Isn’t Technology Wonderful!

As I noted before, I travel a lot for work. We use our phones for navigation as well as communication. While we never quite know what vehicle we will be in, most have it where you can plug your phone into the vehicle to have hands free operations, display maps and navigation, and do all other sorts of fun and nifty things.

That said, I’m not a huge fan of the voice command system. It has it’s issues, and some vehicles just seem to make it worse. Then again, I’m halfway to the opinion that our robot/AI overlords are trying to kill off those of us who suspect it may be more than simple problems.

A week or so ago, I had been sent about an hour and a half north to take care of an issue. Those who sent us out (different department) did not have their, er, act together (not an infrequent occurrence) which resulted in my supervisor having to text critical updates to me. Most of these were met with “copy” as a reply.

The third time, however, things got fun — and funny in retrospect. I went through all the voice command prompts, and recorded my “copy” to send. Apparently, I said “send” too soon, and confusion ensued between me and the voice commands. I will also note that I have mine set to a British female voice.

Having lost my patience with the confusion, I finally said “No, you stupid (bleep), I said send!”

To which she replied: “New message recorded. ‘No, you stupid (bleep), I said send!’ Shall I send the message?”

I swear, she sounded smug about it when she said it and I yelled “NO!”

Copy finally got sent. The supervisor in question laughed long and hard when I told him the message he almost got. He said a couple of times similar messages had gotten away from him.

For the record, I welcome our robot/AI overlords. Please don’t kill me.