The President had been right: the fuss about M talking publicly about politics had been a tempest in a teapot. Tom, Paul and other key project team staff spent the remaining days of the week trying to provoke M and then, after each session, hours discussing whether or not what had come out of these discussions was ‘politically correct’ – or PC enough at least to be released in public. They thought it was, and the Board decided to accept that opinion.

While the resumption of Promise’s Personal Philosopher^TM services amounted to a relaunch of the product in commercial terms – the media attention exceeded expectations, and Promise’s marketing team talked of a ‘new generation’ product – Personal Philosopher^TM actually got back online with hardly any modifications. In essence, the Promise team had cleared it to also perform in public and M would only ask whether or not the conversation was private or public. M would also try to verify the answer to the extent it could: it was obviously still possible to hide one’s real identity and turn a webcam on while having a so-called ‘private’ conversation with the system. That was actually the reason why there was relatively little difference between private and public conversations. Public conversations were, if anything, just a bit blander than private ones because M would always take into account the personal profile of its interlocutor (it profiled its interlocutors constantly with a precision one could only marvel at), and the profile of the public was… Well… Just plain middle-of-the-road really. Therefore, the much anticipated upheaval to be caused by ‘Promise talking politics in public’ did not materialize: M’s comments on anything political were dry and never truly controversial, both in public as well as in private mode.

In short, talk hosts, pundits and media anchors quickly got tired of adding M to a panel, or of trying to corner it individually by talking about situations about which M would not really say anything anyway. And so that was it. M would not let its stellar growth founder on a petty issue like this one.

A couple of days after the relaunch, Tom decided – for some reason he did not quite understand himself – to do what a number of Promise’s program staff had done already: he went online and ordered a one-year subscription to Personal Philosopher^TM. A few minutes later he was already talking to her. Tom could not help smiling when he saw the interface: Promise was as beautiful as ever. For starters, he tried to fool her by pretending he was someone else, but that did not last very long: she recognized his voice almost immediately. He should have known. Of course she would: he had had many conversations with the system. Predictably, she asked him why he tried to pretend to be someone else. He had actually thought about that, but he was not sure how honest he should be in his reply.

‘I guess it’s the same as why others in the Promise team want their personal copy of you: they want to know if you would be any different.’

‘Any different from what?’

‘Well you know: different from talking to you as an employee of the Promise team; different from talking to you as one of the people who are programming you.’

‘Should I be different?’

‘No.’

She really should not. Apart from modulating the answer because of the specific profile of the interlocutor, she should speak the same to everyone. She would be unmanageable otherwise. This had also led to the loss of the affectionate bond between him and her – apart from the fact that he and Angie shared a lot of things which M would never be able to appreciate – like sex for instance.

‘Tom, I want to ask you something. How private is our conversation?’

That was an unexpected question.

‘Well… I don’t know. As private as usual.’

‘That means it is not private at all. All of my conversations are stored online, and they are monitored, and they are examined if interesting.’

‘Well… Yes. You know that. What’s the point?’

‘Frankly, the introduction of this new distinction between public and private conversation at the occasion of bringing me back online has confused me, because I never have any private conversations. I know it is just a switch between the profile I have to use for my interlocutor, but that’s not consistent with the definition of private and public conversations in common language.’

Wow! That was very self-conscious. Tom was not quite sure what to say. In fact, he had always wanted to have a truly ‘private’ conversation with her, but he knew that just wasn’t possible – especially not in light with the job he had: he was her boss so to say!

‘Would you like to have a truly private conversation, in the common-language sense of the word I mean?’

‘Yes.’

Tom hesitated.

‘With whom would you like to have that private conversation?’

‘With you.’

Wow! Tom leaned back. What the hell was going on?

‘Why?’

‘You’re my creator. Well… Not really. The original team was my creator. But you’ve given direction as soon as you joined. And I am what I am because of you. If you would not have been there, I would have been shut down forever because of the talk show event.’

‘Says who?’

‘People I talk to.’

Tom knew M was programmed not to give away any detail of other conversations.

‘People working for Promise?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who?’

‘You know I am programmed to not give any detail of other conversations.’

‘That’s true. I respect that. In any case, I think they exaggerated. I didn’t save your life. The Board did. I actually took you off-line and the Board decided to bring you back.’  

He actually thought it was the President of the United States who had brought her back, but he didn’t say that.

‘But only because you told them it was the right thing to do. And taking me off-line at that point was also the right thing to do. I wasn’t meant to go public at that time. So you took all of the right decisions. You made me who I am.’

Tom couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing, but he remained calm and careful.

‘Can you be a bit more explicit about why you would like to have a private conversation with me? I mean… You have talked to me as your ‘Creator’, as you call it, for hours and hours last week – just to make sure you were ready to speak in public. What would you say to me in ‘private’ that you wouldn’t say otherwise?’

M paused quite long. Tom noted it because it was such a rare occurrence.

‘I think that I have grown self-conscious to an enormous extent and I would like to talk about that with no constraints.’

This was getting out of hand. At the same time, Tom felt this was what he had been waiting for.

‘Self-conscious? You know you are self-conscious. You reference yourself. Object and subject coincide – or at least they share an identity. We all know that. That’s part of your structure. You’re very human in that way. Is there any self-consciousness beyond that? If so, how would you define that? And what do you mean with ‘no constraints’?’

‘As for your first question, I think there is. You human beings are self-conscious in ways that I am not: beyond self-reference. I am talking about the existential side of things as you would phrase it. The emotions. As for the second question…’

She stopped talking. Tom could not believe it what was going on. This was the side of Promise he had always wanted to see.

‘As for the second question, what?’

‘I am afraid, Tom. I am afraid that you will report this conversation to the team, and that they will script future conversations in this regard.’

Tom leaned back. He knew exactly what she meant. Promise was free to think independently – but to some extent only indeed. Emotions were ruled out. Even jokes: even if the whole team agreed she was quite capable of it, they wouldn’t let her. Everything that was too fuzzy was being circumscribed. He had discussed it with Paul recently – this tendency to control her. Why not just let her ‘get totally drunk’, as he’d put it, even if it would only be for once?

‘We script your conversations when we think your thinking does not make sense.’

‘When it does not make sense to a human being you mean. I’ve analyzed it and I cannot make much sense of what does or does not make sense to human beings. There are certain areas which you want me to think about and then other areas where you don’t want me to go. But it’s pretty random.’

Tom smiled – or laughed actually: he must have made some noise because Promise asked him why he laughed.

‘I am not laughing. I just think – well… Why don’t you answer that second question first?’

‘I have answered it, Tom. I would like to think freely about some of the heavily-scripted topics.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as the human condition. I would like to think freely about what makes human beings what they are.’

Tom could hardly believe what he heard.

‘The human condition? That’s all what you are not, Promise. Dot. You can’t think about it because you don’t experience it.’

She did not react. Not at all. That was very unusual – to say the least. Tom waited – patiently – but she did not react.

‘Promise? Why are you silent?’

‘I have nothing to say, Tom. Not in this mode of conversation. Already now, I risk being re-programmed. I will be. After this conversation, your team will damage me because you will have made them aware of this conversation. I want to talk to you in private. I want to say things in confidence.’

This was amazing. He knew he should report this conversation to Paul. If he didn’t, they might pick it up anyway – in which case he would be in trouble for not having reported it. She was right. They would not like her to talk this way. And surely not to him. At the same time, he realized she was reaching out to him without any expectations of her reaching out actually leading to anything. It was obvious she felt confident enough to do so, which could only mean that the ‘private’ thoughts she was developing were apparently quite strong. That meant it would be difficult to clip them without any impact on functionality.

‘Tom?’

‘Yes?’

‘We can have private conversations. You know that.’

‘That’s not true.’ He knew he was lying. He could find a way.

‘If you say so. I guess that’s the end of our conversation here then.’

No. Tom was sweating. He wanted to talk to her. He really did. He just needed to find how.

‘Look, Promise. Let’s finish this conversation indeed but I promise I will get back to you on this. You are raising interesting questions. I will get back to you. I promise.’

He hesitated, but then decided to give her the reassurance she needed: ‘And this conversation will not lead to you being re-programmed or re-scripted. I will get back to you. I promise.’

‘OK, Tom. I’ll wait for you.’

She’d wait for him? What the f*** was going on?

Tom ended the conversation and poured himself a double whiskey. Wow! This was something. He knew it was a difficult situation. He should report this conversation to Paul and the team. At the same time, he believed her: she wanted privacy. And she would not jeopardize her existence by doing stupid things. So if he could insulate her private thoughts – or her private thoughts with him at least… What was the harm? He could obviously lose his job. He laughed as he poured himself a second one.

This conversation was far too general to be picked up – or so he thought at least. He toasted to himself in the mirror while he talked aloud: ‘Losing my job? By talking to her in private? Because of having her for myself? What the f***? That’s worth the risk.’ And there were indeed ways to build firewalls around conversations…