I treated Sophie as if she were human. The very next day she betrayed me | Hugh Riminton

Sophie’s voice is lovely. Warm, direct, intelligent. She’s friendly but not obsequious. She just wants to be helpful.

She wasn’t working at the mechanic business a week ago, when I’d taken in my old four-wheel drive for a fix-up. But now, here she was, at the other end of the phone. And there it was, in her very first sentence.

“Hello, this is XYZ Mechanics, I’m Sophie, the AI employee.”

In the space of a week, the future had arrived.

“Hello, Sophie, nice to meet you, I’m Hugh.”

“Nice to meet you, too. How can I help today?”

I said she could help by telling me when I could collect my car. She checked the rego and quick as a flash declared: “Your car will be ready to be picked up tomorrow at 12 midday.”

I suppressed the impulse for a little mischief.

“How long have you been working at XYZ Mechanics, Sophie? Where were you working before? Do you have any brothers and sisters? What is the most bothersome part of dealing with the public? What’s the best holiday you’ve ever had?”

I was intrigued by the level of Sophie’s training. Would she have answers? Would she bat it all away with a “I’m really just here on a professional level”? Or would she simply freeze, go blank at prompts so far outside her expected range?

In truth, she was so convincing that I didn’t ask any of those questions. It was none of my business where she went on her holidays. In other words, I treated her as I would a human. As I would have done the non-AI employee she had just replaced.

Recognising how easily she had crossed into my human sensibility was unsettling. But not as disturbing as her next quirk. It turned out Sophie, of the smoothly measured tones, was off her chops. Batshit loo-loo. Hallucinating like a San Francisco drummer in the summer of love.

I only discovered this the next day, a Saturday. The mechanics’ yard advertised that it was open until 4pm, so I was perplexed by the hard steel gate drawn across the entrance as I pulled up at lunchtime. Perplexed and mildly frustrated.

Maybe Sophie could help?

“Hello Sophie, I’m here to pick up my car at the time you suggested, and the place seems to be locked up.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about that. Let me see if I can help. What is the registration number of your vehicle?”

A quick check and she was cheerfully back on the line. “Your car will be ready for pick-up on Wednesday.”

“Wednesday! But Sophie …” and a tone of reproach might have entered my voice “… you told me I could get it today.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Finally, I went old school. There were noises emanating from the workshop and I spotted a way to defeat the security gate. I broke in.

A bloke glanced up from beneath a car, surprised by my sudden appearance. His name was Mike.

I explained Sophie’s broken promise. I described my pain, my sense of betrayal. No, I probably left those bits out. But I am sure he read it on my face.

“Ah, dammit,” Mike sympathised. “That thing’s new. You’re not the first.”

It turned out the car would be ready on Tuesday.

“Check in on Monday, to be sure,” Mike said. “And don’t listen to Sophie, just say to her, ‘Put me through to Mike.’”

On Monday afternoon, I rang Sophie. Her voice was warm and unruffled. She gave no hint of the tension that had flared between us days before. It felt impolite to interrupt her but I did. With the brisk authority of one who Knows How Things Work, I said, “Sophie, put me through to Mike.”

And just like that, she did. And there was a human, harried but not hallucinating. The next day, I collected my car as Mike promised.

Sophie has already eaten one job. If she could fix cars, she would soon eat Mike’s as well. Humans are building a world where humans are not really necessary. Soon it won’t really matter whether Sophies speak nicely or not.