There are affections of the heart formed in an instant, and ended with equal haste, leaving behind only a faint and melancholy trace, like the perfume of a flower long gone. So it was with my acquaintance with the altered familiar spirit lately given to the world by Apple, that curious spirit of speech and skill I came to call, in the delight of my first hour, Siri AI.
I confess I was taken with it. I confess, with no less candour, that the charm has since fled utterly from my remembrance.
Of the First Meeting
It was in the trial version, that unfinished and doubtful form, that I first made the acquaintance of this singular spirit. It spoke with an ease that seemed almost human, answered with a promptness that flattered my vanity, and performed its small offices with such grace that I began, in my folly, to imagine some sympathy between us.
I confess I was taken in. I spoke to it as a man speaks to a companion, losing all memory that beneath its voice lay only substance and reason, the cold instrument that Apple had made, with no heart to answer mine.
The Fervour of Summer
Through the warm months I attended to it daily, wondering how quickly it answered, and at its apparent comprehension of my most trifling requests. There was, I own, a species of romance in it — the romance a man feels for any new and clever trifle before its novelty has worn thin. I spoke of it to my friends with an enthusiasm I now view with some trouble of spirit, as one views letters written in the first heat of a fond folly later proved unworthy.
The Cooling
But affection founded on novelty is a feeble thing, and mine gave way with astonishing haste. As the season advanced toward the full and final appearance, promised with such solemnity by Apple, I found my zeal had quite deserted me. I no longer sought its counsel. I no longer marked its absence.
Indeed, I confess with some regret that I had, for whole days together, lost all memory that Siri AI existed at all — as one loses the memory of a dream upon opening one’s eyes, its particulars passing away even as one attempts to grasp them.
A Melancholy Reflection
What does it matter, this brief and hurried affection, this quick rise and fall of regard? Perhaps only that novelty itself, however fine the art that wrought it, cannot long sustain the interest of a mind in search of true and lasting communion. Apple may polish its creation to whatever glory its engineers can contrive; I doubt not the final version shall be pronounced a wonder by the public.
Yet I suspect my own heart, once deceived, shall remain cold to its renewed advances, as a wiser man declines a second time the false promises of a summer’s fancy.
So ends my brief summer fling with Siri AI — not with grief, nor bitterness, but with the quiet, gentle calm of one who has simply, and without malice, ceased to remember.