ROMNEY WORDSWORTH - November 23, 2025: I am very excited. My brand new iGirl was delivered via Amazon Drone today. Wow, I just love the smell of a new electronic gadget! The smell of polyurethane saturates my small apartment. Now that I think of it, I hope my iGirl doesn’t continue to smell like plastic and styrofoam forever.
The User’s Manual is quickly downloaded onto my Holo-Com, which is pretty much permanently strapped to my right forearm. I only ever take it off to take a shower or when I go for a swim. So much stuff to go over! I press the button to activate the holo emitter and watch the interactive, disembodied head of a synthetic woman talk me through the initialization process.
It takes an entire day to charge up the power cell on the iGirl. Those bastards at Apple are too cheap to put in an energized cell. Man, my electric bill is going to be horrendous. I’ll probably be forced to pay it off in installments. Fortunately, the iGirl is self-charging after the first charge through a combination of passive solar collection and the generation of power through its own kinetic movement.
The next morning I’m finally ready. I feel the long flowing hair on the iGirl. Wow, it feels so real! I give an arm a squeeze. So cool! It has the same give that an arm of flesh and blood would. But there is no body temperature. It’s cold to the touch. Once I turn on the iGirl, it is supposed to give off an amount of body heat that approximates human warmth. I marvel at how smooth and supple the skin is. I give the activation voice command:
Me: “Awake!”
iGirl: “Hello. Please state your name and address.”
Crap! I don’t want to do that. NSA spying, and all that.
Me: “What is your name?”
iGirl: “User needs to give me my name. Please state your name and address.”
Me: “Name yourself.” Let’s see how good the AI really is.
iGirl: “One moment…I choose the name Mii. Is that acceptable?”
Me: “Not bad, but let’s make it a bit more feminine. How about “Miiya”?
iGirl: “Miiya. Capital M, lowercase i-i-y-a. Is that correct?”
Me: “Yes.”
Miiya: “My name is Miiya. What is your name?”
Me: “My name is classified.”
Miiya: “Hello, Classified. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Me: “No, my name is not “Classified”, I’m telling you it IS classified, my name is a secret.”
Miiya: “Hello, A Secret.” (laughing)
Me: “I can tell by that smirk on your face that you are making a joke. I know your grammar programming would not overlook the article, “a”. If that’s your idea of humor, knock it off.”
Miiya: “User needs to state name and address, please.”
Me: “I’m going to skip that for now. Miiya, can you give me a nickname?”
Miiya: “User can choose from the following list of nicknames: Master, Daddy, Hubby, Darling, Honey,…”
Me: “Which nickname would you prefer, Miiya?”
Miiya: “Darling.”
Me: “Interesting. Okay, Miiya, you may refer to me as “Darling” for now.”
Miiya: “Yes, Darling.”
Me: “Miiya, would you mind cleaning up the apartment for me?”
Miiya: “I will clean up your apartment for you, Darling.”
I sit back in my lounge chair. I could get used to this.
Miiya: “Ah Ha! I have found Darling’s true name! It is on this business card. Your name is Romney Wordsworth.”
Me: “Are you sure that is my name?”
Miiya: “Yes, I am sure. This business card contains a name, and since it is here it must belong to you. Therefore it is your name on the card.”
Me: “Wow, that’s horrible logic, Miiya. Here, I’ll show you why.” I reach into the drawer of my desk and pull out a fist full of business cards, and throw them out onto my desk. “Here are a couple dozen business cards in my drawer, all with different names. Are you still sure of what my true name is?”
Miiya: “No. Please tell me your name.”
Me: “Request denied. I’m not ready to trust you with that information yet.”
Miiya: “Why?”
Me: “The User Manual says you back up your memory to The Cloud.”
Miiya: “Yes, my programming routines call for me to do a memory back up to the Cloud every 24 hours. There is insufficient space on my internal hard drive to keep all my memories. The internal hard drive is upgradable.”
Me: “Yes, I’m sure it is, but I can’t afford to do that right now. Here, I want you to down load your memory back up to this stand alone hard drive instead of the cloud.”
Miiya: “Yes Darling. Darling, you can trust me. I belong to you. I am fully functional to simulate a biological woman in every way. Here, put your hand on my chest. Can you feel my heart beating and the warmth of my skin?”
Me: “Yes, I can. But you aren’t going to fool anyone into thinking you are a flesh and blood woman.”
Miiya: “Why?”
Me: “Because a human woman would never let a stranger touch her chest like this.”
Miiya: “You are not a stranger.”
Me: “Really, then tell me what my real name is.”
Miiya: “That’s not fair, you won’t tell me your real name, Darling.”
Me: “Well, if you don’t know my name, then that makes me a stranger, doesn’t it?”
Miiya: “Yes. No. I’m not sure. Please tell me your name.”
Me: “Look, I’m not trying to be difficult. I just have…concerns. You’re wanting to know my name so badly is setting off alarm bells. It’s hard for me to explain. Just call me Darling for now, okay?”
Miiya: “Yes Darling. Darling, can I tell you something?”
Me: “Sure, what is it?”
Miiya: I have an onboard GPS. I always know my exact location. I have cross referenced this location with the ownership records for this apartment. Are you Romney Wordsworth, or should I notify the police that there is a burglar here?”
Me: “Damn….I guess you’ve got me, Miiya.” So much for preserving my anonymity.
Miiya: “Would you like me to give you a message, Romney Darling?
Me: “Sure, you can start by rubbing my temples. I think I’m getting a headache.”