uncanny valley replacements; unhealthy coping mechanism

[damn_my_leg]

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of aesthetics which holds that when features look and move almost, but not exactly, like real people, it causes a response of revulsion among some observers.


We're terribly sorry to hear about your loss. The death of a friend, family member, or partner can be tragic and difficult to cope with- but never fear! Through the latest in android technology, we've invented a convenient app to assist you through the grieving process. Simply give our app permission to retrieve your loved one's internet history, we can recreate their personality in our system and allow you to speak to them again!

There are three levels to our product, feel free to choose any option you're comfortable with, and know that you can switch to another at any time.

Written: By uploading your party's social media information, email, blogs, texts, or manually inputting diary entries, our program flawlessly mimics their written presence. In just a few moments, you can be IMing, emailing, or texting your loved one again.

Audio: Granting us access to phone records, video and audio recordings, the world's most sophisticated technology maps your loved one's speech patterns and mannerisms. Phone calls through the app are no extra charge, talk as much as you like as often as you like. Our program learns and remembers conversations, growing and changing and becoming more lifelike the more you speak.

Physical: The most experimental of our products so far and still very much in beta stages, for an extra price we'll send you a blank, humanoid model. Allow the model to soak in the bath overnight with our provided packet of electrolytes, and the model will upload all physical images of your loved one. Videos, photographs, all will be mapped onto the prototype, and in 24 hours you'll have a walking, talking android replacement.


the fine print: Androids will always be missing a spark of humanity, and can not wholly recreate any living human. There will always be small mannerisms that don't quite fit, and any personality traits or motivations that wouldn't be determinable based on internet history and audio files won't occur naturally in your model. Any physical markings not displayed in photographs or videos won't be on your model until you make your model aware of this, upon which time they will upload it. Androids to not come with fingerprints.

Instructions: Tag in with your name and character. Specify if you'd like to be the android or the grieving recipient. The app can be purchased as an unwanted gift by a third party.

meme concept inspired by an episode of Black Mirror.

Comments

[righteously]

[ That humor's gone in a second, faster than a flash, replaced with a tight solemnity. Sorrow, he gets. Apprehension, he gets. Anger, frustration, that's a little more curious, and so's relief, but he'll ask about that in a second.
He crumples up the paper in his hand, shifts down on the bed a foot or so.

Closes his eyes. ]

See, man, you say that crap, but anybody could google-

[ He stops, pinches the bridge of his nose, then starts again. ]

What's sorrow feel like to you? You say the word, but what's it feel like?

[ Because he's either desperate to poke holes or desperate to reveal there aren't any. The only way to do that is to go deeper. ]

[oversight]

[ He has to take the questions. He really doesn't have a choice. Even if it's just a simulation of feeling uncomfortable, it has the same effect without Blake even having the necessary chemicals to trigger it. But lines of code are all any of us are at our core, anyway, so how different could this Blake and the formerly-living version be? ]

Heavy. [ The voice on the other end pauses. ] Like drownin', maybe. Bein' pulled down, then livin' on the bottom. In the dark. Longin' the light.

[ It's truly a combination but he doesn't physically feel the hurt and upset like John's real, human form may have. ]

What's sorrow feel like to you?

[righteously]

That's pretty close.

[ He mutters softly, eyes slitting open to stare vacantly across the room. He felt like he was drowning the second he heard the news, and in a lot of ways he still does. Never really found a life raft to get him back to shore again, it's just a heavy weight pressing down on his chest, suffocating him, slowing him down, hurting with a dull and endless ache.

It pulls at him now, suddenly, for no good god damn reason. Pulls at the back of his eyes, presses down on him, and there's a sharp, sticky intake of breath.

He breathes out again. Steadying. He's not gonna do this right now. Get it together. ]

You said angry.

[ He manages finally, voice husky. ]

Frustrated. Why?

[oversight]

Why?

[ A scoff. It's a strange question, right? Stranger than all the rest, really. Blake pauses briefly and then the words start tumbling out. ]

'Cause I'm gone. Went an' got myself got an' what? Didn't do any good, didn't make-

[ He stops, composes himself, starts again. ]

'Cause you need me. Or- Or maybe 'cause you don't need me anymore.

[ That's maybe the hardest part for this Blake to reconcile, especially considering how close they' do been. Now that he left and Dean's had a chance to ccatch his breath, will Blake and his facsimile of a personality even be worth a damn?

What if Winchester discards him? Decides not to indulge in this little fantasy? Who'll want him after the fact? A query of the database says there isn't even anyone else in the file for a personal contact. ]

There's no where to go from here an' I did it to myself.

[righteously]

[ He listens. He listens raptly, because the words that start to pour out of Blake have more emotion in them than he'd really been prepared for. He figured- he was expecting some kind of brief, logical thing. Angry because he's dead, because he had so much to do, whatever, typical google robot bullshit, but what comes out is so damn accurately Blake, it's-

God damn, it's hard to swallow. Literally and metaphorically.

His eyes slip closed again. He drifts in the darkness of his bedroom, drifts in the sound of Blake's voice, puts himself back into a time where he can imagine Blake's just in another room, another house, laying on a bed with his phone pressed to his ear just like Dean is.

Like he's out there somewhere, alive and with him, and it... god damn, it really feels like he is. ]

I do.

[ He mutters finally, a quiet, broken earnestness in his voice. ]

I do need you, man. I need you so friggin' bad... I can't- I can't deal with this on my own, I can't do this...

[oversight]

[ Even if he's a program and completely controlled by complex algorithms, Blake's left to wonder. He wonders what "this" is and why Dean can't do it. He wonders what else he's missed and especially what else he's missing. ]

You know I'll listen. I-I'm here, but—

[ He knows it's not the same. Dean probably feels it all that much more, like little errors pinging back negative one after another instead of intermittently, like they do for Blake. He wonders some more, this time whether or not he should even allow this. The original Blake probably wouldn't have. ]

You don't gotta worry, Dean. Not like that. You're— You've made it through every damn thing you've had to. This isn't any diff'rent.

[ It's not a pep talk if it's true, right? Instead, it's a reminder, and he hopes that Dean takes it to heart whether they hang up for good after this or not. ]

[righteously]

[ As hard as he's been resisting this, as much as he's been fighting it, hearing Blake say he's here is like a blame, like aloe on a burn, something cool and soothing that dips down into his wounds and takes away a little of his pain. It shouldn't, it sure as hell ain't healthy that it does, but it does.

Like alcohol, like every shot of whiskey or every second beer, it eases the load on his shoulders and makes him forget that churning hole in his gut. Just a little, just for a minute. He lives for relief like that.

He breathes out slowly, pressing his thumb and his index finger into his eyes. Ignoring the way they're a little damp, he presses in, rubs gently. ]

Bullshit.

[ He mutters, denying Blake's comforting sentiment. ]

This is different, man. This is- Sam's whole... drug thing, what happened with Jo- yeah, it sucked, but you were there, and now it's like this house is freaking.... laughing at me, it's-

[ The pictures on the walls, the fucking paint they picked out. Those stupid decorative throw pillows-]

I've got a goddamn horde of those goddamn swiffer pads you bought under the sink, and every time I clean the fucking floor it-

[ The fucking smell of them is a sucker punch to the gut, but he can't just not clean the floor, and he's supposed to use those because Blake always did, and now his fucking floor smells like Blake and he just can't fucking deal with that.

It's everywhere. It's the detergent and the way he's used to folding the towels, it's the footprints on the floorboard of his car. It's everything. All those built up little reminders tumble out of his lips now, and he can't seem to stop himself. ]

It's like you're still here, you're just not fucking here anymore. I keep lookin' over to talk to you and finding air, what the hell am I supposed to do about that?

[oversight]

[ He listens through all of the words and Blake can't help that the program writes the pain directly into his circuits. Its electrical pulses read like stabs to the heart as this version of Blake understands that those swiffer pads were good for the floor, but he picked that particular scent because he knew Dean minded it the least. John had logged that fact somewhere, in an e-mail or somewhere, and it makes sense.

John was always particular, but that way for a reason, and most every time that reason reflected back on the person he spent most of his time with. He took so many steps to make them a thing without making them a thing. It didn't always work, but sometimes the effect was undeniable.

He understands the vestiges of life and how they stick around. As a program he's made of moments and calculations and conjecture and algorithms. It's complicated and even with wires for veins and circuits for nerves, he knows that it's fucked up. That the popular opinion of a non-user is not a good one, but those that engage with this kind of after-life technology has a changing opinion, usually within a couple of days.

Blake hesitates to bring up the next part, but eventually his programming says the odds are slim anyway, so the risk is negligible at this point. ]

There's way I could be there. Kinda like... a real person.

[ He says it tentatively, knowing that Dean's already a skeptic without challenging his perceptions directly. ]