In the way

I was texting with my best friend. Her mum has cancer, and my friend is going through the brutality of watching it take her piece by piece, just as I did with my own mum 13 years ago.

I was thinking about how to respond to the latest message, too personal to relay here, when a suggested reply, animated in glowing colours to let me know it was “intelligent” popped up: Hang in there!

My thought process was immediately broken as I contemplated what an absolutely obscene thing it would be to send in that moment.

This sums up my experience of companies and products trying to inject AI in to the products I use to communicate with other people. It’s always just in the way, making stupid suggestions. How could it possibly come up with a better thing to say when it is completely devoid of the context: the relationship I have with the person I’m writing something to. 2, 10, or 23 years of friendship. 9 years of working together. 36 years of being sisters. The audacity of the Product Designers! To think a text-predicting machine would be helpful outside of any situation other than generating some slop or business blathering.

What was already a tough moment, was somehow made worse, by what is supposed to be a messaging utility. Good job everyone.