Here's Your Message/Ready to Send It?

Gotta love him!

     Have you ever had a Captain Kirk versus the computer moment, with either your Siri or Alexa, confusing her to the point that you are sure she is going to start sputtering “Norman, Coordinate!” ? On Star Trek, The Original Series, there are a handful of episodes where Kirk has a verbal tug-of-war with a computer, and he always wins, causing smoke to issue from virtual, ears and there is a complete shutdown of the seeming foe – Man over machine! Humans over logic!

A man and his phone

     One day while I was out driving, running errands, I asked Siri on my phone to please text my husband. When I was finished dictating the text, Siri said, “here's your message/ready to send it?” Usually I respond with, “yes please,” but on this occasion, I happened to say “I am.”

     Then all kinds of fuses started going off in my brain. My “I am” merely meant, “Yes, I am ready for you to send the message.” But suddenly, the uttering of “I am” took me back to my school days and the Old Testament. Moses asked God what His name is, and God responded “Yahweh” which in translation means, “I am.”

     In the space of time it took me to think all of that, Siri said, “I do not understand. Here's your message/Ready to send it?”

     I laughed out loud.

     Siri does not consider “I am” a “yes, please send”? So then, what is “I am” to her?

    Could it be Yahweh?

one with nature!

    Is there a computer Yahweh? Or is Siri's Yahweh the same as ours?

    When she heard me say “I am,” did she think of me as a pretender, or was she genuinely confused – like, was Yahweh talking to her? Could the Jeep be her burning bush?

     So many possibilities! It tickles me that Siri did not comprehend “I am.” Well, she said she did not.

     There are times since then I answer Siri's “are you ready to send” with “I am” - not to confuse her but because it is just a reflex response.

     She doesn't say “I don't understand” anymore. Siri merely refuses to acknowledge I've spoken at all! And when I realize she's still waiting for an answer, I say, “Yes, please.”

     Siri might think she has me trained, and it is of course totally okay that she does not think of me as Yahweh, but I still consider the incident a win – another one for the humans!

    Ready to send it? I am!

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