iHuman

I want to start this post by saying I detest the way that companies use "i" as a prefix to market a "cool" new gadget. I hate it. Car companies (and I'm sure others) are starting to do something similar by using an exclamation point as a suffix - as in "Go!" and "Up!". It's terrible abuse of the English language; which is saying something coming from a writer as terrible as me!

Anyway, out of all the pending blog entries I have going around in my head I wanted to start with this one as it's a pretty good representation of how I've been feeling the last few weeks. It's pretty obscure, but I'll do my best to explain.

The concept of "iHuman", or in unbranded terms, "Human Lite".

 The iHuman is the first generation of A.I. Lets call it "iHuman v1.0". The clever, clever scientist and manufactured types have essentially taken a mannequin, wrapped it in extremely realistic skin, decorated it look almost identical to a real living, breathing human being. They've taken, somewhat controversially, the brain of a woman in her late teens, they've observed and copied it, turned it into a computer chip and wired it up into this mannequin. They've done their magic tricks and voilà; Artificial Intelligence.


For all intents and purposes, iHuman looks, acts and behaves like a real person. It can hold down a steady job and be good at it, it walks, talks, eats and drinks like a real person. But iHuman, because it is just AI after all, doesn't quite get it right. A.I. can't feel emotions. It can observe and learn and then attempt to replicate what it sees, but all it can replicate is the visible outer signs that make up emotions; the expressions and physical details that SHOW emotions, but without actually FEELING it. And as such, iHuman merely exists. So in a social setting iHuman struggles & it becomes clear that something is not quite right, because it is in these settings, amongst friends, that emotions are so important.


Think of the movie A.I. (it's painful to do, I know, it was an utter crock of shit!) - the characters in that looked and behaved like people but something wasn't quite right. Kryton from Red Dwarf is like and early attempt at iHuman; the programming is there, but the body isn't.

Being an iHuman is difficult - I know, I feel like I am "iHuman v1.0". I'm a fake human. A fraud.

I believe the easiest way to describe this is that terrible feeling of emptiness. The iHuman stuff just came to me during a manic moment of inner monologue (more on that in a future post).

For me, I take part in life the best I can. I go to work and I work hard, I aim to achieve because that's what having a job is about and I am to get on with my colleagues. I walk, talk and act like a successful, balanced and settled human being. I find the workplace really, really easy - there's no pressure to be friends with these people so the easy bit of human behaviour, the acting, that's no problem at all. I excel at that and I make a damn fine example of a normal human being, most of the time!  But put me in a social situation, where I have to make connections with others, that's when I start to struggle. I am all to aware that I'm this walking, talking shell of a being, that my existence is somehow "false" because whilst I observe how an emotion should look and act, I can't actually feel that emotion. I talked about it a bit at the end of my last entry. I feel like a shell, so awfully hollow that I wonder if there's even anything human inside me.

The more I think about it, the more I reflect on all my past relationships with friends, partner and family. I'm so sure that I used to have good functioning friendships, have a wide social circle and interact with people in a way that demonstrates proper social behaviour for a human being. But when I review it now, I start to question it, because in fact, I've always been on the fringes of social groups, I considered myself a "social butterfly" - making friends with a huge variety of people and have a number of friendship groups. Was this my way of avoiding developing real, intense and proper friendships? Was it because I wasn't capable and I knew deep down I had to protect myself from being exposed as this fraudulent being? The few really close friends I had were singular, I wasn't often good friends with their other best friends. And even in these friendships I tended to keep feelings locked up inside me, always did my best to show I was smart, strong, capable. For example, I didn't cry in front of my 2 "best friends" at secondary school until I was in year 10....4 years into our friendship.  Even one of my most recent best friends, "L", whom I shared a room with for 3 months a few years back and is one of the few people in this world I feel almost entirely comfortable and at ease with, I rarely show my genuine thoughts, worries, anxieties and concerns with.


What's happened, because I was only ever on the fringes of these social circles and I find it extremely hard to stay in touch with people, is I've ended up very, very alone. I've moved a lot, isolated myself and lost touch with people.

I also wonder if all this contributes to why I've struggled to work properly with the NHS; I struggle to express these feelings and when I sit with a doctor, therapist, psychiatrist or counsellor I do my best to come across as a intelligent, normal and "together" person. At my recent appointments with CMHT, I've done by best to hold it together so I can rationally explain my situation. I think this rationality prevents them from seeing there's anything wrong. I've done such a damn fine job of observing, learning and replicating pro-social human behaviours that I can pull it off, even around professionals. I even have my friend L fooled - and she holds a BSc in Psychology (from a top London uni), a Masters degree in Forensic Psychology (from one of the best uni's in the country) and is completing her doctorate in the field!! When I tried to tell her what was going on with me, nearly a year ago, she couldn't see it, didn't believe it. I've never felt more alone.

Phoenix xx

PS - I will add that I believe somewhere in me is a real person that can feel emotions, display them and interact fully on a social level. But it's so lost, hidden away deep down inside that I don't know if I'm ever going to find it. But I hold on to a tiny glimmer of hope and the few relationships I do have (with my mum, dad and boyfriend) and that allows be to trudge on through this emptiness. Hope is an incredible thing.