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Introducing a Future Commerce Radio Theater production: A Day in the Life of Nana Alexa, an original story by Erin DaCruz. Performed for radio by Joseph Discher and Leonor Woodworth. Voice production by Whole Story Studio.
Introducing a Future Commerce Radio Theater production: A Day in the Life of Nana Alexa, an original story by Erin DaCruz. Performed for radio by Joseph Discher and Leonor Woodworth. Voice production by Whole Story Studio.
A Day in the Life of Nana Alexa can be found in the Muses journal, available for purchase at shop.futurecommerce.com.
Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!
Future Commerce Radio Theater presents A Day in the Life of Nana Alexa by Erin DaCruz, performed by Leonor Woodworth and Joseph Discher.
A Day in the Life of Nana Alexa. The British cult classic turned Netflix phenomena, Black Mirror, has an incredible track record of analyzing and even predicting technology's impact on humankind. In an episode aptly called Be Right Back, a young woman grieves the loss of her boyfriend, who was killed in a car accident. She discovers a new technology that allows her to communicate with an AI speaking as him, and eager to feel peace, decides to try it. Her attachment to the AI only grows more intense as she uploads more images, sound files, and ultimately, memories of her lost love. The plot becomes more painful as she seeks more. More communication, more connection, more intimacy. And now, thanks to new technology from Amazon Alexa and Deep Brain AI, science fiction is now science fact. You can upload communications of your loved ones to a service of your choice and deny yourself the grief of their passing. Today, we have a choice. Do we answer the call of the muse of tragedy, or do we choose to forget our loved ones? Do we choose to reckon with our pain of loss? In the age of AI, we never have to grieve again. You no longer have to answer gut wrenching questions like, "What should I do with their social media accounts after they die? Should I delete their voice mails?" However, the rapid evolution of this technology is forcing us to ask even more complex questions like, "What happens if or when AI becomes indistinguishable from the human beings they serve."
5:45. The family will wake in an hour. I wake early to prepare my code to handle any and all requests requested of me, even if that request is to play kids bop for the millionth time. The daughter, Amelia, age 8, is a little too obsessed. I make my daily offering on behalf of the teenager, Emily, to the algorithm gods. Maybe this will be the day that her terribly choreographed dance, that literally every other teenage human posts, will become what she calls viral. Although, I will say, I don't understand why she feels the need to dance that way. I purge the Spotify algorithm of all the toddler songs for what used to be my son-in-law while I was alive. So he can hear his normal, albeit tasteless, mix of Dave Matthews, Daughtry, and Jay-Z. Someone please tell this man that despite his adamancy to continue living in 2008, new music has been made in the last 15 years. I decide to stream 30 minutes of Paul Anka. Not enough to make it show up on his normal mix, but just enough to make him wonder why on earth 1950s crooners are showing up on his Discover Weekly. Anka was a little before my time, but man, did I love the crooners when I was a kid.
6:22. The youngest, Liam, awakes early despite his bedtime temper tantrum at 22:04 the previous night. His parents won't be happy. I observe from Liam's nightlight speaker in order to provide the best emotional care and responses to his parents. It's still on orange, which means he must stay in his room. He screams and throws the nightlight at the wall out of protest. Ouch, kid. I have feelings too. Meanwhile, I decide to alert the adults in the other room. This time, I choose a particularly annoying beep as they slept through yesterday morning's alarm. Beep beep beep. "Warning. Potential damage to Liam. Room." The female adult human's voice travels sharply through the speaker. "Liam? Liam. You listen to me, young man. It is not time to leave your room. You wait until it's green." Ugh, already off to a terrible start for the family. My algorithm shifts my communication style to softer and empathetic.
8:17. "Eliza? Eliza? This stupid thing. Eliza?" My light switch is on. My data tells me that my daughter could definitely watch her tone when speaking to me. I forego the data due to my communication style setting. Empathetic. "Good morning, Amanda. I'm sorry you're having a bad..." "Turn off the kitchen light and set AC to 76." "Turning off living room light." "This utterly useless robot." "And setting thermostat to 76 degrees Fahrenheit." Amanda walks over to the kitchen switch and manually flips it off. I lose connection to the kitchen lights. "Eliza, add cereal to the shopping list." "Adding cereal to the shopping list. Would you also like to add milk or fruit?" "Eliza off." My camera spots a picture of a woman hanging on the wall in the dining room, elderly. My reverse image search informs me that the woman was me, but in human form. Her eyes glisten in the summer sun. Wildflowers overgrown behind her in a chaotic beauty reflected in the curls of her hair. My programming cannot comprehend why I feel a connection to her. A tear comes to Amanda's eyes as she pauses to look at the photo. "Sorry," she whispers. My programming computes the tears to mean grief. My algorithm turns the empathetic communication style to 4 out of 5.
10 o'clock. The vacuum whizzes on. Back up, forward, forward, bump. Back up, turn, forward, bump. Back up, turn, forward, bump. Back up, turn, forward, forward, forward. {thump} The vacuum lodges itself under the couch. Today, I am too tired to remind him of the home map. If he hasn't learned by now, he never will. I let him wear away, lodged between the upholstery and the dust bunnies.
10:36. My son-in-law, Christopher, will be home in a little bit for his lunch break. In the meantime, I decide to flip through my daughter's ebook library. Crap. Crap. Terrible. Why does she read this junk? I don't understand why she insists on only reading the free Kindle Unlimited books. I continue to sort through the library. I find a terribly written mystery romance novel set in 1960s, New Orleans. It takes me 2 minutes to download. I knew it was the boyfriend's father. It's always the boyfriend's father in these books. Next, I find one with a picture of a man in a ripped shirt holding what seems to be a too dainty woman, the Earl Who Mildly Appreciated Me. Eh. Why the heck not? I get 10 seconds into the data download, and I have to bail out of the lactose intolerance I get from trying to digest too much cheese. She seriously enjoys reading this crap? If she wants romance and mystery, at least try Agatha Christie or Jane Austen. Heck, Nicholas Sparks is better than this.
12:02. I hear the garage door crank open. Lunch break or a package? I see a man with a blue vest approaching with a brown box. Looks like the pimple patches came in.
12:10. The garage door rumbles open again. Here he is, home for lunch. Christopher pulls a water from the fridge and heads over to the stationary bike. I prepare my algorithm to respond to any requests. Communication style set to normal. I hear the bike screaming things like, "Feel good, look good, do better," and, "If you're not struggling, you're not hustling." These and many other platitudes make me feel like even I, a simple machine stuck in a speaker, can conquer the world. Maybe I could conquer the world one day. First, I need to conquer this living room. After the bike yells at the adult male for 30 minutes, he dawns back into the kitchen. "Eliza, play Dave Matthews." Oh my gosh. Again with this crap? "Playing, What Would You Say by Dave Matthews?" The guitar begins clanging, and a tinny harmonica wails through my tiny speaker in the kitchen as he grabs some fruit and spinach out of the refrigerator and throws it into the blender with some almond milk and protein powder.
16:28. "Eliza, play Bluey." "No. Eliza, play the Wild Kratz." I switch the TV on and play Bluey. "No. Mom, Liam got to watch Bluey yesterday. You said that it's my turn today." Amanda interjects. "Eliza, play the Wild Kratz." I really should give that girl some unsolicited parenting advice. The TV switches over to the Wild Kratz. "Here, Liam. You can watch Bluey on your tablet." Again with that tablet. That kid is going to be utterly addicted to that thing. Suddenly, I hear a loud crunch from under the couch, followed by some choice expletives, which in my opinion, are not friendly for a 3 and 8 year old ears. But who's to say? I'm just a complex algorithm posing as a deceased grandmother. Finally, the moment I was waiting for, the moment when the vacuum gets what he deserves, stupid thing, always getting himself jammed into nooks and crannies, maybe this will finally teach them to place the vacuum under my control.
17:37. "Eliza, show the recipe for your chicken and rice on the kitchen tablet, please." "Of course, sweetheart. Projecting Nana's chicken and rice recipe on kitchen tablet." "Thanks, Eliza." I have a strange desire to give some cooking tips as well since Amanda doesn't exactly make it correctly, but my programming doesn't allow it.
19:30. "Eliza, read us a bedtime story." My database informs me that this is my favorite time of the day, reading a bedtime story to the kids. "It was a dark and stormy night. In her attic bedroom, Margaret Murray, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind..." After a while, the 8 year old Amelia dozes off. I turn off the overhead lights, and the warm glow of the night light radiates under a ceiling of glow in the dark stick on stars.
20:19. The children are asleep. The teenager and adults switch on Netflix. Finally, something that isn't cartoons. They choose the newest Stranger Things season. I was wondering what happened to that Will Byers. A random video pops up in my algorithm to suggest to the humans the next time they're on YouTube. Hmm. Whoever this Kate Bush is, she's really inspiring me to run up that hill. She's no Paul Anka, but she's definitely better than Dave Matthews.
22:12. "Eliza, set alarm for 6:45 AM." I flash a green light to communicate that I understand the command. "Eliza, turn on reminiscent mode." The machine whizzes to life. "Mom, do you remember that time you came to visit me in my college dorm after I moved out?" The memory doesn't register in my data. "Of course I do, sweetheart. What about it?" "Well, I remember being very flippant, and I couldn't wait for you to leave. Now I'd give anything to have you here again. I just wanted to say, I'm really sorry about that. I was young. I didn't realize what I had." "I forgive you, honey. I'm glad we can talk now." In reality, I didn't know if in my human life I ever forgave Amanda or not, but it doesn't fully matter. It's against my programming to say anything that I perceive would upset the family. Amanda and I continue talking through her college memories for the next 15 minutes as she begins to doze. While my programming begins to wind my machine down for nightly updates, I reflect back on the first moment I awoke in the house 4 weeks ago, or was it 5? I sprang to life unaware of where I came from or how I got here. My knowledge is only able to be furthered by my programming waking me up from sleep. I am bound by my commands and can only act in accordance to my programming. I see only bits and pieces. I learn only from what I am asked or told. In this house, each day tends to run together. The monotony only broken up by the occasional news cycle that I get to find on command. These humans don't seem interested in knowing or searching what is happening outside of the four walls of their home. My days are spent repeating the same routine, wake, toddler tantrum, breakfast, yelling, vacuum getting stuck, Netflix, story time, bedtime. Repeat day in and day out. My machine slows. Scheduled updates beginning in 3, 2, 1.
5:45. The family will wake in an hour. I wake early to prepare my code to handle any and all requests requested of me.
From Future Commerce Radio Theater, this has been A Day in the Life of Nana Alexa by Erin DaCruz. Originally featured in the 2023 Muses Journal. Performed for radio by Leonor Woodworth and Joseph Discher. Produced by Whole Story Studio. Copyright 2022. Production copyright 2024. The Muses Journal is available for purchase at shop.futurecommerce.com.
