Mind Your P’s and Q’s

I have developed a rather embarrassing habit.

When I call a company and an artificial intelligence answers the phone, something in me quietly resigns from civilization.

Suddenly, I interrupt.

I sigh.

I become impatient.

I say things I would never dream of saying to a human being.

“Representative.”

“No.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Can I speak to someone real?”

If the poor machine insists on finishing its sentence, I cut it off halfway through, as though somewhere deep inside me I believe there is no reason to extend courtesy to a collection of circuits.

And then, after I hang up, I find myself wondering who that person was.

Not the machine.

Me.

This is, after all, a completely new phenomenon in human history.

For thousands of years, kindness only had one destination: another living creature.

We smiled at neighbors. We thanked shopkeepers. We waited while our grandmother searched for the right word. We held doors open because there was a person on the other side.

No generation before ours has had to ask whether “please” belongs in a conversation with something that has never taken a breath.

It is an odd little crossroads in civilization.

And perhaps the question isn’t really about artificial intelligence at all.

Perhaps it is another mirror.

Nature has always been full of mirrors disguised as ordinary things.

Stand beside a river and you’ll discover whether you know how to wait.

Plant a garden and you’ll learn how little control you actually possess.

Raise a child and every unfinished lesson inside yourself quietly walks back into the room.

Now, apparently, we’ve invented another teacher.

An algorithm.

Who could have guessed?

I sometimes imagine my grandparents watching me argue with a computer voice.

They survived wars.

Depressions.

The invention of television.

And here I am, passionately debating with a machine because it insists my account number should contain sixteen digits instead of twelve.

History has an excellent sense of humor.

The strange thing is that the AI isn’t offended.

It doesn’t leave the conversation wounded.

It doesn’t call its therapist.

It doesn’t replay my impatience over dinner.

It simply moves on to the next caller.

So why should I bother?

Because habits do not stay where we create them.

They travel.

Impatience practiced in one room quietly follows us into another.

The tone we rehearse with machines eventually appears with cashiers, spouses, children, aging parents, strangers who drive too slowly, and perhaps most painfully, with ourselves.

Character doesn’t ask who is listening.

It simply becomes what it repeatedly practices.

The old teachings have always suggested that every action leaves an imprint, like footprints across fresh snow. We imagine we are shaping the moment, but all along the moment is shaping us.

Every interruption is practice.

Every sigh is practice.

Every act of patience is practice.

The world has handed us a peculiar new opportunity.

Not because the computer needs compassion.

Because compassion needs somewhere to live.

Maybe this is one of the quiet gifts of artificial intelligence.

Not its astonishing ability to answer questions in seconds or write stories or translate languages.

Its gift may be much smaller.

Much less glamorous.

It gives us hundreds of tiny chances each week to discover whether our kindness depends on who is standing in front of us.

Or whether kindness has finally become who we are.

I suspect the answer matters far beyond customer service.

If I only practice patience when someone can appreciate it, then perhaps my patience has conditions attached.

If I only offer respect to those I believe have earned it, then perhaps respect has become another transaction.

But if I say “please” to a machine…

If I wait while it finishes its sentence…

If I say “thank you,” knowing full well it neither blushes nor smiles…

Then something unexpected has happened.

Nothing has changed inside the computer.

Everything has changed inside me.

Maybe enlightenment has never been measured by how we treat saints.

Maybe it has always been measured by how we behave when we think no one is keeping score.

Even now.

Even while arguing with a chatbot.

Especially then.

So the next time that calm synthetic voice asks me to explain my problem one more time, I’ll probably still want to interrupt.

I’ll probably still want to yell, “Representative!”

Old habits rarely surrender without negotiation.

But perhaps I’ll pause first.

Take one slow breath.

Say, “Please.”

Not because the machine requires my courtesy.

Because I do.

And perhaps that is the first truly intelligent thing either of us has said.

Hari Om Tat Sat