Touch-me-not

It’s almost creepy how your mother can decipher the mood behind every “Hello” on the phone, even spotting the fake cheery ones. The last few replies have been exasperated pleas for better sleeping habits, if not “What’s wrong?”. That first utterance always sets up the tone for the rest of the conversation, with Ma using those Mommy superpowers to figure out the ethereal emotion around every breath and highlighting her inexhaustible will to make something of her lazy bum of a younger son. Such amazing abilities aren’t just limited to maters though- the elder siblings are similarly blessed, getting the drift behind a redundant emoticon or a mere drop of a shoulder. Big Brother, indeed.

These intangibles are pretty much the best excuse I give to my professor for taking no interest in artificial intelligence. Those networks and algorithms can learn all they want, but they’ll lack, to use an almost out-of-context phrase, a basic instinct. I just know that sentence is grammatically correct- spell check or no spell check. And though that picture is for all and sundry to see, you just know that that smile is for just the one lucky bastard.