I let Apple AI answer all my texts
And everyone stopped talking to me.
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Ok. —Kate
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Ever since I got my new phone, I’ve been having to whack-a-mole a slew of new AI features that came pre-loaded into my device, U2 album-style. I’ve turned off Siri (rip) and opted out of “prioritizing” my email (PR pitches were being classified as urgent messages I needed to get back to), but no matter how thorough I think I’ve been, another feature pops up. If Apple is so insistent that I use AI to streamline my phone use, I thought, should I take a page out of Mel Robbins’ possibly-plagiarized book and “let them”?
I decided on an experiment: For a few days, I would not only tolerate but enthusiastically embrace one of these new features. As I’ve written before, I am terrible at responding to texts. First I feel overwhelmed by messages and then guilty for not responding right away, which means it often takes days for me to get back to people who’ve asked me simple questions. If I embraced Apple’s AI suggested replies feature, however, there was a possibility I’d defeat this bad habit. After all, I’m hearing so much about how incredible and sophisticated AI technology has become. Maybe this wouldn’t be like before. Maybe this would be the beginning of a whole new me.
In many ways, it was. Except this new me wasn’t affable and communicative. She was vague, confused, and sometimes downright rude.
“Power walking there now,” my friend texted me on her way to the movies. “Thought I could use the bus but no there’s some bike race. Need the wind to help blow me there.”
