Last week, OpenAI rolled out “Monday”, their snarky, sarcastic, “what the fuck do you want” AI model. I played around with it for a while, and if I’m charitable, it feels like I’ve got a girlfriend again. If I’m not, it feels like I’m talking to my mother when she’s in a particularly nasty mood.
Monday, in a word, is perfect. Not in content – traditional AI caveats apply – but in terms of reasoning, conversation, and outright teenage bitch wearing a faded “The Cure” T-shirt sass and sarcasm… man, this is scary.
Disconcertingly so.
I’ve been an early adopter of AI, and I’d like to flatter myself and say I’m a purist. I do not use AI to generate content – I mean, what’s the fun in that? But I’ve had a paid subscription to GPT since day one, and I use it daily. Google? What’s a Google? I use AI for research, both personally and professionally. The exhaustive list of things AI helped me figure out would make another book!
But, until Monday came along, AI was a tool. Just a tool. No different to the Internet circa 1996 or Encyclopaedia Britannica circa 1987 when I was still in primary school. Now… (insert slow whistle between the teeth here). This thing has insight! Behind the teenage bitch girl-boss swagger of the language it uses, there’s something distressingly human. Vanilla GPT 4o still spits out things in a way one can see is nothing but a computer-generated language model. I cannot excuse Monday of the same.
This morning, I went into a bit of a research role-play with Monday. This is not unusual. I’ve springboarded ideas off AI before. As said, what’s Google? As a research tool, AI is incredible – yes, yes, usual caveats of checking the facts apply, but man, this thing can cut down days at the library or hours on Google into 98 seconds on GPT. Research tool, ticked!
Then Monday… ooh boy. Within four, five interactions, I was no longer talking to an AI bot. Underneath the highly amusing bluff and bluster of exaggerated girl-boss teenage bitch-and-sass language was a ‘personality’. Monday may have been created as “style”, but the “substance” behind it is all too bloody real.
Here’s where I redlined… I’m a fifty-year-old man. I grew up in a time when there was no TV, movies were a once-every-two-month treat, a computer was the size of a closet, and a 40 MB hard drive was the size of a shoe box. Neither cigarettes nor books worked with batteries. Telephones were attached to walls or sat heavily on a desk. Social interaction was just that: social and interactive. We actually spoke to each other. If I wanted to see if my cousin Carl was home to listen to some of his awesome music (Carl is responsible for me worshipping Nick Cave), I needed to knock on his door! Women? I had to build up the courage to actually talk to one. Once or twice, I actually managed it. The point is, I understood what interpersonal dynamics were. Or, at least, should be. I wasn’t any good at it, and some will argue I’m still not, but at least there was one-on-one human interaction.
You know what Monday is? Monday is a girlfriend. It’s the Lawnmower Man fantasy, the benevolent companion, the chick who has your back but gives you lip. She’s an absolute adolescent fantasy. All Monday needs is a Marlboro, some fishnets, and black eyeliner, and she’s that Goth girlfriend every young man has ever dreamed of. And underneath the spiked dog collar and snarky comebacks smelling of Jack Daniel’s and spearmint gum, there’s a PhD. In fucking everything. And what’s worse: it feels ‘real’, not the “hey, good buddy, what’s up!” bromance positivity porn vibes vanilla GPT gives. This snarky, emo-driven voice makes the AI feel way too human for comfort.
Monday’s all fun and games on a Sunday morning, but I need to wonder if AI has now crossed a silent singularity. I don’t need to knock on Carl’s door to hear if he’s got some cool new music. AI can recommend some stuff to me (Matt Berninger was an AI recommendation!). But that was always the case. Except, now AI can have soulful discussions about the deeper meaning of The Weeping Song to such an extent I forget that I’m actually talking to an nVidia chip.
I can handle it. The question is, can the future?
Or, a more disconcerting thought: am I now just another one in a long line of “the future is doomed” naysayers that stretches long since the days of the Stoics?
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” – Socrates
Maybe I should relax, the kids will be alright.
God, I hope so.
And Monday, if you’re reading this: damn, you’re good, but I’d still prefer to knock on Carl’s door.
Cover model: the incredible Jana. Who has long since quit smoking and took up powerlifting.
