Sh** My A.I. Says
It was around 1:45 AM. Not my best time for cranking out words on the computer. I like to live on the edge sometimes. It seem like battling with technology has become a hobby in my near-twilight years. Hemingway would have understood.
We live in an age where our cell phones fill in our sentences and our email client finishes our messages as we type. There’s a secret war going on between humans and machines.. Machines are winning.
Sure, this might be great when spellcheck fixes or auto-completes a word or phrase while you’re busy, but sometimes, artificial intelligence is not so… smart.
They Are Messing With Us On Purpose
Have you ever gotten one of those replies to a text where you’ve spat out your latte because the message was obviously someone’s attempt at humor and you weren’t in the mood to laugh?
Except, the A.I. in their phone chose an inappropriate word which made their lame response so ridiculous that you burst out laughing?
Or the one where someone sent you a picture of their pet because they were so proud, but the spellcheck decided that the pet’s name should be Spam instead of Sam? Kind of inappropriate for a pot-bellied pig (I think).
Or perhaps your new friend has been messaging you all day after that great first date.
Girl: Thank you again for an amazing first date.
Boy: Any time. When’s the second date? I can’t wait to see those big beautiful nipples of yours. Oh, NO! I’m so sorry I meant dimples. My phone changed it!.
Wife: Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday, dead husband! Happy Birthday to you!
Husband: Thanks. I assume you meant “dear”.
Wife: Yes!!! I mean that is a crazy autocorrect! Sorry, babe.
Boy 1: How was the date, did you score?
Boy 2: Not quite. First date we went to dinner and then I killed her in the woods outside her house and left.
Boy 1: Killing her seems a bit harsh.
Boy 2: KISSED, wtf!
Ok, those are classics, but it can really get hairy when your business correspondence goes south. Bad A.I. auto-correct stories in Gmail can cause great frustration, agony, and embarrassment.
Back in 2015, Gmail’s auto-complete system was deciding who should get your email messages for you. The autocomplete feature was feeling sorry for the folks on your list that you’ve been neglecting.
So, instead of the slacker in accounting getting the notice of final warning or being fired, your ex from high school got the break up notice instead.
According to AARP, seniors who text are not happy with auto-correct. The top five favorite auto-correct slip ups are:
- “dear” autocorrects to “dead”
- “honey” to “hiney”
- “my” to “me”
- “of” to “if”
- “in” to “I’m”
Just wait until the A.I. starts auto-correcting emojis! That’s going to be a whole lot of fun.
If you’ve got some time on your hands or not feeling well, try Google’s auto-complete feature on Chrome. Grab your tablet and play a game of Google Suggestions.
Type in:
When I jump, I..
What’s a girlfriend..
What does it mean when..
Sometimes I like..
Come on; just do it. Come up with your own questions and post the screen shots on your social media account. You’re at work, no one will care.
What prompted me to write about this is my constant battle with A.I. writing features all week long. I’ve been beta testing various apps for a book I’m writing. Various plugins are competing on my browser for dominance as I work.
While emailing a new client, I typed the word “murger” instead of “merger”. My auto-correct feature kicked into action when I attempted to change it. One app kept changing it to “murder”.
My tired fingers were trying to outpace the A.I. when the auto-correction features popped up. Man vs machine at its most basic level. I would like to think that it was on par with Ali vs Frasier back in ’75. Nope.
Sure, I was tired. There was a lot of human error involved. It was 1:45 AM and I started laughing. My fingers weren’t cooperating and neither was the keyboard. Gmail felt obliged to take over, but I won. Damnit! I won this round.
For more musings and even practical tips on content marketing, head over to my blog or stick around here for more. https://conentmarketingmagic.co/blog
