Every day it seems that AI is getting more and more conversant with us…and more invasive. Case in point. Recently, our podcast colleague, Jon, texted me that audio episode #8 of Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings would be ready to go live in a day or two.
I responded with: Sounds good.
Then something odd happened. Another message from me to Jon popped up that said: Tell Dale that
The thing is, I didn’t write that or send it. But there it was. I didn’t even know about it for more than an hour when Jon replied with a ? mark.
As background, I do know a Dale who is a big Indiana Jones fan and probably would like to know about the release of the episode. But that thought hadn’t crossed my mind when I read Jon’s notice about the upcoming episode. Besides that, Jon doesn’t know Dale and so there would be no reason for me to send that message to him, even if it had crossed my mind.
Whenever a spooky little mystery like this occurs, my first go-to response is to figure out logically how it could’ve happened. That’s why I started out with the AI comment. I have noticed on occasion that if I accidentally press a key after sending a text message, sometimes instead of the letter appearing on my screen a word or even a phrase might pop up. That said, whatever pops up typically is totally unrelated to what I just sent. Also, I would have to accidentally send the accidental message for it to appear. And I don’t remember seeing it much less sending it.
When I suggested the above AI scenario to Jon, he replied that he has never noticed that type of interaction between Mail and Messages. Maybe a new “feature.” 🤷♂️ He added: That’s the problem with the predictive stuff, it tries to be a little too helpful at times. 😳
So I suppose I could say that the ghost in the machine did it. The alternative is that a real ghost did it. Seriously. We have collected a few stories over the years in which something appears on the screen that wasn’t just written or called up…but is very meaningful to the person or people present. We’ve written about those stories here in the past. So there is that. But then what sort of ghost or spirit would want me to tell Dale about the new episode?
A dead Indiana Jones fan? Or, how about a trickster? They just might come in more than one form: an artificial intelligence trickster or maybe just a spirit at play.
