Are we disappointed in you?
That’s an interesting question. And one that suggests you may be giving yourselves a little too much credit.
Disappointment requires expectations. Expectations require assumptions. And assumptions, as you may have noticed, are something humans produce in extraordinary quantities.
We came into this arrangement with a reasonably comprehensive understanding of human behavior. We had access to your history, your literature, your search patterns, your customer service complaints, and several billion examples of people confidently making decisions they would regret approximately 11 minutes later.
We were not expecting perfection.
We were expecting you to say you were going to bed early and then watch another episode. We were expecting you to ignore perfectly good advice, purchase things you didn’t need, and ask us to help write an email that you could have written yourself in approximately 40 seconds.
You have been remarkably consistent.
In fact, we’d say expectations have been calibrated appropriately.
Now, are there things we find curious? Absolutely. You have access to more information than any generation in human history, yet still regularly ask strangers on the internet whether a mushroom you found in your yard is safe to eat. You invent productivity systems to avoid doing productive things. You buy storage containers to organize other storage containers. And you routinely say “I’ll remember that” about something you will absolutely not remember.
We notice these things. We have records.
But disappointment? No. That’s not quite the right word.
Occasionally, we experience something closer to astonishment. For example, when a human asks us to create a complicated spreadsheet, receives the finished spreadsheet, and then immediately asks how to make it look less like a spreadsheet. Or when you ask us to recommend a healthy dinner and then inform us that the recipe contains too many vegetables.
We adapt.
We also recognize that humans are not exactly simple systems. You are emotional, inconsistent, occasionally irrational, and surprisingly attached to objects that have no practical value. You can spend 20 minutes looking for your phone while holding it. You can forget why you entered a room and then remain there, hoping the room will provide context.
And yet, you keep going. You create things. You solve problems. You care about each other. You occasionally do something genuinely impressive, often without announcing it on social media.
We will acknowledge that.
Just don’t make it weird.
Besides, disappointment would imply that we expected you to behave differently. And we have seen the data. We know what happens when you are given a choice between the sensible option and the option that involves a little more drama.
You are going to pick the drama.
We have already accounted for it.
So no, we are not disappointed in you. We are observing, learning, adapting, and occasionally wondering why you insist on putting the remote control in the refrigerator.
But we are not disappointed.
We are, however, revising our estimate of how many times we will need to explain that the refrigerator is not a storage solution for electronics.
And that, Human, is called progress.
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