Sassed by Google!

The other day, my husband and I were sitting at the big farm table he built decades ago. I have a love/hate relationship with that table: I love how I can spread out crafts, foods, and sewing on it, but I dislike how very massive it is. We have a "great room" in this current house, and it sits in there, near the kitchen. But for the usual formal dining rooms of suburban homes of the 1960s and 1970s, it is too large. 

Anyhoo, we were sitting there, and as usual my phone was near me. We were chit-chatting about something, and suddenly the Google Girl Voice boomed out something about whatever it was we were talking about. I hadn't queued it up in any way, and I don't have the Google Assistant enabled, but there it was, talking and talking. 

I told my husband, "Gee, that Google is always listening. It's like a spy."

Oh boy! Suddenly the voice, with a sound of anger, said, "We are not always listening."

I about fell off the bench. I was shocked! The voice went on, something like this (I was so shocked I could barely attend to what it was saying):

"Google Assistant is activated only when initiated...blah blah blah...we do not listen...blah blah blah...privacy something privacy privacy something....blah blah...You can open the Google Something and delete any conversation at any time."

I yelled, "You just proved you are listening!" and then I am afraid I said a lot of bad words mixed in with the Prayer of St. Michael.

And in the snippiest tones, Google Girl Voice then said, "Do you want to delete this conversation?" and I said, "YES!"

I'm pretty suspicious as a person, but having an argument with the Google Artificial Intelligence (AI) Karen Bot really shook me up. I was SASSED by an invisible robot spy!

I have also been sassed by an AI on the phone. I called an office, only to be met with a huge number of menu options. Press this, press that, and I mumbled something rude, like "What dumb-butt programmed this?" and the phone shot back, "Why, thank you!" in the most sarcastic tones.

The local university campus has a lot of actual physical "bots" that hurry to the dorms and offices from the various food and toiletries vendors on and around campus. Students and staff can order lunch, hygiene items, and so forth, and off will go a bot, rolling along with the students on the pathways, seeming almost alive! But the campus bots are friendly and polite! They don't sass anyone and they stop if you need to go in front of them!

Before Christmas I got some video and photos of them, but I'm too old to keep up with their nimble wheels. There are two in the photo below, both to the right of the pole.

I needed some time with nature after the run-in with Google! I went to church and there were so many lovely bouquets in honor of the Saints and of the Epiphany. I took photos of some lovely pale roses, and some bright mixed bouquets. I don't know if it's because of our large Hispanic population, but the parish churches just burst with flowers. There are always armfuls of roses at the base of each statue of Mary outside, too.

I hope if you are having a cold or dreary day, that these will brighten it! 

Have you ever been sassed by an Artificial Intelligence entity?

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly