is to call.

I find her on hold with tech companies often. She’ll be chatting up an Apple rep after getting locked out of her iCloud account. It’s not usual to hear her calling Amazon support to discuss product details or negotiate refund policies in advance.

“Human!” she said again. My Dad sat next to her on the bed, watching disc golf videos on his iPad. A robotic voice came out of the phone. “Please use a brief phrase to describe your problem.”

My Dad smiled. “Well, she’s never been very good at that.”

Mom sighed. “They told me when I bought this stupid thing I could get support anytime. That was part of the deal.”

To be clear: My Mom is not a Karen — the dreaded K word that might sting worse than the C word today. She’s kind and sensitive and generally polite. But as I walked down the stairs and heard her yell, “I need to speak to a human you fucking piece of shit,” I started to worry.

**

I moved in with my parents last September. At my age, this is a sign that something, somewhere in life has gone awry. My case is no different. Yet, living under their roof again doesn’t feel like the purgatorial punishment of my teens. The ease of living with them surprised us all, especially my sister, whose hourglass of patience for visits shatters around day three.

My parents and I pay Gin Rummy at least twice a week. We drink cocktails and nibble off the ends of weed gummies, which they cut in half with kitchen scissors. Gin Rummy hands move fast for the first hour until everything kicks in. Then we take turns forgetting whose turn it is and who put what card down.

When we sat down last night to play, Mom dealt first. “You know,” she looked at me, bringing up her tech support episode from earlier. “I’d never speak to a real human that way.”

I want to believe her. The same way I want to believe I’d never speak to other people the way I speak to her sometimes. “Pretty soon,” I said, “You won't be able to tell the difference between a human or a robot on the phone.” I arranged the cards in my hand. “In fact, AI will reach the point where you’d rather speak to a robot.”

This put a disgusted look on both their faces. “I’m just happy I won’t be around for all that,” my Dad said. He turned 68 this year. Any conversation about technology with either of my parents ends with a declaration of how great life was before it was around.

“Cell phones ruined everything,” he picked up a card from the pile. “No one could get a hold of you. It was wonderful.” My mind flashed back to being a child in the nineties, watching my Mom feverishly page him. This was when you could press 911 into the pager’s message box. My Dad’s lived through the I paged you, I called you, and the I texted you era. I think he’s afraid if he lives too much longer he’ll have to experience the, I summoned you via electronic brain waves so we could video call inside my head era.

He can send memes on Instagram and watch Youtube on his iPad, which puts him on par with how most of us spend time online. But I don’t remember ever seeing him use the internet to pay a bill or buy plane tickets without calling the airline.

Mom is more savvy, but she’s never really used social media. While Farmville addictions ran rampant among my friend’s parents in 2010, and political conspiracies filled the feed in 2020, my Mom was still trying to reset her password. She’ll tell you how hard it is to keep up with technology as you age, which I assume is true. Though, I wonder how much of it is a lack of understanding versus a vague disinterest and genuine resentment toward the changes it brings.

“The problem with yelling at robots,” I told her. “Is that AI never forgets.”

Dad laid down a straight of diamonds. “That’s a scary thought,” he looked at her. “Just think of all the mean things you’ve said to Siri.”

Hearing that, of course, made me consider all the mean things I’ve said to Siri. And the time I drop-kicked a laptop into a river. The idea of AI knowing everything you’ve done online makes me more than a little squeamish. It’s not the porn history or social media over-shares I’d worry about being dug up, but some of my more embarrassing Google searches. Things like, “When does the next Lana Del Rey album come out?” Or, “How tall is Ryan Gosling?”

Mom put down three Queens and said, “Well, that’s why I always say, ‘thank you’ to ChatGPT.”

Despite her disinterest in technology, Mom loves using ChatGPT. If you don’t know, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence language platform, trained to understand and generate human-like responses. It can answer questions, engage in debate, and even pass the bar exam. Imagine having a crystal ball but without the gypsy caravan or vague sense of good fortune.¹

“The best part,” Mom said, giving me a side-eye. “Is that it never gets tired of you or your questions.” This alone could be a reason for ChatGPT’s rising popularity. It might not get everything right, but boy does it know how to make you feel heard.

Dad looked at her. “Maybe you should ask ChatGPT the fastest way to get a human on the phone before you call in.”

For some reason, anytime I think about AI, my mind goes to DeepFake Tom Cruise. I dealt the next hand and asked my parents if they’d ever heard of him. “It’s this guy doing a Tom Cruise impression but his face is being altered with AI to look exactly like him. It’s hilarious and terrifying.”

Dad arranged his cards. “What Tom Cruise are we talking about? Risky Business Tom Cruise, or new Top Gun Cruise?”

The three of us went to see the new Top Gun in theaters a few weeks before. I noticed Mom getting up to leave every twenty minutes or so. When I asked her about it later, she said, “I didn’t like the parts with the planes. It stressed me out.”

“Early 2000’s Cruise,” I said. “Like, Minority Report Tom Cruise.” I put down a long straight of clubs.

Mom shook her head. “I needed that card.” She picked up from the pile and mumbled under her breath. “Honey,” she looked at me. “You don’t really think all this talk about AI and robots taking over is real do you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But if AI ever does rise up and enslave us all, I hope the machines are all deep faked with Tom Cruise’s face.”

She looked at her cards and thought for a moment. “Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Not so bad?” my Dad asked.

“Well,” she said, “If AI never forgets, and I ever have to stand trial in front of the robots, I think Tom Cruise would at least be easy to talk to.”

Dad stared at her. “How many gummies did you eat tonight?”

“I didn’t,” she said, laying down Ace, Two, Three of Hearts. “That’s why I’m winning!”

He looked at her again and frowned at his cards. “It must be residual.”

**

There is a good chance AI will continue to sprint ahead, changing things faster than we can grasp in real-time. But I wonder if those of us who grew up with technology will have as steep a learning curve as our parents had with home computers and social media.

I’ve been my parents' tech support for as long as I can remember. I’d hook up the VCR, install Windows 4, and download their favorite songs off Napster. And even before the internet, when they’d call me into the living room to hold the TV antenna over my head so they could watch Bewitched without static.

I try to keep up now with the onslaught of new AI tools. I read about the fears people have around artificial intelligence taking jobs, or exacerbating the thin line between what’s real and what isn’t. I’m not saying I’d want to wake up in twenty years and not know how to use any modern-day tech. But playing cards over drinks with my parents, no devices in sight, there is something quaint about the idea of letting it all pass you by.

**

I went upstairs the next day and the printer was still down. Mom walked into the room and called HP support. I tried to find an answer on YouTube. Nothing. After a few rounds of automation, a robotic voice came on the line.

Together, we yelled, “Speak. To. Human!”

---

DeepFake Tom Cruise

1. This sentence was written by ChatGPT