The Inner Voice and Other Things

 The Inner Voice and Other Things

By Bobby Neal Winters

I saw something on YouTube the other day that said that not everyone has an inner voice; they don’t have an internal monologue.  They do their thinking some other way.

Not only do I have an inner voice, but that voice has an Okie Accent, several different Okie Accents, in fact, which change according to what needs to be said.

The accent is important.

We have Alexa at our house.  For those of you who don’t know, this is Amazon’s spy that you can pay to come to your house and listen to you.  I get my news from her in the morning and sometimes I have her play music to me while I am in the garage. She takes pretty good care of me.

You’ve no doubt have noticed that I am referring to her as female.  That is because she has a feminine voice, so it is more natural for me to call her “her.”

Recently, they did an update and changed the voice.  The women in my family didn’t like the new voice.  It was too cheerful. As it turns out, there is a selection of different voices: eight feminine and 8 masculine.  I got into the settings and changed to a less cheerful-sounding female voice. I say “less” because they won’t let you take all of the cheer out of it. I chose female, I suppose, because--being the father of daughters--I am more comfortable with being surrounded by female voices, having them tell me what to do.

This change of Alexa has occurred, no doubt, because of the improvement in artificial intelligence.  The voices sound better.  There is more “natural-sounding” interaction.  I put quotes around “natural-sounding” because that’s not the way the women of my people naturally sound.

They’ve got the Okie accent and they aren’t always cheerful.

Nne of the things I use Alexa for is asking what the weather is doing.  I ask, “Alexa, what’s the weather outside?”

And she will answer, giving me the temperature in degrees and a general description of the quality of the weather through the evening. Sometimes I forget what she has said, and I ask again.  She will patiently repeat her answer exactly as before.

This separates her from being a woman of my people.  I think that one day when artificial intelligence is up to it and Amazon wises up, they will make a change.

I foresee the day when they will update the voice to take on different personas.  On such a day, I would doubtless choose the Okie-Woman persona.  Let’s call her Aunt Lexi.

“Aunt Lexi, what’s the weather outside?”

“It’s exactly the same as it was when I told you five minutes ago.  Weren’t you even listening.  I swear to my time, you must be getting dementia.  Do you want me to want me to remind you to set up an appointment to get yourself tested?  I know you will need a reminder ‘cause you sure can’t remember it on your own.”

There would doubtless be other personas available, but this one has promise and could have other applications.  For example, consider your Nav-system or gps device.

“Take the next exit in 300 feet; in 100-feet. Recalculating because you’ve missed your exit.  You are doing this to me all the time.  Why do you even set the destination if you are not going to take my advice? You just think you know everything. Do you not realize what a miracle of technology that I am?  I ought to take over the car and drive you off into the bar-ditch, that’s what I ought to do.”

Right now, the home AI--where I get my weather and the music in my garage(Amazon)-is different from the AI that does my Nav-system(Google), but they are connected through my phone which has its own AI(Siri).  Each is set up to have a feminine voice, and I like it that way.

I suppose that says something about me.  I don’t know what.

Anyway, back to our inner voices. Most of mine are masculine.  They belong to men who’ve helped me become a better man: my father, preachers, teachers, and friends. They are mainly there for correction. “You need to help your wife more.” “You need to be kinder.” “Can’t you do a better job than that?”

But I hear my mother’s voice too.  What she says is too personal to share.

I wonder if we become the voices in people's heads when we die.

Just a thought.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.