Great-Aunt Hilda Versus the Machines

GREAT-AUNT HILDA VERSUS THE MACHINES

When the Johnson’s first saw their new home, they were a little disappointed. It had been Jolly Johnson’s Great-Aunt Hilda’s house, and Jolly and his wife, Willow, had never actually been to the house. The best they had were pictures, and those were mostly of Great-Aunt Hilda in her house, not necessarily of the house itself. 

Great-Aunt Hilda had never married, and had no children of her own. Her only brother, Charles, had only one child, Werner, who also only had one child, and that was Jolly. Charles died a couple of years before Great-Aunt Hilda, and his only child, Werner had tragically predeceased Charles by seven years, so that left Jolly as her only living relative.

As an adult, Jolly didn’t know Great-Aunt Hilda that well any more, so he was pretty surprised that she had named him as her sole heir. He had seen a lot of her when he was a kid, and he had loved her dearly. His mom and dad invited her to all the family occasions — Christmas, Easter, birthdays. She even went on summer camping vacations with them a few times. Jolly remembered her as fun-loving and adventure seeking. He had wished that she was his mom because she was definitely more fun than his mom, Angelique, and would let him stay up late and eat whatever he wanted.

But, as is the way, by the time Jolly was a teenager he was seeing Great-Aunt Hilda less and less. His life was getting in the way of their relationship. Then, when his parents were killed in a plane crash, Great-Aunt Hilda had come to stay with Jolly at his parents’ home, and helped him pack up all their belongings before the end of the month when the rent was due.  He hadn’t seen her that much since then, and that was almost ten years ago. A dinner date on her birthday, a video call at Christmas, and regular monthly texts were about it.

Jolly’s parents had been renters their entire lives. Neither Werner nor Angelique trusted the government, and were constantly worried about having their possessions confiscated by agents of the state. To their way of thinking, they can’t steal your home if you don’t own it. At the time, Jolly believed everybody’s parents were the same way, but later learned that in fact, his parents were paranoid.  In another life, they may have been preppers.

Not that they don’t have a reason to be suspicious. The 2032 Upheaval had been scary, especially for those living in the cities. To quell the uprising the federal government cordoned off the neighbourhoods where insurrectionists lived and burned their homes to the ground. Werner and Angelique weren’t insurrectionists, but they had, on occasion, spoken out against the government. In fact, the FBI had visited them three times. Jolly had been pretty young, but he remembered when “The Feds” knocked on their door, wanting to talk to Werner and Angelique.

All that to say that Jolly had never lived in his “own” home before. He, too, was a renter, but more for financial reasons as opposed to personal convictions. Willow’s parents owned their own home, but Willow was one of five kids, and would never inherit a house from her family.

So Jolly and Willow were excited about being the proud owners of their very own home. They would never have been able to own a single family home without Great Aunt Hilda’s generous bequest. Maybe a tiny condo in one of the huge towers, some day, if they were frugal — but a house, with a yard, and a garage, four bedrooms, three baths, and a basement. That was a pipe dream. None of their friends had homes like this — most still lived with their parents. But thanks to Great Aunt Hilda Jolly and Willow were home owners. Now all they needed was a car!

But, when they got to the house, they realized that Great Aunt Hilda was a bit of a luddite. Not in a bad way, just that her home wasn’t … smart.  

When Jolly had asked about having the biometrics for the doors changed to recognize him and Willow so they would be able to get in, the lawyer, Mr. Keene, had chuckled and given Jolly a key to the front door.

Jolly had used keys before, sure, but on small things, like locks. Never to protect an entire house. It was unexpected, and a bit scary. What if he lost the key? What if he broke the key? Where could he get another key for Willow?  A key was so old-fashioned!  

He didn’t exactly struggle with the door key. Between Jolly’s experience, and a video they had watched on the way over, they managed to get into the house. Because Jolly was so worried about losing the key, he wore it around his neck on a long chain. You can’t lose a biometric plate, and unless your hand was cut off and your eyes pulled out, you would always be able to get into your house. But a key! What if you left it inside, and locked the door? Would you ever be able to get back in again? The questions staggered him.

As they entered the house, all Jolly could think of was how they were going to have to modernize their new abode, and how much it was going to cost.

“I don’t see how Great-Aunt Hilda could live this way.” Jolly looked around. “Lights on!”

Nothing.

“Lights on!”

Willow walked over to the wall and flipped a switch. Light illuminated the living room.

She smiled at the look of confusion on Jolly’s face.  

“My Gran didn’t see the necessity of having your whole house wired, either.” 

Jolly nodded, looking around. 

The house was dark. All the blinds had been shut, leaving the rooms in shadow.

“Blinds up,” said Jolly.

Again, nothing.

“Of course,” said Jolly, walking up to the windows, locating a pull string and manually opening the blinds. He moved throughout the first floor turning on lights and opening all the blinds.

As daylight flooded into the house, Jolly and Willow had their first real look around.

The living room and dining room were quite nice. Sure you had to manually turn the lights on, but Great-Aunt Hilda had good taste.

Jolly looked at the art hanging on one wall. He went up and touched it.

“Huh,” he said, “it’s not a screen.”

He and Willow stood back, admiring at the painting.

“It’s static,” said Willow.

“I know,” replied Jolly. “It’s like at the art gallery.”

Willow nodded. “I guess you have to really like your art if you’re willing to look at the same picture forever.”

Jolly and Willow had art, but they had programmable art. Once you got tired of one piece, you could program another new paintng. Jolly and Willow had curated a fun collection of different types of art throughout their three hundred square foot apartment. The Masters, twentieth century artists, abstract, fresco, impressionism, surrealism, even a couple of NFTs left over from the crash of 2020 costing literally just pennies.  They regularly changed their art to match their moods and the season. But here, instead of buying images of art, Great-Aunt Hilda had actually purchased a canvas.

“I wonder if she knew the artist, and did it as a favour,” pondered Jolly.

Willow tilted her head and looked at it from a different angle.

“I wonder if it’s worth anything.”

She tapped her temple.

“Photograph and identify.” 

She blinked, waited a few nano-seconds for the information to to scroll onto the screen in her glasses.

“Okay, that’s a Neo Rauch, and if it’s real, could be worth thousands.”

“Of dollars?”

Willow looked at Jolly. “No, Jolly, thousands of bits. Of course dollars.”

“Huh. Great-Aunt Hilda had an eye for art.”

They continued their survey of the first floor until they came to the kitchen.

“Oh dear,” said Willow.

Everything in there was manual. There was nothing smart about the kitchen, at all. Great-Aunt Hilda had an entire room full of tools, pots, pans — but not one AI device to be found.

“I think she cooked her own meals,” said Willow, walking over and examining the stove. “I don’t think she had a kitchen bot.”

Jolly walked over to a door and opened it, only to find food, a broom, and more pots. No bot.

“Nothing in here.”

Willow touched her temple again.

“Show the will,” she said, and waited.

“There’s nothing about any bots in the house.” She looked at Jolly, surprised. “She either had a service, or did everything herself.”

“Wow!” said Jolly. “Even the gardening?”

“As far as I can tell,” said Willow as she scrolled through the document.

They continued to look around the kitchen. Jolly opened the freezer.

“She had real meat!”

“No!” said Willow.  

She walked over and looked at the frozen chicken. “Real Meat” was stamped on the front, with the name of the butcher. Nothing synthetic or grown in a lab for Great-Aunt Hilda.

Willow looked at Jolly

“How could she afford that?”

Jolly shrugged, and waved his hand around the house.  

“How could she afford any of this?”

Jolly taped his temple, “Searching Hilda Johnson.”

“Wow,” he said. “She was, apparently, a pretty big deal in early twenty-first century tech. She invented a number of apps, and scored big.  She created the early platform for AI. Look.”  

Jolly turned to face Willow.  “Share with Willow,” he said, and the information that had been only accessible to him from his neuro assistant was now being shared with Willow, and they could both see Great-Aunt Hilda's bona fides.

“Yeah,” said Willow. “I see she was a pretty big deal before the Upheaval.” Pause. “It says here that she was a pioneer in AI, and advocated for more safeguards. And they did, sort of. But because access to tech was economically driven, it wasn’t available to everyone. Great-Aunt Hilda predicted the Upheaval. She said, ‘if technology and all of its benefits cannot be accessible to everyone, then those without it will rise up.’ Wow. She said that way back in 2024.”

Jolly looked at Willow. “She was right. It was like she could see the future,” he said. “It says that some people blamed her for the Upheaval, especially when it began in San Fransisco, right in the heart of Silicone Valley.” Pause. “Apparently after the Upheaval, she dropped out of sight, and no one knew where she disappeared to.”

“Huh. All that time and she was living right here, hanging out with her great-nephew.”

Jolly smiled, thinking about his great-aunt.

“Yeah. No one told me. My parents were so anti-tech and anti-government that I guess they didn’t want her to influence me.” He smiled. “But, too bad! I still grew up to be a techie.”

They continued their tour of their new house. Upstairs the bedrooms were all tech-free, and the bathroom was from the dark ages. No voice-activated shower or tub. No drying tube. All Jolly could think of was the cost to update the house.

“Didn’t the lawyer say something about a car?” asked Willow.

“He did,” said Jolly. He smiled at Willow. “I say we check out the garage.”

The door to the garage was in the mud room. Jolly was almost giddy. Having a car would be so exciting, and would make his life so much easier. They opened the door, found the light switch (Jolly was catching on) and flipped it on.

“What the hell is that?” said Jolly.

“I’m not sure,” said Willow. She tapped her temple, and said “Photo and identify.”

“Huh,” she said.

“What?” asked Jolly.

Willow sent him the information.

“Huh,” he said.

“It’s something called an S.U.V. which is an acronym for Sport Utility Vehicle. This one is called a Subaru Outback, the 2025 model,” said Willow.

Jolly walked around it.

“I don’t see where to plug it in,” he said.

“You’re not going to believe it," said Willow. "It runs on gasoline.”

Jolly whistled. “Gas-powered. Now that is old school.”

“And, according to the info, it is not self-driving, either.”

“Whoa! You need to know how to actually drive this, then?” He was shocked.

“That’s right. And if you’re going to do that, then you have to have something called a driver’s licence. There’s a test an everything.”

“No thanks.” He looked at the car again. “Maybe I can sell it to a museum.”

There was a buzz from Jolly’s virtual assistant. He looked at Willow.

“The lawyer’s calling.” He tapped his temple. “Hi Mr. Keene. Willow’s here and I’m going to patch her in.” Pause. “Share with Willow. Okay, we’re both here.”

“Jolly, I have a recording from your Great-Aunt Hilda. She asked me to share it with you once you had been to the house. I’ll play it for you now.”

Great-Aunt Hilda’s face appeared in Jolly’s glasses. She was smiling.

“Hello Jolly. I guess you’ve been to the house by now. I wanted you to have a look before I had Mr. Keene dispense wth the will.” She smiled. “You must now realize that my house isn’t exactly up to modern standards. Even though I loved tech, I didn’t feel that I could trust it. Especially after the advent of AI. Way back in the 2020s I was warning against the potential disruption AI could cause if safeguards were not installed. Initially, there were some protocols developed, but now, almost thirty years later, the technology is becoming too independent, making too many important decisions without consulting the people it affects. And, if there is a clash between technology and humans, everything that we depend on — all the ‘smart’—” she made air quotes around the word smart — “gadgets that we depend on will either go offline, or turn against us. My house provides a safe haven if that eventuality occurs.” She looked right at the camera. “And I believe it will happen. It’s just a matter of time.

“Jolly, you and Willow need a soft place to land, and this house can be that for you. Learn how to take care of it and yourselves. Don’t depend on a technology that may think it knows better than you. Embrace the simpler life. Learn how to cook. Grow some vegetables in the garden. Learn how to drive.” She smiled at the camera, again. “It’s not as hard as you think. I left you a whole lot of money, as well. Probably more than you could spend in your lifetime. Use it wisely. And, by all means, update the house. But I suggest that you leave the manual aspects in place, because you never know if or when you’re going to need them. I love you Jolly. And I trust you and Willow to make good decisions.”

The screen went blank, and Mr. Keene came back on screen.

“Do you have any questions, Jolly?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Jolly. “Where can I get driving lessons?”