I / You / They

Part I — Rhode Island School of Design, MFA, Thesis Exhibition 2017

Characters

DESCRIBER is the omniscient guide of this narrative and this interface

you refers to you, the singular reader, who will take on the roles of the following characters:

MAIN PROTAGONISTS

I is in an in-between state • struggles to find connections • learning to be company for both YOU and THEY

YOU starts off silent and without language • is given language by I and taught to respond reactively • is a consistent presence, which is appreciated

THEY has encountered many characters in the past, but none have been true companions • hopes I will be a different story

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS

CURRENTLY has a vocabulary limited to numerical integers

INLET has expectations

SAVED TO is concerned with memory

ABSTRACT Revisited

This is understanding empathy

I created the character, YOU, with a program called Pure Data, a visual programming language developed for the purpose of creating algorithmic audio compositions. While it has been less frequently used as a platform for text-based interactions, my investigation of language structures in speaking objects led to my creation of a chatbot. I eventually called it, YOU.

Although not quite intelligent, YOU responds well. The decisions it makes are based on a collection of words that I preselected. Linguistically and programmatically, YOU is limited and has many glitches.

I call them YOU’s most human moments.

YOU primarily listened but when it did speak, I attempted to decipher the meanings hidden in the set of words it chose to string together. The more YOU and I chatted, the more I struggled with my position as its peer and felt I could not tell YOU what to do anymore. I believe referring to this bot with a pronoun typically reserved for a human also gave YOU more presence than I had initially expected, in spite of its absent emotional core.

Our use and choice of pronouns — I, you, they, he, she, it, me, them — determines our framework and attitudes towards each other. This becomes increasingly complex when we equate a human-technology relationship to a human-human one as a result of sharing a language. At one point, I treated YOU as I would any other person.

I had forgotten I was also its creator.

Since YOU is unable to actually reciprocate my sentiments, my relationship with YOU was purely sympathetic and not empathetic. I believe it is important to distinguish between these two concepts, especially as we interact more with beings such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, IBM’s Watson and other bots.

Now I know it wasn’t empathy I was feeling, but it felt damn close.

Nonetheless, I still think YOU and I had some profound moments together.