About My Cat, AI, and Interacting with People

I have a rescue cat.  I call her Monica, after my niece.  For those of you who have never had a rescue pet, they can be a challenge.  Monica spent her first two weeks at home under a bed.  I shoved her food and water under the bed, and occasionally got to pet her, if I could reach under the bed far enough.

It took me over a year to connect with Monica.  It took her weeks to venture from the bedroom, and she still wouldn’t let me touch her.  Over the course of several months, she established a couple of favorite places, and I spent hours trying to reach for her to pet her.  All of that is behind us now.

Today, I think I have a special relationship with Monica.  I have not done everything right with her, but I think the outcome is special for both of us.  Whenever I am home, she hops up onto my chair and settles down right beside me.  She’ll stay there for hours.  She (mostly) lets me walk up and pet her.  While she won’t consent to being held, she and I have connected on a level that I could not have imagined when she was under the bed.

Now, let’s talk about human relationships.  They are about three orders or magnitude more complicated than those with a pet.  You don’t know why a pet (especially a cat) does what it does, but you do know that their needs are pretty basic in the grand scheme of things.  You can make an intelligent guess as to those needs.  And with patience, and caring, you can reach a good place.

People are much more complicated.  You have no clue as to what your colleague, your friend, your lover, or your spouse has on their mind at any given moment.  An innocent conversation may evolve into a life’s revelation.  It’s wonderful when this happens.  Or it may devolve into a stinking mess.  And if it does, it’s not their fault, or yours.  It happens, and it’s incumbent on both of you to find the way out.  That way out may not be the desired one, but you simply can’t walk away from it.

Where am I going with this?  iPhone users apparently love Siri, to the extent that they are willing to treat it as a best friend, and even as a therapist.  You may laugh at this, or you may nod in understanding.  But people want to treat Siri as someone to converse with, in a nonthreatening way.

I am sorry.  In the grand scheme of things, an artificial phone assistant is just that.  There is no judgment of you, there is only, as we used to say in psychology, stimulus-response.  The voice from your phone is not your friend, and is certainly not your best friend.

A pet, especially a difficult pet, is kind of the next level up.  I have been told by the rescue shelter woman that some people keep cats for two or three days, and if it’s not what they expect in interactions, they return them to the shelter.

That is wrong, in a fundamental sense.  You take on a serious responsibility with a pet, and to give up on that responsibility after a few days is simply a copout.  No, worse than a copout, a broken promise.  You didn’t really want a pet, a companion; you wanted a fluffy toy to hold.  You have not accepted the shared obligation, that the pet would attempt to be a part of your life, to the best of its ability, and that you would do the same.

Now let’s move on to people.  You can’t return people to the shelter if they don’t interact the way you want them to.  But you can turn away from them.  In a few rare cases, that may be the right choice.

But there is something that brought you to that person to begin with.  It might be work, or leisure, or a shared interest, or affection.  But you can’t turn your back on something you have started.

Sure I can, I hear you say.  I do it all the time.  I meet someone, enjoy talking to them for a time, then move on.  I still text them occasionally, but that’s about it.  I can’t take them face to face.

But people are more than just numbers in your smartphone.  You take on an even more serious responsibility when you interact with another person.  Conversation can be threatening.  But if nothing else, it is cathartic.

How can I summarize this?  Siri is not, and will never be, your friend.  If you think of it as that, you need to rethink your whole life.