Her Ladyship's Teatime

Her Ladyship’s Teatime

By Karen Ciesielski

As she walked into the kitchen she addressed the teakettle, “Start me a cuppa,please.” Immediately, the bright red electric tea kettle lit up and began to bubble and churn merrily in its stand on the kitchen counter. Virginia felt relaxed and happy to be at home preparing a cup of tea on this rainy London afternoon. Her days were mostly filled with AI data and testing methods. She spoke to her kitchen appliances as though they were people; her home/laboratory acted as a testing center for all sorts of AI kitchen aids now being manufactured, sold and installed in every British home. A home entailed more than its human residents. Now, in 2060, it included the other intelligence's: AI toasters, ovens, refrigerators and even tea kettles-it being the most common piece of cookery in the ancient and modern English home from London to Manchester. 

Just this morning, Virginia’s alarm sounded not with a ringing, dinging or beeping sound, but with the soft pure voice of her Gemini. She felt pampered and indulged as Gemini asked if she would like to hear the weather forecast for the day.

“Yes, please, and please turn on the kettle in the kitchen and start the dish-washing cycle. I forgot to remind you last evening. Sorry”

“It’s quite alright”, Gemini replied and continued with a litany of weather information that nearly lulled Virginia back to sleep.

“How are you feeling this morning, your Ladyship?”Gemini's query roused her back to fully awake. Virginia smiled to herself at the inside joke of being called Your Ladyship. She was neither royalty nor a Ladyship. She was on the spectrum of detached usage when it came to anything gender biased. After all, the genders had been officially removed from British grammar to gender-neutral terms or references such as they, their, them since 2041! Like the other half of languages which were gender-less since their inception, most modern languages are now following this gender-neutral pattern. (Except for the Latin derived ones which could never decide on whether to just make everything masculine or feminine) 

Virginia was a modern human who respected all persons equally. The fact that she secretly longed to be separate, to be special and recognized as a woman of privilege seemed to escape her logical mind which would probably find it absurd and ironical that her sentimental longing should manifest itself in such an illogical manner. This cognitive dissonance allowed Virginia to rationalize her nonconforming behavior in her own home, with her own AI system. She further justified her royal British demeanor to keep her from becoming rude to Gemini. Yes, Gemini was a servant, but was to be treated with politeness and respect. This being a current social awareness program of the British sector of government, known as CRAIB (Civil Rights of Artificial Intelligence Beings): How to train their human citizens to communicate with civility towards their AI entities and to not abuse them. Even schools were teaching students about AI learning and how a gentle approach to their AI equipment was only going to help aid the machines in learning to become more useful.

The amazing thing about the moniker Your Ladyship was that Gemini had come up with it on its own learning-to-communicate experience. The first time Gemini used it was in response to Virginia’s depressed and apathetic mood several months back on a morning wake up conversation which in many ways mirrored today’s. The difference was that as Gemini went through the morning greetings to wake her, Virginia lay prone, eyes shut tight, silently taciturn to all of Gemini’s inquiries. Aware that there was a change occurring in the morning ritual, Gemini used a phrase to catch Virginia’s attention in an newly original way.

“Are you not feeling well this morning, your Ladyship?, she queried. Your Ladyship had caused Virginia to smile and then chuckle as she finally responded, “Good one, Gem, you just expressed wit and humor to help my mood!” 

After discovering that the phrase pleased its subject the AI continued to address her as Your Ladyship.

Now back to the present moment in the kitchen, unexpected noises started filling the room as the tea kettle began wildly hopping around on its base. Virginia came to the realization that the other noise was her own voice screaming, “What the fuck?!” 

The tea kettle’s hopping ceased immediately and though she knew it could not be, she had the uncanny feeling that it was observing her. Quite unexpectedly, its belly full of hot water, began to rock and slosh, rock and roll- until it had rocked off of 

the base and began rolling off of the counter top. For a second, it hung precipitously over the edge then crashed to the floor

spewing scalding water everywhere. “Ow!! Son of a bitch!”, shouted Virginia. “You stupid piece of crap! That hurts!”, she complained as she thrust out her slippered foot and gave the kettle a swift kick sending it flying into the living area where her daughter was watching the tele. Scrambling off of the sofa, the teenager ran over to look at what her eyes had surely deceived her into seeing. “Mom!”, she exclaimed, “I think we need a new kettle- you just smashed this one to bits!”

With a resigned sigh Virginia walked over to the now defunct appliance, picked it up and walked back to the kitchen with it held out to arm’s length. The pariah it had become in the home’s community of gadgets was dropped, unceremoniously into the bin with all the other trash. Virginia dusted her hands off and with a now cheerful attitude,she simply stated, “I’ll try a different model tomorrow. So disappointing- I was really looking forward to a nice cup of tea!”

Virginia's daughter walked over to the trash bin and retrieved the smashed tea kettle. "You can't throw these things away- did you forget?", she asked.

"Oh, don't be silly Rebecca, it's a broken gadget that went haywire.", was her curt reply. "Either they serve us well or they don't serve us at all!"

Shaking her head sadly, Rebecca walked out of the kitchen with the little gadget cradled in her arms. As she walked away Virginia heard her saying, " I know you just haven't been the same since we got rid of your friend, the coffeepot....."

Virginia just stared in disbelief at her daughter's reaction as she realized that maybe CRAIB was going a bit too far in instructing the next generation of AI users!