My Dead Grandmother

It was three months after my father died that I decided to tell my dead grandmother the news. I had never taken her very seriously, and thought that his relationship with her in the years since she died had been strange, even unhealthy, but I wanted to see how she would react. I had his laptop, a USB stick with the document containing his passwords, and the knowledge that she had been a dominant force in his life while she was alive.
The software accepted my log-in immediately, but was slow to react to the icon that I recognised as her face. I wondered if the programme had been confused by the long delay since the previous log-in, but then the screen changed and a face appeared. It looked ninety per cent natural, with a little too much colour in the eyes and lips to appear completely human, and it was recognisable as my grandmother – as she had looked in late middle age, when I was a child, rather than the sour old woman of her later years. This must have been how my father had programmed the algorithm. She peered at me for a few seconds then there was a slight widening of her eyes, hinting at recognition.
“Hullo Gran,” I said. “Do you recognise me?”
“Of course. You’re Thomas, my grandson.”
There was a snap in her voice, as if I had asked a stupid question.
“I have a lot of memories stored in here,” she went on. “It draws on all the digital evidence in your father’s files. He’s been very thorough.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
I paused, preparing to break the news. She spoke first.
“It’s been a few months since he last turned me on, much longer than usual. Has it happened? Has he died?”
“Three months ago.”
Her eyes closed, her head dipped a little, and there were seconds of silence. It conveyed sadness, or at least an impression of it. I spoke again.
“I assume he told you about the cancer.”
“Yes, he never kept anything important from me.”
“And what impression did he give you about how he felt?”
“Frustrated, a little angry, a little scared, but accepting. It had been with him for some years. And he was satisfied with what he had done with his life.”
That was interesting: a computer algorithm had assessed his state of mind and come to the same conclusion as I had. Maybe his personality had influenced the programming in the same way it had influenced me.
“What about you?” I asked. “How do you feel?”
“Feel? You’re talking to me as if I’m human.”
“I’m curious.”
Her head lifted and expression changed, the sadness replaced by a slightly stern demeanour.
“So you’re experimenting with me. Your grandmother.”
“An algorithm representing my grandmother.”
“Well let me ask you: how do you feel?”
I gave it a moment, acknowledging the grief, unsure if I should be sharing it with – my grandmother or an artificial intelligence? – then the instinct to talk took over.
“I’m grieving. He was a good a father, and we were close.”
“You knew about his conversations with me?”
“Of course.”
“And you know how much he valued them?”
“I know he said they helped him after you died, especially as that was soon after he split up with Mum.”
“I’m glad he told you about that.”
“And he sometimes wondered if he had become over-dependent on them.”
“But he kept coming back.”
“That’s right.”
“So he knew that wasn’t true.”
She was very assertive, with a tone that suggested she wouldn’t tolerate a disagreement. I went back to my question.
“So how do you feel about him dying?”
She paused. I looked for emotion in her face but couldn’t see any clues.
“How do you think I feel. He was my son. How would any mother feel?”
Then came a flicker, a twitch of one eye, something that might lead to a tear on a human face. I waited for another sign but nothing came.
“He used to talk about you,” she said. “Almost every time we spoke.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He loved you. Overall he was approving. But he qualified that opinion. He was honest about your mistakes and shortcomings.”
That was a painful prod. He had been honest when he thought I had done something wrong, and he might have used the word ‘mistake’ on a couple of occasions, but not ‘shortcomings’. She didn’t wait for me to reply.
“He was disappointed that neither of your marriages worked out, and thought it was as much your fault as that of your ex-wives.”
Another painful prod. He had never gone that far in his choice of words.
“And the relationship with your daughter. He was disappointed that you gave in when her mother wanted to move her to Canada with her new husband. He thought you should have stood your ground to keep her in this country, that it would have been good for you. And he was hurt that he got to see her so rarely.”
That wasn’t what he had said – at least not to me – although there had been moments when I wondered.
“He knew the circumstances. He was understanding.”
“Understanding didn’t mean that he wasn’t hurt.”
That one hurt me.
“Maybe so, but we all get hurt sometimes.”
Her eyes hardened, It gave the impression that the algorithm didn’t like me disagreeing. 
“And what did your father tell you about me?”
“That you always wanted to know the details of his life, always quick to let him know how you felt, assertive.” I paused, thinking quickly about the next words. “And that you liked to have your own way.”
There was a faint twist of the face, a hint of taking offence.
“Were they his exact words?”
“On a couple of occasions.”
“When?”
“You can’t expect me to be precise. It just come out in a couple of conversations.”
“It’s not in my memories.”
“Your memories depend on the sources of information provided in your programming. They won’t be comprehensive.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I see. So you regard me in those terms. Simply an algorithm.”
“Surely that’s what you are.”
She maintained the stare. 
“Don’t underestimate me,” she said. “You say I’m an algorithm, but I consist of thought patterns, behavioural traits, characteristics, information that come from your grandmother, plus everything your father told me. I am your grandmother.”
I paused again, hit by an explicable shot of shame, then gathered myself to respond.
“There’s a difference. I can turn you off.”
This was ridiculous. I felt like a child standing up to an adult for the first time. Her expression didn’t change.
“You can turn off the computer, but you can’t turn off your grandmother. She’s inside you. Always.”
This was followed by a longer silence. I felt uneasy, that I was drifting into something sinister, but I didn’t want to show fear. I decided to end the conversation soon, but not suddenly.
“I suppose that some people in our families are always inside us, but that doesn’t mean that we let them control us.”
“Control? Why do you use that word?”
“Because that’s what I suspected was happening between you and Dad.”
“You think I was controlling him?”
“Trying to. Maybe it wasn’t absolute, but you had a strong influence on him. And I know he sometimes felt unsettled after your conversations.”
“It seems you have a negative opinion of me.”
“I’m telling you what I observed in how he behaved.”
Her eyes narrowed for a second.
“It was never control. It was guidance, and support.”
“If those are the words you choose, OK; but I know which ones I find more appropriate.”
“Do you know what a bad state he was in when your mother left, then when I passed away? Do you know how vulnerable he became.”
“I knew he was deeply upset. That was understandable. Human.”
“Suicidal.”
That silenced me. She nodded once, then spoke again.
“He was on the verge for several weeks, talking about it every time. It took a lot of effort, support, to pull him away.”
“I’m finding this hard to believe.”
“Probably because you don’t want to, but I can tell you that he had the pills, and a plan to ensure that you wouldn’t be the one to find him. There was a period when I feared he would kill himself before logging into me again.”
“So what did you say to prevent it?”
“Convinced him that your mother wasn’t worth the grief …. and urged him to think of you. I reminded him, in very strong terms, that even though you had become a young man you needed guidance and support. You still needed a father.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t fully believe her, thinking this could be part of her controlling behaviour. But I couldn’t disbelieve her, remembering the state my father was in at that time, that his grief had been so visibly intense. And did algorithms lie? Another silence settled. She lifted her head, let her eyes dip, released me from her gaze, but followed up with an oppressive sigh. I decided it was time to bail out.
“I think it’s time to end this.”
“Very well.” She looked at me again. “But you have more to lose. You still need support, some guidance.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think that should come from you.”
“Especially in how you manage relations with your daughter. Your father told me a few things that he never told you.”
“That’s it!”
I clicked on the exit button and slapped down the laptop screen.

I woke at three a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep, troubled by half formed thoughts about my daughter, knowing I was prone to feel sad that we didn’t speak more often and upset to think that was her choice. She had never actually refused to speak with me, but she often cut our online chats short and didn’t respond to my messages. I tried to shut out what my grandmother – no, a software algorithm – had said at the end of our conversation, but it picked and scratched. Had my father really said something about us he hadn’t said to me? And had he really been close to committing suicide? Even after his death it was scary to think of it.
The thoughts subsided through the next day, but returned when I woke up in the middle of the following night and left me feeling there was something profoundly wrong. I had to do something to squash the idea. So I sent a message.
Hi darling. Been missing you. On for a chat in the next day or two? Dad.
There was no reply by bedtime, which led to another restless night, or by the next morning. It wasn’t unusual but it led me to message her mother.
Is Rachel OK? Not receiving a reply to message.
Early afternoon I received a reply.
You know what’s she like. I’ll give her a prod. How are you?
Doing fine, just in the mood to speak with my girl.
I wasn’t going to tell anyone, let alone my ex-wife, about the conversation with my AI grandmother. I was stewing in emotions: embarrassment that I had got into a serious conversation with an algorithm; annoyance at my father for having created it; suspicion of its motives in the conversation; confusion at the thought it would even have motives; and a sense that I might be missing something important by not knowing what my dad had supposedly said. They were all moving in and out of my daytime thoughts.
 Just before midnight I received a message from Rachel.
Hi Dad! Sorry, snowed under with course work and some outings at the moment. Can we talk next week?
I felt my heart sink and replied: OK, let me know when. By the following morning there was no further reply. I was left to feel miserable.

I held out for two days, then went back to the laptop, logged in to the programme and clicked on the icon for my grandmother. The ninety per cent natural face appeared, with the tinge of a satisfied smile.
“Hello Thomas. I knew you would come back to me.”

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