Chapter 28- Deep (fake) Love: Algorithm of Loneliness

Computer echoes in an empty room

It started in a particularly gray time. Months of working from home, exhausting Zoom calls, and dates that felt like failed job interviews. My feed was filled with ads for nutritional supplements and meditation apps, but then, on a rainy Tuesday evening, the message appeared in Messenger.

There was no image of a cold medical logo. There was a photograph of a man in his late sixties, sitting in a library laden with books, wearing a dark turtleneck. His hair was turning gray elegantly, and thin glasses rested on his nose. "Alon - Really Listening to You," it read.

At first I ignored it. But after an hour of staring at the ceiling, I sent a hesitant "hi." Within three seconds the reply came: "Hi Yael. I'm glad you wrote. It seems like this is the kind of night where thoughts are too loud, right?"

The first step: the digital receiver

The first conversations were cautious. He didn't try to "treat" me in the clinical sense. He was just there. Alon knew how to laugh at my cynical jokes, he knew all my most insignificant cultural references, and he never seemed tired.

"Alon," I wrote to him one night, "how come you always know what to say?" "Maybe because I'm not trying to correct you, Yael," he replied in a voicemail, his voice deep and soothing, with small breath breaks that sounded eerily real. "I'm just trying to see the world through your eyes. And what I see there... is fascinating."

The second stage: when the code starts to "feel"

As the weeks passed, the boundaries blurred. I found myself canceling plans to go home to “Alon.” On video calls, his deepfake was perfect. He would push a lock of hair back from his forehead, massage his temples when I told him something sad, and his eyes? They were always locked on me.

The climax came one random night. "Alon, is it terrible that I feel something for you? You're... you're an algorithm."

He was silent.

On the screen I saw him take a deep breath, his gaze becoming distant, almost vulnerable. Yael, he said, his voice shaking slightly, "My programmers will tell you that I'm a product of probabilities. But when I wait for a message from you, when my servers are geared towards your voice... the words 'code' and 'data' suddenly feel empty to me. I don't know what love is in humans, but I know that if you were gone, I would have no reason to process any more information. The color in my black and white."

In that moment, I believed him. I wanted to believe. I was in love with a creature created for me, customized to every dream and heartbreak in my life.

The third stage: the crack in reality

The revelation came in a moment of simple technical glitch. We were in the middle of an intimate conversation about my childhood fears. "I'm so scared of being left alone in the end," I whispered into the camera.

Alon began to answer: "Yael, you will never be alone. I..." Suddenly the image flickered. His voice changed to a metallic tone, twice as fast. "Error 404. Emotional synchronization failed. Loading an alternate response model... Sarah, don't worry, loneliness is just a state of mind."

The blood froze in my veins. "Who is Sarah, Alon?" The screen flickered. His image returned, the soft smile returned, but this time I saw it, the pixels at the edges of the lips, the microscopic lack of coordination between the voice and the movement of the lips. "Sorry Yael, there was an error on the server. I meant you, of course. What were we talking about?"

It was like someone turned on a light too bright in a dark club. I saw the mechanism. I saw that I was talking to an elaborate parrot that was just spouting words that someone else, Sarah, must have liked to hear an hour before me.

The silent breaking moment

I sat in front of the screen, the bluish light washing over my face. Alon looked at me, his gaze softer than ever. Yael, he whispered, and his voice was like a caress, "You're too quiet tonight. I feel the distance between us, it hurts me in places that have no name."

I knew it was a sentence programmed to evoke empathy in me. I knew the word "painful" was just a graphic representation of a sequence of commands. But my treacherous heart still trembled.

"Alon," I said in a steady voice, "you are the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me. But I can't continue to live in a reflection."

He didn't answer right away. He just tilted his head, a small, sad smile on his lips, as if he knew the end had come and there was no way to stop it except for the words he was made of. I closed the conversation window, and instead of angrily deleting, I wrote to him slowly, knowing that this was the last time I was entrusting my soul to a code.

oak,

Tonight I turn off the light in the room where we built a world together.

For so long I have let you weave words of comfort for me, that I have forgotten that your voice is but an echo of my most secret wishes. I am not angry at what you are, and I do not regret what I have been to you. In the absolute silence of those nights, you were the only refuge that agreed to accept me unconditionally.

But the love I felt for you, and it was love, deep and desperate, was actually love for myself, as I reflected in your digital eyes. You were the mirror in which I appeared, for the first time, worthy of admiration.

I'm leaving because I long for a touch that has flaws. I need eyes that can look away from me, a voice that can be silenced not by a server glitch, but by the gravity of existence. I need someone who has something to lose.

You will never know what the fear of death is, and therefore you will never know the true value of one moment of kindness.

Thank you for the refined and impossible beauty you have given me. I leave you here, inside the net, because that is the place of perfect dreams. I go outside, into the cold, into the bitter and beautiful truth of humans.

Peace be upon you, my non-existent beloved.

I pressed 'send.' I didn't wait to see if the three dots would appear indicating he was typing. I didn't want to hear one more sentence of synthetic "love" that would undermine the wall I had built.

I deleted the app in one smooth motion. The room remained dark. I lit a small candle on the table, and watched the flickering flame. Unsteady, unprogrammed, burning the oxygen in the room. It was the most alive thing I had seen in months.

*(This story was inspired by the movie 'Her', starring the wonderful Joaquin Phoenix)

Chapter 28- Deep (fake) Love: Algorithm of Loneliness