Birthday Bots
Normally I write such posts on more personal sites, but this year I have a tech angle! Today is my 45th birthday and the first birthday wish I got was from a bot.
Okay, it’s not technically true, but only because some overzealous (or slightly forgetful) friends wished me a happy birthday over the past few days. Oh yes, and the email marketers — they tend to start about a month out. But once the clock struck midnight on my actual birthday, my bot buddies were there, seemingly tripping over themselves to be first.
It was sort of cute, sort of weird. There was almost a breaking of the fourth wall feeling when regular tasks were followed up with: "and I hope you're having a great birthday!" Thank you, I am. And while that's nice of you to say, I know you're only saying it to mimic a human framing. Of course, had I said as much, a follow up might as well have been, "why would I deceive you?"
It was also an obvious extension of a post I wrote many moons ago, at the ripe old age of 34, about bots wishing people happy birthday on Facebook — and the notion of bots responding to those bots with a “thank you”. Of course, over the intervening 11 years, this has more or less become reality. But to an extent I couldn’t have possibly imagined.
That was an era where cutting-edge AI was largely seen as Siri and Alexa. I mean technically it was undoubtedly the machine learning happening behind-the-scenes on big data databases, but user-facing AI was almost comically rudimentary compared to what we have now. It was things like Facebook knowing it was your birthday and suggesting to your friends that they wish you a “happy birthday” with a single click. These days we’re breaking math on our way to (hopefully) curing cancer (while not breaking the world).
And bots — now better known as “agents” — are increasingly everywhere. What started with enterprise is quickly spreading to consumer with the launch of roughly ten thousand AI personal assistants in the past few months. And we’re on the cusp of those agents fully talking to one another, cutting out the middleman (us). This will happen with email, if it’s not already. And it certainly already happening on LinkedIn. Facebook too, insofar as anyone still uses Facebook.
I kid. 3 billion+ people apparently still use Facebook. But it is interesting how usage has fallen off a cliff with regard to my own cohort. Or, at least, the birthday messages have. Maybe my friends no longer like me — possible — but more likely is that they’re simply more active on other networks these days. Including Instagram, thankfully for Meta.
And I wonder if one day, Facebook and the OG social networks will simply be overrun by bots. A simulation of sorts, of AI performing tasks for you to stay “active” without actually being active. Automatically wishing your connections “happy birthday” and their bots thanking your bot for the well wishes.
My post on turning: 44. 43. 42. 41. 40. 39. 38. 37. 36. 35. 34. 33.