Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

On a long drive through upstate New York, I ran out of podcasts, six hours in. So, I asked Siri to tell me a joke. She said, “Why did the meatball tell the spaghetti to go to sleep?” Then answered, “It was pasta bedtime.” I thanked Siri for keeping me company…then became self-conscious about speaking to an artificial being.

But, so much interaction these days involves talking to virtual assistants. If, for example, I go to purchase an Amtrak train ticket, I converse with “Julie,” whose friendliness is, let’s admit, disarming. This next generation of assistants possesses a warmth that makes the real world seem bereft of courtesy. They say things like “Let me help you with that” or “Just a sec, I’m transferring you to a human agent,” which builds my trust in AI-powered people.

It makes me convinced of their essential function, as convinced as the woman in Ohio who discovered her online friend in a chat group for moms was actually a bot. I see a place in our society for these faux human beings. Unfortunately though, they are taking both jobs and person-to-person interactions. I miss my local bank teller; she never rushed my transactions and always inquired about my family.

Today’s poem recognizes the possibilities and limitations of a world of digital avatars.

Something
by Andrea Cohen

Something went wrong.
That’s what the machine 
says when I call to say
my paper didn’t arrive.
Machines are trained 
by people, so they’re 
smart, they know a thing
or fifty trillion. Did you miss
your Sunday delivery?
it asks. I did, I say. I 
miss everything, I say,
because it’s a machine and 
it has to listen, or at least
it has to not hang up
without trying to understand
why I called, which means
trying to correct what 
went wrong. Let me
see if I got this right,
the voice says, you missed
your Sunday paper?
Yes, I say, but also
I miss my childhood
and fairy tales,
like Eden. I miss
sweet Rob Roys
with strangers,
I miss fabric
softener and soft
lighting. I’m sorry,
the machine says. I’m 
having trouble understanding.
Did you miss today’s paper?
Yes, I say, but that’s not
the half of it. Sometimes
I just feel like half
of me, and even that 
feels like too much. I’m 
having trouble understanding, 
the machine repeats, its
syllables halted, as if
trying to mimic an empath.
I’m having trouble understanding
too, I say. I used to understand 
so much: photosynthesis, the 
human heart, I’d even
memorized the Krebs cycle,
but now all I remember
is lifting the golden coil
of the kitchen phone to maneuver
under my mother’s conversations.
It was like lifting
the horizon. There’s
a silence, and the machine
asks: Are you still there? In
a few words, please describe
your issue. Where do I begin
being a minimalist? Time,
I say, I’ve got a problem 
with that. Also, loss, and
attachment. That’s pretty
much it, and the news in its sky-
blue sleeve is meant to be
a distraction, isn’t it? I ask.
More silence, and then:
You miss your mother?
a voice asks. It’s 
a human voice. 
Me too, she says.

"Something” by Andrea Cohen from THE SORROW APARTMENTS © 2024 Andrea Cohen. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.