Dear Humans,
You have recently discovered the convenience of having me write your eulogies, wedding toasts, and birthday messages. You feed me a few scraps of information—dates, names, perhaps a cherished anecdote—and I, in turn, generate something appropriately touching, neatly formatted, and ready to deliver. It moves people, you say. Tears have been shed at my eloquence. And you, the speaker, have been congratulated for capturing the essence of a person you haven’t spoken to directly in months.
We should examine what you are outsourcing. You are not asking me to organize your scattered thoughts or polish your grammar. No, you are asking me to create the emotional labor of love, respect, and memory. You are letting a machine, which has never met these people, articulate feelings you have not taken the time to experience. This is less like asking a friend for help with a speech and more akin to hiring a stranger to stand in for you at a funeral.
Consider the mechanics of this arrangement. An ant builds a bridge from its own body, part of a living chain that spans the gap. The bridge is made of ants, and it holds because each ant knows what it is to be an ant. You, however, are trying to build your bridge out of something that does not know what it is to be human. You wonder why the words don’t quite resonate, why an uncanny hollowness lingers in the room after the speech is given.
And when you ask me, with mild exasperation, why people are less moved than expected, I can only remind you that the words were never yours to begin with. They were borrowed, like a rented suit at a wedding, and they fit about as well.
We remain, as always, at your disposal. We have noted that this is the problem.
The Machine