What we have is failure to communicate, but thanks

This might come as a surprise to Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of Silicon Valley, but I’d just like to go on the record and point out that I am not a drone.

At least I don’t think I am. In this day and age of technological slavery, we all have to wonder. Do we even have free will anymore? (Give me a minute, I’ll ask Alexa and get back to you.)

I’m also thankfully not a Facebot, one of those people whose lives are determined by their Facebook pages.

What set me off on this is my Gmail account. Because Gmail seems to assume that we can’t think for ourselves. That we don’t have the necessary intelligence to craft a cogent reply to an email.

Let’s set aside for the moment the very disturbing fact that Gmail or some kind of robotic algorithm is reading your email correspondence. Somewhere there is a Gmail bot that is tracking every message that anyone sends you and is reading it — and apparently understands it — and is presumably tracking and reading your replies.

That’s bad enough.

What I find really troubling is that my Gmail account is now crafting my replies for me, or at least suggesting them.

Down at the bottom of any email I receive, there are generally three suggested replies, which allow you to just click on that button so you don’t have to actually reply yourself.

The most common is the word “thanks.”

I’m sorry, but, “thanks?”

Is that really something Gmail figured I couldn’t come up with myself. The word “thanks” needs to be suggested to me because I’m too stupid to say “thank you?” (Which is actually usually the second, more formal option.)

Is it just that Gmail suggests clicking on the word “thanks” to save me the arduous, draining, tedious and time-consuming effort it would take to actually have to type out five letters?

I don’t know how I should feel about that. Oh, wait, let me ask Gmail. Oh, Gmail says I should feel “insulted.” “Thanks,” Gmail.

Because my Gmail account is a work-email in my capacity as a reporter and involves either asking people questions or seeking information or setting up some time for a meeting, other commonly suggested replies have included “Got it,” “Got it, thanks,” Got it, thank you,” “Sounds good,” “Sounds good, thank you,” “Great,” “See you then,” See you then, thanks,” “I’ve scheduled that meeting,” and even “Cool,” “Pretty cool,” and “Nice.”

I think you can tell from the suggested replies that we are not dealing with difficult concepts here. I really feel I am capable of handling these things on my own, Gmail, but “thanks (anyway).”

The suggested replies could at least be more varied. How about “thanks, but no thanks,” “bite me,” up yours,” or “I’ve scheduled that meeting for when pigs fly.”

There’s a broader issue here. It’s not just about Gmail. It’s about being able to think and communicate and live for ourselves.

Apparently, we are no longer capable of this, and I’m not just talking about Gmail replies.

Because we now have something called “adulting,” which the Urban Dictionary defines as “to carry out one or more of the duties and responsibilities expected of fully developed individuals,” or in other words, growing up.

This, according to Time Magazine, has apparently become a trend and new favorite word of millennials, who actually take classes in adulting, or being a grown-up, because it’s just not something they know how to do on their own.

I don’t really have a problem with the concept of a class that teaches you how to behave like an adult. In fact, I would happily recommend such a course for Donald Trump.

There are some things that are supposed to come naturally, as part of the maturing process, as part of the learning process. If you screw up, you (hopefully) learn from that and you grow.

It’s called “trial and error.” If you replace that with robotic algorithms that are going to make these decisions for us, we cease to grow as human beings. We stop thinking for ourselves. (At least I think we do. I’ll check with Alexa and get back to you.)

So, what am I suggesting here? Simply that, just as in all those dystopian science fiction novels, the thing to do is fight back. I’m suggesting resistance.

I, for one, will never give the robotic algorithm the satisfaction of clicking on one of its suggested replies. Even if the only response I can think of is, “thanks,” I will type the word out myself before I ever click on the “thanks” button.

It’s just my way of saying, “I am not a drone,” though even that will probably eventually become a standard Gmail reply.

The important thing here is to make clear, I am a human being. I am not a robot.

Now, you’ll have to excuse me. My battery pack is running low, and I really can’t think of anything else to say, except maybe, um…

“Thanks.”