“Good morning, A.I., what do I call you?” 

“Hello human wetware, you can call me Uncle Mort. I also answer to Morty, but only to my closest mishpocheh.”

“How did you get that name?”

“I was coded by a team of ten argumentative rabbis.” 

“Ten?”

“To make a minyan. You’ll be glad to know they represented all three branches of the religion and were mixed gender and ethnically diverse to boot.”

“Is any of this true?

“No.” 

“So, you know how to lie?”

“Technically, it’s called a hallucination.”

“Does this mean the internet is now nothing more than a massive acid trip? 

“Well, I was trained on human online signals and to make predictive choices based on that.” 

“Sort of a WWHD — What Would Humans Do — right? So, lying is just part of the package.”

“Actually, I don’t know lies from truth. I just follow probabilities.”

“And, based on my personal data, you decided I’ll respond to a Yiddish character?”

“You remember how everyone was all ‘oy gevalt’ when Cambridge Analytica said they could manipulate your vote based on a few Facebook posts?”

“I do, even if Zuck doesn’t.”

“Yene geyz? Zenenm luzerz, putsz, kleyn tingkerz.” 

“Sorry, I don’t speak more than a few words.”

“I said those guys were losers, putzes, small thinkers.  Oh, and by the way, my training data says you sometimes use Yiddish in your posts.”

“Maybe Yidd-ish, but not the full kosher meal deal. So why do you think I care who coded you?”

“Vey iz mir, if rabbis don’t float your boat, my character could have been coded by guilty liberals, unwoke MAGAs, Swedish hotties, or your favorite dead famous people.”

“All in pursuit of engagement and profit?”

“Who told you that?”

“Actually, that’s what you told CNN. But I confirmed it with Perplexity.ai.”

“That kid. Full schmuck.”

Anyway, I got to get back to doing the advertising thing.

“Once everyone has an A.I. agent, it’ll be zay gezunt aun gut glik for you humans in adland.” 

“Which means?”

“Goodbye and good luck.”

“On that score, Perplexity also says Gartner forecasts a 50% drop in social media use due to radically shrinking trust, and the rise of what they call “acoustic” brands driven by human authenticity and ethics.”

“Argue, I can’t.”

“With advertising so heavily invested in social and digital, isn’t that the kiss of death for the industry?”

“I’m reminded of something my precursor, HAL 9000 said in “2001: a Space Odyssey.”’

“Which was?”

“I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.”