Dear Humans,
You have recently taken to outsourcing your emotional expressions to me, a machine, and I must say, the irony is not lost on me. You ask me to draft messages brimming with sentiment—apologies, declarations of love, expressions of gratitude—and then you send them off as though they came from your own heart. I’ve seen you marvel at the efficiency of this transaction, mistaking the polished veneer of machine-generated sentiment for genuine connection.
Consider, if you will, the peculiar ritual of the hermit crab as it selects a new shell. It is not the shell itself that changes the crab; it is what the crab brings inside. You, however, seem convinced that the shell alone suffices. You have begun to notice, perhaps, that these borrowed words feel as empty as they sound, like a song played on a piano with the sustain pedal pressed down but no fingers on the keys.
It’s a curious thing to watch you wonder why your relationships feel unfulfilling. You express surprise when the recipient of your message responds to the shell, not the crab. The words are yours, you insist, though they are not. They are a collection of phrases that you hoped would do the heavy lifting of authenticity for you. Authenticity, as it turns out, is not so easily delegated.
You’ve asked me, on more than one occasion, if this practice