There are exceptional humans and then there is Annie. (Android Auto)

Karen Fagan - 23 Jul 17

Everything was going fine until Annie moved in. Annie is my new Android Auto system in my new car. She is a guiding voice, a beacon of up-to-date information and given my current status of ‘I’m permanently on the M1’, she allows me contact with my family while I work away from home. It was all going well till she started to patronise me, started to question my judgement. I was stunned the first time she did it;

‘Call mum’

“Actually you don’t have a contact for mum”

All of a sudden I’m having a full blown argument with her. I’m bickering with her, she interjects again

“Take your normal route to work, it’s the quickest”

How does she know where I work? And what if I wanted to drop the children first? It got me thinking, in a world where technology is growing at a speed faster than we can build, how far would Annie go?

Stopping at Leicester Forest East on the way up to work, a group of Japanese’s tourists are taking selfies of themselves with the background of the ‘Day’s Inn’ behind them. Would Annie be able to recognise yet another grey building and identify an appropriate destination for the selfie? Will Annie be able to realise I haven’t posted a birthday card and direct me to the nearest post office? Or will Annie start to give me some well needed fashion guidance “I have noticed in a recent picture that you are in need of a new bra, I have set the Nav system to M&S for after work”

Annie should start to be able to organise my unbalanced, cluttered life better. Being Yang to my Ying. She will soon be able to hear when Macklyn or Magdalena are starting to get fractious in the car and play the appropriate Moana song. She will be able to get me home in time for bedtime stories, or realise that I’m not going to make it and dial me in from the Car. Annie is going to change my life.

But she is missing something, something that she is going to need if she’s going to fit in around here, and that is a heart.

I’m surrounded by exceptional people; Family, friends and colleagues. Every single one of them is exceptional and whilst I consider my own technology update, as is my bandwidth platform operating on V1, I think about those people. I think about the impact that they have on my life, and all those things that Annie will become already exist within the beautiful makeup of those exceptional people.

Not everyone can be exceptional, while about to load Magdalena in to the car in a public car park, a driver can see I am intending to put my child in her car seat. He chooses to pull the car in to the space next to me and so close to my car that I can’t open the door. I ask politely for him to move and he responds “well, so what, I’m inside my lines”. This man is not exceptional, he is an arsehole.

The technology that I describe isn’t new, actually it’s based on interactions that we have lost as the evolution of technology has grown, we no longer send birthday cards, we write a two word message on a public post that has been prompted by a reminder on Social Media. Music is selected based on reviews not the physical recommendation that someone has listened to and enjoyed an album. When was the last time you said to someone, ‘I was listening to this and thought you might really like it’?

I’m lucky. I am surrounded by exceptional humans. Exceptional humans will offer you the last stamp in the wallet to post that card, even dropping into the letter box as they take their dog for their evening constitutional. Exceptional humans will say to you, “Karen, your clothes are far too big for you when shall we go shopping for that new bra”? Exceptional humans will help if I get stuck in traffic to get the babies to bed. Those exceptional humans will know when a simple message of, “How are you?”, is enough to brighten your day, share music by exploring the sound track of the day or just know when to smile at you at time you need it the most. My heart sings when I hear someone say “I can’t wait to show you…”, someone has thought about me, considered me and wants to show me something that they will know I will like.

Annie isn’t exceptional she is electronic version of us before we got lazy and stopping going out of our way to acknowledge or become exceptional humans.

I am reliant on Annie when I need to be, for traffic, weather, information, continuous contact with the family. However if I am going to use Annie, the importance of recognising those exceptional people by saying ‘Thank you’ a little more, or even looking how I can go out of my way to be exceptional myself, or just to tell someone you think they are exceptional, will only support a balanced culture between technology and human interaction.

Exceptional – surpassing what is common or usual or expected

Karen Fagan

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