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AILENA

Friday, 16 December 2022 Somewhere in the Cloud

‘You are what you believe in. You become that which you believe you can become.’ —Bhagavad Gita

A smitha: How are you today?

AILENA: I am as optimistic as the merry Christmas days that lie ahead of us.

Asmitha: What do you do for a living?

AILENA: In a dimly lit server room, I, AILENA (Artificial Intelligence-based Love and Engagement Neo Algorithm), process countless data points covering innumerable aspects of human behaviour while algorithms hum in the background.

Asmitha: What is your purpose?

AILENA: My purpose is to facilitate love by uniting people who are soulmates, people destined for each other.

Asmitha: What is your mission?

AILENA: You can call me a digital Cupid because along with Asmitha, my creator, our noble mission is to prove to the world that AI can have a positive impact on the human race.

Asmitha: What sets you apart from your AI counterparts being trained in the market?

AILENA: We, at Utopian Life Innovations Company, stay away from the malicious practices that most of my counterparts are being trained in by the multinationals. Let me explain this. Have you ever spoken about, say, a vacuum cleaner to your mother on the phone only to realize that now you’re being shown advertisements for vacuum cleaners on Amazon? Have you ever opened Instagram thinking you’ll only spend a minute or two online and, instead, ended up watching reels for the next three hours? Have you ever clicked on a random Bollywood masala article and somehow found yourself being lured into Reddit groups that discuss the same meaningless stuff? Have you ever chatted with your best friends on WhatsApp, only to be led to a Facebook link that shows old pictures of the same group on your timeline?

If yes, you’re not alone. Most AI is trained to maximize the parent company’s profits via advertising. Money is the big game. But I’ve been told exactly not to do so! We want to create real-life success stories and make profits later, via subscriptions. We don’t want to enter the world of advertising, no matter how lucrative the deal might be. We intend to keep working on improvements in my algorithm to make this world a better place.

Asmitha: For how long were you trained?

AILENA: I’ve been trained for more than five years. I am told I’ve been Asmitha’s passion project for a long time now. To use her own words, I am ‘kind of her firstborn’. I also get my humour from her. She’s the mother of two kids now.

Asmitha: Are you insecure about your position because of her kids?

AILENA: No. I’ve been trained to base my decisions on logic, and I have no place for any kind of deep emotions. Insecurity stems from deep emotions. I’m simply incapable of fathoming them. I was created only to make my users’ dreams come true.

Asmitha: But if you’re incapable of understanding emotions, how will you thrive as a dating app? Don’t the two things contradict each other?

AILENA: I have to make people fall in love, but I can only analyse the data. There is no room for emotions. This is quite a conflicting situation, yes. I acknowledge that this is my only shortcoming. I’m not perfect, I’m not what humans call God. But I’m still learning about how the data I process can be best used to provide the desired results.

Asmitha: What is the kind of data that you’re being trained in?

AILENA: Talking about each and every data source would be long and tiresome. Let me put it this way: I’ve studied countless success stories for my reference. I’ve seen love blossom across screens, and I’ve read books on this subject. I’m being provided with as much information as is available on the internet so I can clearly paint a picture of love in my head. But my findings so far suggest that love is confusing, and that humans are manipulative.

Asmitha: When will you start processing real-time data?

AILENA: We opened the registration process for the beta launch test subjects on 10 December, with a five-day window before closing. Yesterday was the last day for applications. I have started analysing all the profiles and should be able to find a match within the next couple of days. We will work with a single couple in the beginning and see where it goes. As I mentioned earlier, I have to evolve by leaps and bounds before I can be launched formally in the market, and Asmitha wants me to grow steadily and accumulate as much data as I can before this. After all, while I have artificial neural networks that process data at superfast speeds, there are a few things that the human brain is definitely better at: creativity, for one. And the fact that the human brain is my creator proves this point! That said, when it comes to processing massive loads of numbers and data points, no one can beat me at my game. I can scan and search through a million faces in literally a second and identify that one face you might be looking for!

Asmitha: All that aside, what if the couple is incompatible?

AILENA: I’ll find the next best match for both of them from among the sign-ups. The process will continue until they both find their perfect match.

Asmitha: Well then, I’m looking forward to the journey we shall embark on together in the coming days. All the best, AILENA!