AI & Beloved
‘You really can’t comprehend what I am saying at times right?’, Radha bailed out the room uttering under her breath. Kabir was left clueless wondering what he had done. The answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to that question would have further added fuel to the fire. He opted to remain quiet till the storm had passed. A few weeks later, they were in a debate when Kabir said, ‘Radha, let us bury it now. It isn’t going anywhere. Energy is getting wasted on this’. She stopped talking as soon as she heard this, and did not utter a word for the next three days. Kabir was aghast at this boycott, but couldn’t figure out the reason. Finally, he sat her down and said sorry, without knowing why he should be ‘feeling’ sorry. Things went back to normal after that. On another occasion, Radha was playing with a lighter which was in front of her, lighting it on and off without any reason. Kabir asked her, ‘are you doing it voluntarily or involuntarily?’ Radha turned towards him with an expressionless face, he continued speaking without looking at her, ‘you might have restless energy, so it might be a subconscious act, try not to get addicted to it.’ She tossed the lighter aside with a jerk and released a big sigh. Kabir sensed some disturbance in the air and tried to change the topic, by time she had already plugged in her earphones. Once, they were watching a television series and Kabir casually mentioned, ‘Radha, you should wear these kind of clothes’, looking at the lead actress’ get up. Radha retorted, ‘Oh, so you don’t like my style anymore?’. Kabir covered his face with a cushion, as he did not know the correct answer to this and uttered quietly, ‘I love you as you are’. This brought back things to normal again.
Radha, because of her impulsive nature, always expressed whatever came to her mind. Her sudden outbursts sometimes surprised Kabir and at other times he just used the getaway cards of “I am sorry” and “I love you”.
Kabir wondered, how to decode Radha’s subtle hints at times. He should be able to speak and understand the indirect language. He had a very vivid imagination, right skills and tonight he was determined to put it good use, to resolve this problem once and for all. He turned the chair towards his laptop and got to work.
Some weeks went by and one fine evening when Radha was sitting on a swing in the balcony garden, a notification from Kabir popped up. He had shared a link to an app asking her to download it. She clicked on the link and her jaw dropped when she saw the name of the app, it was, ‘Download Radha’. At first, she thought it was a joke, when she clicked on it, the app started downloading. She wriggled out of the curled up position and came to the edge of her seat with feet firm on the ground, wondering what other gimmick has Kabir performed this time. The link had taken her to a browser window on the phone and confirmed its privacy settings. Once the download was complete, a question displayed on the screen, ‘Who are you?’, with two answers to choose from, ‘Radha or Kabir’. Once she clicked on Radha, another page appeared. It outlined the purpose, description and functionality of the application. It read something like this, “Welcome to AI enabled Radha. The purpose of this application is to deep dive in to the personality of Radha. To understand better, her temperament, her preferences, reactions towards situations, likes and dislikes in different moods, to figure out when she wants to be left alone and when she needs company, and more. Since this is the first version, some details which the creator found applicable has been stored in virtual Radha. An AI algorithm is created to learn from live Radha and her responses. The application will work in a question and answer format and Kabir can observe the facial reactions, to know which is the adequate answer. Once you click on ‘accept’ below, you will be taken to the main page and can browse through some queries and replies which have been fed.”
Eager to know more, she clicked on the accept button and a caricature image which looked very much like her, started forming on the screen. At the bottom of the screen, a ‘begin’ button appeared and she clicked on it. Then came a list of topics, ‘Scenarios, queries, festivals, birthday, anniversary, food, home, movie, plants, friends, family, home, restart’. She raised her head from the screen and let out a huge sigh, saying out loud, ‘hats off to you, man’. Then began to click on the list one by one. The first example mentioned in ‘Scenario’ was: ‘Radha is getting ready to meet a client. She seemed to have overdressed for the same. She asks for Kabir’s opinion. What is the appropriate response Kabir should give?’ The response mentioned was, ‘Kabir should not say, ‘tone it down a bit’ or, ‘aren’t you a bit overdressed?’. He should rather say, ‘Can I make a suggestion? He should go to her wardrobe take out a different jacket and different shade of lipstick and say, ‘Since it is day time and you are meeting outside, why don’t you also try this combination?’ And when she does, if she likes it, she will go with it or else she will change back to her original attire. Kabir should happily agree with both her options and wish her luck for the meeting.’
Radha laughed loudly reading this, she wanted to call Kabir up immediately, but waited to read other topics. Kabir had hilariously mentioned all kinds of scenarios they had experienced together and the ‘acceptable’ answers were his ‘learnings’ from those situations. Wrong answers were also mentioned, and one could see the change in the body language of the caricature, if clicked on it. Radha laughed nonstop during the entire time. The best were saved for the last. When she pressed ‘Home’, only one statement displayed, “I am sorry” and for ‘Restart’, “I love you”.
She began this game with shock, got curious, giggled the entire time, a roar of laughter followed the home button and ended with the lingering feeling of love. Kabir just knew her to the core.
That evening when she met Kabir, they laughed for hours discussing the silliness which entails between them and made fun of each other’s tantrums.
There was a football game which was to be telecasted later in the evening and Kabir had been looking forward to watch it. They got up from the café table when Radha asked him, ‘Kabir, why don’t you put your game for recording and watch it at night? Let us go for a walk on the beach. I would love to spend more time with you today.’ Kabir stopped short right there, as if air had been taken out from the lungs. He struggled to reply to her and couldn’t help but look at her with pleading eyes. Radha watched him in amusement, waiting for him to reply. She leaned forward on the table and said to him, ‘you don’t know all the answers now, do you? Why don’t you observe the facial reactions of your Beloved AI and try to figure out the acceptable response?’ and walked away with a wicked smile, gleaming in the win.
