Salt Touched

When I was a kid we had a dog. Sweetest dog ever. We had “inherited” her from a relative who had moved and we loved her dearly. But she had one upsetting quirk – upsetting not because of the quirk itself but because of what it said about how she had probably been treated – if you picked up a broom, she would scurry into a corner and just…look at you. Scared. So obviously scared. We don’t know what happened to make that dog scared of brooms, but something obviously did.

It’s odd how easy it is to develop a “broomstick complex”, whether or not you happen to be a puppy. I suppose I should know, somewhere along the line of working on ships – probably in the last few years when the librarian job got hard – I developed one. I have mostly conquered it now, but even so, if someone takes a certain tone or attitude with me, my stomach will clench, my heart will race and I will start to physically shake. It’s part anger I’ll admit, and the desire to control that anger, but it’s mostly fear…the same complex that drove that dog into the corner at the sight of a broom

I will say whatever you want me to say, if you will please just not hurt me, please just don’t yell at me.

I’m not used to this surfacing in my current job. I’m in an extremely positive environment, my students laugh with me, chat with me, heck they show me pictures of their pets and their kids and give me photos they took of the Neptune ceremony…and so in the past year I’ve come to believe that I had pretty much set my broomstick complex aside. But these things are a deep down intrinsict part of us, and that makes them hard to conquer.

The student who came in to class today and touched off this circumstance did so a full half hour late, which is to say that the class was in wrap up mode anyway, as they only tend to run 45 minutes even when I’ve got a packed house, and  had only had a handful of regulars in this particular session. Normally when people come in late they do so quietly and take a seat at the back of the room, I knew something was off with this gentleman right away because he came in very loudly (the door doesn’t naturally make a lot of noise when it closes unless you tug it shut with a fair amount of force, which he did) and made a big show of finding a seat at the front – which disrupted and disturbed the rest of the students, but we managed to hold the train of thought and I just kept going as if I hadn’t noticed anything. Looking back, perhaps that may have been a mistake.

I wrap up the section of the class I had been covering (it’s an overview class, and I make a point as I go along of telling people that they can come back to the more in depth classes on the individual features if they’re interesting in knowing more specifics about them, and at this point most of the students have been to those classes already so the overview classes move at a nice brisk pace), and I pause to check if there are any questions on what I’ve just covered.

Note: at this point,  I have already covered the section on the operating systems digital assistant feature before the person in question arrived, that piece of the class had already been wrapped, I had mentioned it briefly again in the context of something else entirely, but the subject was known to pretty much be closed…

At which point the new fellow, who had been sitting there with his arms folded since he arrived, puts up his hand. As is my job, I call on him…and he proceeds to ask me a very specific question regarding the digital assistant feature and “her” depth of knowledge, I flounder a bit as the wording of the question threw me and I wasn’t quite sure what he was asking, he clarifies – in an already rather aggressive tone – with a specific example question that he wants to know whether or not the assistant in question can answer.

I dutifully pose the question to the program, with the qualifier that it will probably produce a web search as a response as that is what “she” will do when “she” doesn’t have a built in response. Much to my relief, the program actually goes one step further and in fact does produce a word for word encyclopedic answer to his query. A totally accurate one I might add. His response:

That’s not correct.

I’m sorry sir?

That’s not right. So there’s no artificial intelligence here

Well that’s not exactly true sir, she is A.I, but she’s not that type of A.I…she’s intended to perform basic tasks and use the internet to answer basic questions. She doesn’t have a brain of any kind..

It’s not about a brain, it’s about consciousness

Um, no sir I’m afraid she can’t provide consciousness in that sense…that’s not what she’s designed to…

And he interrupts me

So there’s a limitation

I need to make it very clear that he made that statement. That the rest of the class heard him say it. Because what happened next was that he denied having said any such thing, denied having ever said anything to do with “limited”, he proceeded to double talk back to me, and change the question he was asking every time he asked it and I attempted to answer. I will admit that never once did he raise his voice, but the underlying aggression in his tone was enough to kick me into being severely shaken up. A little too late I realized that this fellow had likely come in seeking some kind of a confrontation, although for what reason I have no idea. In trying to probe for what he was actually asking, and get some sense of what on earth he was actually talking about, I even went so far as to ask the rest of the class if they had heard what I had, but they were all as shocked as I was, and he wouldn’t let go, he wouldn’t stop. In a somewhat desperate attempt to at least shut down the conversation and move on, I even went so far as to go with the following

I’m sorry sir, no we’re not to the level you seem to be asking for, I mean she’s not the holodeck

The holodeck didn’t have it either..

I…am exaggerating for the point of a story sir..

That was the only thing I could think of to say, because at this point this is bordering on the bizarre. Not to mention the fact that he’s wrong: mess with me on many things, but not on all things geek. I may not be a pure blood Trekkie, my knowledge of the series is limited, but even I can name you a few episodes where the AI involved in the holodeck got out of control, not to mention that in Next Gen the Doctor is programmed with the same type of technology that the Holodeck has and I dare anyone to say that he doesn’t have a consciousness. But I didn’t’ say any of that the alarms bells blaring in my head were too loud. What I did say was this

I’m really sorry sir, but I’m afraid I just don’t understand your question, exactly what is it you’re trying to ask?

Thank you! You don’t know. You just don’t know.

I would very much like to help you though sir, if you could just clarify what it is you’re trying to ask

No, you just don’t know.

And the tone in which he said it *very* clearly said “why didn’t you just say you didn’t know in the first place, you’re obviously incompetent”…and it didn’t take a genius to read that tone. The whole class could read that tone.

Thoroughly shaken up, and upset with myself for being so, I managed to close that conversation and ask if there were any other questions. There weren’t. So I began my wrap up, and a few minutes into that, he gets up and stalks out, having not uttered another word, but with total distain written in every muscle in his body. I waited for the door to close, took a very deep breath, looked at the rest of the class, who looked back at me

I…am really not sure what just happened there. I am sorry about that.

You have nothing to be sorry for! You handled that much better than I would have! Etc etc…

They all looked just as completely baffled by the situation as I had been. But I was shaken enough that my train of thought wouldn’t re-center, I had to cut my wrap up short, leaving out much of what I would normally say (grateful for the fact that they had heard the whole thing before), before giving them their paperwork and stepping aside to make the phone call to my boss to explain what had happened, because I know the attitude of people like this, he will probably complain and my words will be twisted so that it sounds like I truly was rude and incompetent. A few of my other students stayed behind to vouch for me…which is always nice..

But I find myself surprised that things like this still shake me as much as they do…and I wish I knew why, because I am so confident and difficult to shake in other areas. It was just something about the tone of his voice…and the way he looked at me…

If you need me, I’ll be in my cave…

I’ve been doing an unexpected amount of soul searching as of late. Not exactly on purpose, just kind of by accident. I’m feeling better for it as a matter of fact. Memories are odd things, we cling to them sometimes  a bit too much. In this electronic age, it is so easy to keep ever y single little thing, every letter every number, every…stupid meme. Things that mean absolutely nothing suddenly become indescribably important and things that actually are important just get lost in the shuffle…

So in an effort to find the real memories that I want and need to keep, I’ve found myself getting rid of many of the others. Virtually and digitally speaking that is. I’ve cut back heavily on my use of social media, paring down the content of my account to almost nothing, cutting back my ‘friends’ list to contain only actual friends and relatives (and only relatives that I actually speak to, or that speak to me). I’ve trashed most of my email, done away with most of my subscriptions, gone back to drafting everything for the blog on paper first (and posting only small portions of it), and am investing in an inexpensive wrist watch to avoid having to constantly handle and rely on my phone just to keep time.

This has been a wonderful and remarkably decontaminating  process. Every time I hit the “delete” button on something, I feel a little tie to something insignificant slip away. And none of it is important, I keep the important stuff elsewhere, but I realized I had fallen victim to a strange kind of virtual hording, I was keeping everything and if you keep everything, you end up in some ways valuing nothing.

Perhaps I have just become more conscious of decluttering my life, or perhaps it’s just that I really don’t like being so incredibly reliant on technology, which is odd I know considering what I do for a living…but I prefer these days to live in the real world, a world of real pages and fresh flowers and actual sunshine…of phone calls instead of emails and texture instead of pixels…it’s not a pride thing it’s just…reconnecting without “plugging in”…

Memories…are strange things.