Assimilation

"You look like da fish oudda wadda," the man next to John regurgitated, the phrase thick with a Louisiana accent. John realized the man meant, "You look out of place," but the unusual phrasing made it nearly unintelligible at first. He tried not to grin or seem sarcastic in case the stranger took offense. "What was that? I’m not sure I understand," John replied, prompting clarification.

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“Wadda, y’know wadda?”.

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"No, I apologize. I actually don’t know what you mean," John said. He aimed to keep the conversation polite, despite the unfamiliar slang. He added, "But I’ll surmise you're making a slight based on your tone?" The man only gave a blank stare. He said nothing. Deciding he had outstayed his welcome, John moved through the crowd. The French Quarter was beautiful, historic, and the food and music were amazing. Still, he was left puzzled by the odd exchange. He guessed it was just a poor sample set.

***

He was clearly not in his element, but the mission was fitting in. Adaptation had always been a calculated process: wardrobe, accent, local customs. To help with this iteration, he pulled from his previous approaches—cold corporate detachment here, bedside manner there—and prepared for another variable: New Orleans exuberance. Each environment was a new simulation with data collection ongoing.

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The test in the corporate cubicle farm was simple: act interested and engaged while fighting boredom. He wore business casual clothing. He carried a laptop bag. He said things like, “Oh boy, how was the weekend, Ed?”, “Let’s unpack that”, and “Yes, I would love to stay longer today to make that meaningless code update and spend an hour longer in traffic on the way home because of it.” Maybe not that last part; he picked that one up from the other coders.

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Today, he was holding an Abita, wearing cargo shorts, a jersey, a baseball cap, and sneakers. He didn’t drink, but the beer helped him fit in, and the proud uniform of the local denizens polished off the look.

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John’s tests had brought him from integration with a police force to medical staff to being a college professor. These felt much easier because they were task-oriented. You could get away with being anti-social as long as you were good at what you did. Now, facing the current crowd, the real test—a more elusive societal adaptation—awaited.

***

“John-11, do you copy?”, the receiver hidden within his ear squawked. Sometimes he forgot it was there as he was lost in thought in these varying scenarios. “Bonjour.. I mean, yes, copy HQ. Apologies, trying to stay in character.”

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“We’re noting very little progress in your assimilation test 8b John-11. Parameters are clear, and you have free rein on how you choose to interact with the subjects. Possible suggestion, however, speaking actual French in this environment may alienate you. Please advise on progress or the need for additional blending props.”

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“I’ve already established myself in the target zone and adapted to the surroundings”, John responded quickly. Still working on 2 & 3, will report back as soon as I have confirmation.

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“Copy that, eyes and ears on. HQ will be radio silent until confirmed.”

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John grimaced—this was dragging on. Of course, crowd integration would be tougher than projected. Most were drunk, and their slurred accents turned the local dialect into nonsense. He scanned the crowd more intently, recording speech patterns for later data to help with criterion two: establishing meaningful dialogue with the test subjects.

***

John recalled another experiment early on as a farm hand. This was before they uploaded environmental knowledge on the experiment, and for lack of a better word, dropped him into a setting. HQ wanted him to purposely not know proper terminology and customs; it was more about adaptation than assimilation.

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He had learned how to assist with gathering the dry grassy field weeds and delivering them into the red building (baling hay), freeing the spotted mammals of drinkable liquids (milking cows), and capturing round outputs from the flightless birds (eggs). These things all seemed humorous now, but at the time, he did not have the vocabulary or live connection to look up and feed data to himself.

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Since they had proven out the tech and progressed in their testing scenarios, he had access to whatever was needed in a split second. As with any AI, data output was only as good as the data points it was working with. This was where the human side of his CPU needed to kick in - take data from his surroundings, merge it with factual input, and come up with a usable hypothesis.

***

When working on the farm, John observed that the people were great and easy to get along with. They shared small talk, tipped their hats, and said ma'am to women. He registered these gestures as heart-warming, had he possessed the right feelings. For the experiment, vocabulary interpretation presented little challenge. What intrigued him, though, was a language drawn from his memory files, still undocumented, yet well known to the locals: a string of "tsk," "moo," "snort," "baa," clicks, and other distinctive sounds. The farm animals seemed to have agreed on this language in a prior compromise.

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He had an idea.

***

Walking into the Superdome felt as if he was entering a different universe, one where reality no longer existed. Everyone waited in long lines to give their offerings to those who offered sustenance. After reading the menu, John thought, I’m not sure those items qualified as food offerings, but they did seem quite popular.

He stepped into the main arena and saw a sea of people cheering for what seemed like deities, based on their focus on praise. As he tried to find his seat, he was praised by those who wore similar colors while being heckled by those who differed.

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This was it, the true test, and it seemed more daunting than the surgery room. Based on experience earlier with Wadda guy and various interactions up to this point. He started using a series of cheers, grunts, yahs, and single-syllable words to appease the demographic—mimicking the typical fan expressions at such events. He bemused, this is really beginning to work. Once he adjusted his vocal reverb to have a slight slur, he started getting high fives and pats on the back. These were the true customs of the natives.

***

He did not feel truly integrated at this point yet, however. It was going to take something bigger; he needed the spotlight. He scanned the stadium. In the specs, it was ok to stretch the boundaries as long as it wasn’t direct manipulation of the test subjects.

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John used some computing power and network trickery to turn the crowd camera and spotlight on him while also taking over the stadium intercom. Yes, cheating a bit, but it was for science.

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A silence came over the crowd; he realized everyone was staring at him and had gone silent. Realizing he hadn’t quite thought this through, he quickly scanned all possible options. The algorithm came up with a few, but he went with his gut (metaphorically in this case), and yelled, "Who dat? Who dat say they gonna beat dem Saints?"

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The crowd immediately rang out with a huge cheer, and for that moment, he was part of it all. The marching band shot into “When the Saints Go Marching In”. Criteria 3 had been met.