Gramps started slipping after his 105th birthday. Nothing dramatic, just forgetting a story or two, repeating a conversation from the hour before, stuff like that.
Our family and about 40 others went to the surgical center for the informational briefings about a revolutionary AI “personality bridge” implant. There was a slick corporate infomercial and then a panel discussion of local residents who had the implant. The questions came fast and furious and the panel discussion was impressive. Corny jokes, funny stories, and touching testimonials. The entire family left the presentation reassured that this was the best way to go.
All except me.
Despite my siblings and parents’ eagerness to get the process started, I wasn’t sold. I didn’t figure out what was bothering me until we were on the way home. Gramps was re-telling the story he told a few hours ago, the one where as a kid he tried to feed the mushrooms he picked off his pizza to his dog Moxie.
And then it hit me. The panel. Same rhythms of speech, slightly different cadence. Same metaphors dumped into different stories. Same facial expressions, very similar laughs. Men the slapped the table, the women did golf claps.
My family did not want to believe me. He had the surgery.
The next day he was up and about. He talked with me and it was just like the old days. Once and while I’d see him twitch and then he’d tell a story or a fable, which was weird because he never told fables before. I was just about to let this all slide, thinking maybe I was just being paranoid. Until my walk home from work. I cut through the park. I saw a little boy about four years old on his grandmothers lap. It was adorable, then chilling. She told him the exact same fable as gramps told me the day before right down to the pacing and pauses for breaths. The kid babbled some non-sequitur as four year olds will do. His grandma winced and said “Sonny, now you’re just being silly.”
Later that evening I told the family what I saw. My brother turned to gramps and said “Purple octopus snap cracker lemonade?”
He responded with “Sonny, now you’re just being silly.”
Last week out of the blue gramps said he wanted to go do Tai Chi in the park. When we got there, a group of seniors with headphones on was already into their forms. The assistant instructor handed gramps a set of headphones and me a brochure. The Tai Chi class? Sponsored by the implant company. When I looked up, gramps was “parting the wild horse’s mane” as if he’d been doing so his whole life.
When we got home gramps was more like his old self again…no fables, no new catch phrases and the stories were his alone.
I used to think gramps might be in there somewhere but for the most part it’s just the AI making him generate content, filling in the blanks. As long as he gets his “upgrade” during Tai Chi, he’s seems just like the gramps I’ve always known.
But lately I’ve realized deep in my heart I know gramps is truly gone. Everything he was is formatted and the algorithms just get better at being a reasonable facsimile of him. I sit with him outside on nice days. We drink sweet tea or cocoa depending on the weather. Last week out of the blue I asked him point blank: “Hey gramps, you in there?” His reply?
“Lights on, nobody home.”