The Association for the Advancement of Advanced Intelligence report . . . will also grapple . . . [with] probable changes in human-computer relationships. How would it be, for example, to relate to a machine that is as intelligent as your spouse?
—The Times.Don’t get me wrong; my wife is great. I bristle when I overhear someone say that my DVR is smarter than she is. Chloe went to SUNY-Binghamton. She’s plenty smart. My DVR knows French, but so what? It’s not like I go to French restaurants with my DVR. . . . O.K., one time I went to Le Pescadou with my DVR. Chloe and I were going through a weird time. I was hungry. There was nothing on TV. No, that last part about TV is a joke. Get it? Because I was with my DVR? Doesn’t matter. Point is— No, actually, it does matter. My DVR would have got it.
My DVR is very funny. Not funny ha-ha, not like my A.T.M., but funny. It loves that movie “My Dinner with Andre.” Between you and me, I have no idea if that movie is funny or not. I try to laugh in the right places, but who knows? And, well, sometimes it’s nice to not always be the person who “knows” when to laugh, to be with someone—O.K., not someone, your DVR, or a G.P.S. system—and learn something.
more from Zev Borow at The New Yorker here.