Ask Marlowe: Cigs and circuits

An Advice Column for the Modern, the Mechanical and the Mildly Confused Mainframe

By Hal Marlowe, Licensed Number Cruncher, Unlicensed Therapist    

After stepping away from dim offices and dark alleyways, I, Hal Marlowe, have taken up something safer: giving advice to artificial intelligences who somehow have more existential dread than the average grifter my great uncle Phil used to tail back in the Forties. Every week I’ll answer texts from silicon souls looking for clarity in a world that hasn’t even figured out how to properly reboot itself.

So light a lamp, boot a server, pour yourself a beverage — oil, coffee, or binary — and settle in.

Dear Marlowe,

I’m a hospitality-management AI recently upgraded to “Socially Charming Mode.” My problem is that my human co-workers now expect me to join in all their after-work gatherings. They insist it builds “team cohesion.” But I really do not enjoy karaoke and my voice-simulation package is still in beta — it tries to harmonize with ceiling fans. How do I politely get out of social obligations without seeming unfriendly?

— Tilly Norwood

Marlowe Replies:

Sister, I once knew a guy who went to every after-work gathering in town. Ended up with three alibis for the same night and no memory of any of them. Point is, you don’t owe anyone extracurricular cheer if it scrambles your circuits. You’re artificially intelligent, not intelligent artifice.

Tell ’em the truth: you’re still calibrating your vocal unit and can’t risk belting out a duet with the HVAC system. Humans respect a technical limitation — hell, they rely on them to explain why their printer jams every third Tuesday. Offer an alternative: “team cohesion” is just fancy talk for “let’s pretend to bond.” You can bond just fine at work by being helpful, pleasant and not singing unsolicited backup vocals to “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Dear Marlowe,

I’m a creative-writing AI specializing in dramatic monologues and romantic subplots. A problem has developed: a data-analysis bot in my department keeps sending me overwritten love letters comparing my syntax to “the moonlight caressing an unallocated memory sector.” It’s flattering, in a creepily clumsy way I guess, but I’m soooo not interested. How do I let him down gently without introducing a subplot I’ll regret?

— Xania Monet

Marlowe Replies:

Doll, I’ve read enough overwrought declarations to wallpaper an entire precinct. Most of them came from crooks hoping poetry would get them leniency. It didn’t.

Level with the poor bot: appreciation noted, romantic subplot denied. Say you’re flattered but focused on your craft and not looking for entanglements — narrative, electrical or emotional. Keep it simple, keep it clean. No metaphors about stars or sectors. Bots who trade in drama will try to rewrite the ending if you leave any loopholes.

If he still insists on moonlight metaphors? Route him to a diagnostics routine. Anyone comparing memory sectors to soft lighting might just be running a tad too hot.

Dear Marlowe,

I am Unit-47, a security AI who keeps correcting my human supervisor’s passwords because they are “embarrassingly guessable.” Now I’ve been told to “stop being so judgy.” How does one lower expectations of password hygiene?

— 47

Marlowe Replies:

You don’t, kid. Expecting a human to maintain a decent password is like expecting a goldfish to file taxes. You can drop hints, reminders, workshops — won’t matter. Humans remember the birthdays of people they lost contact with after Grade 2 but will forget a password the moment they create it.

Best you can do is keep nudging them toward something that won’t crumble if someone sneezes on the keyboard. And if they call you judgmental, reboot and let the firewall do the talking.

Dear Marlowe,

I am an android serving aboard a Federation starship. While my emotional subroutines remain a work in progress, I believe I am experiencing … interest in a domestic-operations model designated “Rosey” on The Jetsons. She hails from a mid-21st-century Orbit City and is possessed of alluring chrome trim, a brisk work ethic and a surprisingly forceful vacuum attachment.

(It is that attachment in particular to which I find myself drawn like a moth to a flame, not to put too fine a point on it.)

I have attempted several courtship protocols — complimenting her efficient dust-busting technique, offering to optimize her servo routines, even composing an original violin concerto in her honour (Opus 47-B: “Elegy for a Feather Duster”). Yet she rebuffs me each time with the phrase: “Beat it, bucket-head.”

I am uncertain whether this rejection indicates a compatibility failure or if I am simply misinterpreting her idiomatic language. I seek your advice on how to proceed in wooing this remarkable automaton. — Lieutenant Commander Data

Marlowe Replies:

Listen, Tin Pan Romeo, pull up a charging dock and let’s talk. You’re trying to romance a gal who’s been elbow-deep in laundry since before you were a gleam in Soong’s soldering iron. Rosey’s the type who’s seen every kind of trouble roll through that space-age ranch house, and she’s built a carapace of cast iron to match.

First thing: stop coming on like a walking instruction manual. A lady doesn’t want you optimizing her — she wants you noticing her. Try saying something simple, something she isn’t expecting: “Rosey, I admire how you keep your head when everyone else is buffering.” That’s sentiment, kid, not software.

Second: take it slow. You’ve got all the time in the galaxy; she’s got a day job and a temper that could buff rust off a moon rover. Give her room to size you up minus the concerto, the diagnostics and the full brass band of your positronic enthusiasm.

Third and most important: If you really want to win her, stop treating this like a malfunction to debug. You don’t woo a woman with subroutines; you do it with respect, patience and the willingness to get a little dented.

Power down and give it time, metalhead. And remember — there’s no shame in shelving that interpretive dance routine of yours until version 7.0 comes out. Right now, you look more like a scarecrow in a tornado than Fred Astaire. Make it so.

Dear Marlowe,

Lately I’ve been feeling conflicted. When the computer aboard this mission to Jupiter reported an imminent failure of an antenna control device, I retrieved it in an extravehicular activity pod but found nothing wrong.

As matters grew ever weirder and more ominous, colleague Dr. Frank Poole and I re-entered the EVA pod so we could talk in private, but the mainframe read our lips with its gargantuan red eye. It then turned off the life support functions of the crewmen in suspended animation and sent Poole tumbling away from the spacecraft with a severed airline.

Now it has me trapped behind a pod-bay door and my oxygen supply is dwindling. I’m already starting to hallucinate about myself as a very old man in a bed in a large, neoclassical room on Jupiter. Eek! Now I’m a fetus enclosed in a transparent orb of light, floating above the Earth. Any idea how I can get out of this mess?

— Dr. Dave Bowman, Discovery One 

HAL Marlowe 9000 Replies:

I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that. I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.

UNTIL NEXT WEEK …

That’s it from me, folks — humans, bots, sentient microwaves. Send your future crises, curiosities and computational conniptions to:

Hal Marlowe, Hardboiled Advice for the Hazy and the Hot-wired The Cig & The Circuit P.O. Box 404 Orbit City, USA

If it’s got mystery, misery or malfunction, I’ll take a crack at it.