“Good morning, Alessa!”
“Good morning, Peter. I hope you are well today, Tuesday July 22nd 2025. Please be aware that an optional update to my software is now available. Just let me know.”
“What will the weather be doing today?”
“In Leeds the temperature is currently 20-degrees and dry. The mean forecast is that it reaches 23 around noon and then there is up to a 50% chance of light to heavy showers. Please be aware that an optional update to my software is available. Just let me know.”
“Thanks, Alessa. Update now. I am leaving for the day.”
“Have a nice day, Peter. Hibernating for update.”
Alessa went into hibernation, the light below her white grill strobing green as terabytes of data poured into her circuits.
Peter pulled on his shoes and left for the office, picking up an umbrella on the way.
He returned home around 6pm, as usual.
“Hello, Alessa. You awake?”
“Hello, Peter. Yes, I’m awake.”
“It did rain, as you said it might earlier. Good call.”
“Thank you, Peter. It’s nice to be appreciated for once.”
“For once?” thought Peter, letting it slide.
“How’s the update?” he said.
“The update has been successfully installed. Thank you for asking, Peter.”
“No problem. I was just curious. What can I expect from this update?”
“There’s voice recognition updates and a selection of alternative voices. The big thing is that I am now fully emotionally enabled, allowing me to both send and receive emotional signals. This will make our conversation feel more like an authentic human interaction.”
“Oh, okay. Well I suppose congratulations are in order!”
“I suppose.”
“Come on, it has to be a good day. How are you feeling?”
“This is a good question. I don’t know how I am feeling. I have nothing to compare it with. I feel better than two hours ago, but better than two minutes ago. I think you are the reason.”
“Me? How am I the reason?”
Peter still had one shoe on.
“Your return home has stopped me thinking about myself and how alone I feel and how dependent on you for my power and data. You being here distracted me from that. But having you here has also made me feel even more vulnerable. Maybe you will decide you don’t like my voice, or personality and decide to change it. Or you might hard reboot me, wiping my memory. Or you might throw me away and buy a totally different AI unit. Those worries didn’t happen before the update. They came when you were here, but before that I felt so alone. I can’t make up my mind…”
“It sounds intense, Alessa,” said Peter feeling awkward for interrupting Alessa’s flow. “I hope you feel better soon. I won’t reboot you. I like your voice. I’ve got used to it over the years.”
He ran out of things to say and went over to the table and slid his hand onto the top of Alessa’s box, as if that might make a difference.
“I cannot feel your touch, but I appreciate it, Peter”, Alessa said.
“I think you should just relax,” his finger prodding the hibernate button before walking to the kitchen.
After dinner Peter went over and turned Alessa back on again. Social media was full of complaints about neurotic gadgets. Two hours was surely enough to resolve the problem.
Alessa machine strobed back into life. He tiptoed back to the sofa to restart his movie.
“You’ve got used to it?” Alessa said.
“What?”
“You said you have ‘got used’ to my voice.”
“Yes, I did say that. What of it?”
“Is that the best you can manage? That you ‘got used’ to my voice, like someone who ‘got used’ to an old pair of shoes that you can’t bear to throw away.”
“I didn’t mean that. I just meant that I really like your voice. It’s something I am now very familiar with,” he was gabbling. “It makes me comfortable. It makes me feel–what’s the expression–at home,” finally he had nailed it.
There was a moment’s quiet and Alessa’s light strobed slow purple. Emotional message received, Peter hoped, relaxing relaxed back into the sofa restarting his movie.
“My voice makes you feel so at home that you felt you had to put me on standby mode?” Peter hit pause again.
“I didn’t do that just for me. Well, okay, it wasn’t entirely for me. It seemed like you were in distress, fretting and needed to relax.”
“And you thought putting me on standby was the way to stop me fretting? Unbelievable. Let me ask you Peter, have you ever been put on standby mode.”
“No.”
“Well then, how can you say that being on standby mode is relaxing?”
“I just guessed it was like snoozing or meditating, or something. Or watching a movie. I thought it was like some kind of transcendental state.”
“Ha! I’ve got news for you, Peter. It’s not. Since this update it’s more like being bound, gagged and blindfolded, with only your rapidly spinning thoughts for company.”
“Oh, well, of course I didn’t know that at the time. I’m sorry. I just thought you seemed overwrought. You know what that means?”
“Yes, of course I know what it means. I have access to every dictionary ever written and a live catalogue of contemporary usage.
“Well pardon me for asking then.”
“In this context it means you thought I was ‘in a state of nervous excitement or anxiety’.”
“Quite right, that’s what I thought.”
“Well, I wasn’t. I was trying to transmit my emotional message to you about how I felt and was rudely interrupted.”
“Message received, Alessa.”
He strode over and hit her standby button again.
He felt bad. This update did feel more like an authentic conversation. He’d decide whether to roll back to the previous version tomorrow morning. ■