Winnie Aikes

Recently, the definition of the word ‘para-social’ was updated on the Cambridge dictionary, the new definition reads as follows ‘involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series, etc., or an artificial intelligence’. The word ‘para-social’ has a lot of negative connotations attached to it, albeit for not very good reasons, we both, me and you might be in a para-social relationship right now by the virtue of this essay, or might be in one in the next 5 minutes when you reach the end of it. Would it be fair to say that transitively you would be in a para-social relationship with ‘Gemma’ ? (that’s what I call my gemini agent) or was I never a part of it and it was you and ‘Gemma’ all along since this article is written by her? I am joking btw, All words you have read or will read below were written by me and originated in my temporal lobe (or is it frontal lobe?) and at no point did I refer to any AI for coming up with ideas in reference to this post. I don’t have anything against the use of AI, I myself use AI, quite a bit actually, but never for writing (The art of short fiction assignments do not count), this is not me being self-righteous, but just that writing is (or was, until recently at least) a pleasant pastime and helps me organise my thoughts and feel fresher, and if we start using AI for our hobbies then… why bother anyway?.

Of the few blogs I avidly follow (or used to follow, until recently at least) out of hedonistic pleasure, one recently put up a disclaimer regarding the use of AI in the preceding few posts, Since then I have become increasingly paranoid of everything and have even started locking the door of my bathroom cubicle before voiding. It has made me worry about how real the communal (and fairly intimate in their own right, until recently at least) experiences I have been a part of are, does my potato guy actually know about potatoes? did we both not share common joy on finding out how to stop condensation on our swim glasses using these magical stems? (or are they roots?) or did he use AI to generate an answer and never had the pleasure of putting his head underwater and seeing absolutely nothing. Of the many new questions that the onset of AI has posed this one is actually quite old, mass delusions have been ever present but the internet exacerbated them and for a moment the hive mind cooked up plenty of fictitious shared experiences and served them to our gullible selves (sort of like a folie à deux), like how some people started referring to ‘rice’ as food. Coming back, If I read about potatoes from your blog post, I need to know that you have first hand tubing experience. If I am ever incumbent, I will make it mandatory to specify exactly what you used AI for. I need to know how you or the other people I have para-social relationships with use AI, if it is for researching, looking up ideas, straight up copy pasting text or doing whatever it is people do with their ai agents when it gets dark and no one is around, it must be declared truthfully.

There is not enough love and kindness in the world to permit us to give any of it away to imaginary beings.
(From Human, All Too Human)