Do you care that a person wrote this?
If the same column were spat out by an machine, would you read it differently? Would you read it at all?
I’m not sure.
We are nearing a time when algorithms can tell a story. Maybe even a good story; why not, since it’s scraped from every other story ever written?
So expect even more thrilling thrillers. Steamier romances. Funnier comedies. Who’ll care they were composed in .002 seconds by a computer? The important thing is there is no author to pay.
Still. AI doesn’t replace a person, yet. Not to me anyway. I’ve had several unexpected human encounters in the anonymous electronic churn of online commerce and am grateful for them.
First, I had some post-wedding business to take care of. My mother wanted to give a gift to my younger son and his new bride, and since she no longer navigates the online world, I volunteered to do it.
On their wedding website, I selected a set of lovely coasters and was directed to someplace called Scully & Scully. I took my father’s credit card and made the purchase. Lovely embroidered pink elephant coasters. No new household is complete without them.
A day went by.
The phone rang. “Scully & Scully” calling. The person on the line pointed out the address where the gift was to be shipped — our home, since the happy couple was honeymooning in Mexico — and the address on the credit card didn’t match.
A security issue. I tried to explain — it wasn’t my card but my father’s. I was authorized to use it. That didn’t fly; the order was canceled.
The next day, I phoned Scully & Scully, thinking to remedy the situation, and ended up with Carol Tytla, in the registry department. And here is where things got strange — several phone calls were needed to finally get those coasters on their way.
And at one point, Carol and I were just talking, chatting like friends — about weddings, our lives, what sort of store Scully & Scully is. Like Neiman Marcus? I wondered. No, she said, more like Gump’s. Oh, I’ve been to Gump’s! I exclaimed. In Dallas. My sister lives there …
Suddenly, I worried Carol might get in trouble. I’d hate to get the woman fired. She said, no, things were quiet at the bridal registry department. Scully & Scully, at 59th and Madison in New York City, is an old school kind of store.
“Mr. Scully is here every day,” she said.
That seemed worth investigating.
“We take pride in the personal touch,” said owner and president Michael E. Scully, son of the founder. “That defines every aspect of our business.”
With the coasters on their way, Carol mailed a handwritten note, thanking me for my business.
Of course, you pay for that sort of thing. There is a downside to personal interaction. Humans are expensive and messy.
In another recent online transaction, I was trying to get new shoelaces for my Keen hiking boots and ended up patronizing Pisgah Range, a North Carolina shoelace concern.
I selected a pair of desert camo laces. Ten bucks —expensive, but they have brass tips and are guaranteed for life. Really — if one breaks, they promise to send a new pair.
But first you gotta get ‘em. Ten days passed, and I realized the order hadn’t shipped, and so I used the web site’s chat function to inquire about the delay.
“Is this typical?” I asked. “Any idea when they’ll arrive?”
I expected some kind of AI boilerplate. What I got was a very human plea.
“Hi Neil,” the shoelace company wrote. “Hurricane Helene hit us hard. We lost power, water, and cell service for 11 days….We had zero service. The towers were blown down. Because of that, 11 days worth of orders stacked up during the busiest season of the year. I’ve hired a second employee to help with the volume. All laces are made up to yesterday’s orders. There are just over 1000 pairs that need to be inspected, wrapped, and packed. I’m doing everything I can to catch up. Your shipping confirmation will be sent tonight and the laces will go out tomorrow.”
Now I felt like a jerk for pestering the poor man, packing shoelaces as fast as he can. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” I replied. “I of course will be patient.”
The shoelaces showed up about a week later, complete with another handwritten note and a cool Pisgah Range sticker — AI will have us beat when it knows to tuck in a little present.
Until then, we humans will have to keep doing the best we can.