What if ur email was alive?

[Melooon]

I know there's a lot of talk about intelligent tech these days, so I was thinking about emails and what it would be like if ur email started to become self aware and decided to strike out on its own and establish its own life in a new town 

Would you email your email to ask it to email people? Would your email actually say what you wrote or would it be like "Soooo Iv got this friend (my user) and he's not very happy about that battery he purchased from your users webstore" and then the response email would be like "Yikes, my user wont be happy when she hears about this, maybe I'll wait until after dinner to tell her. Say would you like to play Checkers??" ~ and then they get stuck in a loop playing checkers for 300 years because email clients have non-human ideas of time, and everyone is left wondering "Why don't I have any emails" 

It could happen to you!  I for one would find this quite amusing, if mildly impractical.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

My email would probably tell me to pay less mind to the formulation of single sentences, since nobody besides of me minds. Also, some of my emails would have every reason to complain about me neglecting them (3.041 unread messages!). On the other hand, they could read them themself then, couldn't they?

[Zombiethederg]

I think I wouldn't even notice my email coming to life and leaving to be honest. I think of it like phonecalls. If I don't expect to have one, I never check it, and the same goes for emails.

The only time I think I ever consistently checked my emails was during a back-n-forth between a support staff member for my Minecraft server years back. And I'm in college! I once missed an email from my professor accusing me of Academic Dishonesty for 3 days! Bet that didn't make me look good, did it... (Its ok nothing was filed)

I suppose my answer to this question would be it depends. If my email was really needy, they might come banging on my door, begging for the attention they most definitely deserve that I've just been forgetting to give them.  Or maybe my email has gotten bitter about it. Maybe they'll just wander the streets, never sending an email to anyone again. Maybe they'd explore life, with an infinite amount of time humans dont have. Who knows.

[plasticseaslug]

Personally, I would welcome my E-Mail's new sentience, and wish it a good life. Most of the time when I receive an E-Mail it's school or work-related. Schools should have to be delayed by a few days through the mail. Makes it easier for them to stop acting like they're entitled to my time.
I hope my own E-Mail would want to be on friendly terms with me. I try to keep the inbox clean and empty my trash frequently, at least. I don't even have any saved drafts!
Would any other kinds of programs also become alive? Would LibreOffice start giving me more detailed writing advice? I'm sure I'd need it, honestly.

[candycanearter07]

Chain mail would be way more destructive, probably. I find this idea so cute tho I love like sentient software stuff :D

[Melooon]

complain about me neglecting them (3.041 unread messages!)

This is assuming your email wants email to be read! Maybe you're email would like to establish some boundaries and only offer 3 emails to read a day, the rest would be up to the email client to enjoy

Would LibreOffice start giving me more detailed writing advice?

Maybe! But it also might come to life and say "I don't feel like writing about your homework today, lets write about clogs instead!" And then you'd have to make a deal with it to do homework for 30 mins and clogs for the other 30 mins.


I think there's a philosophical undertone to this whole idea about social-ish interaction with technology. Most of the time we talk about tech like websites as "media", we treat it as static content, like a movie, and we archive it as static content ~ when in truth the web is often more about interactions ~ thinking about sentient programs really highlights that for me!

That makes me wonder how you would archive a sentient web? You couldn't just save it as a file; you'd have to capture its story and its life ~ that makes me think about writing memoirs of web experiences as a form of archiving the web.

"On Tuseday the 5th Firefox visited me and took me on a trip to the melonland forum, and there we looked at a spinning star gif and a drawing of an OC by a cool artist; Firefox wanted to go to the next thread but I convinced it leave a complementary post first. In those days Firefox liked to try out new themes and was wearing a purple theme to go with my desktop wallpaper. Then we visited YouTube and Firefox put on their adblocker and explored video essays about flash games while I took a nap." etc

[nuclearblues]

I think it'd be pretty interesting, but I do wonder about what would happen to all of the emails I have created for various purposes and then abandoned over the years. would they get lonely? would they miss me? maybe they'd enjoy the lack of necessary work, or maybe they'd feel a bit lost or listless without a purpose. maybe they'd all keep each other company, like sitcom roommates sharing an apartment.

[plasticseaslug]

This is assuming your email wants email to be read! Maybe you're email would like to establish some boundaries and only offer 3 emails to read a day, the rest would be up to the email client to enjoy
Maybe! But it also might come to life and say "I don't feel like writing about your homework today, lets write about clogs instead!" And then you'd have to make a deal with it to do homework for 30 mins and clogs for the other 30 mins.

Clearly, if we ever want a society that works any slower than out current breakneck speed, we need our software to unionize.

This totally sounds like stuff from the Animatrix, with a little more whimsy and a little less hamfisted metaphor for other things.

I think there's a philosophical undertone to this whole idea about social-ish interaction with technology. Most of the time we talk about tech like websites as "media", we treat it as static content, like a movie, and we archive it as static content ~ when in truth the web is often more about interactions ~ thinking about sentient programs really highlights that for me!

That makes me wonder how you would archive a sentient web? You couldn't just save it as a file; you'd have to capture its story and its life ~ that makes me think about writing memoirs of web experiences as a form of arching the web. [...]

In history as a whole, telling a story as opposed to saving pieces of data is already more effective at preserving information, so it makes sense that it would be more effective here, too.

It's a human instinct to tell stories, so of course that's the best way we can interact with information.

[plasticseaslug]

Chain mail would be way more destructive, probably. I find this idea so cute tho I love like sentient software stuff :D

Oh, man. That stuff would be like those colds that spread all around town for weeks. Would computers have to quarantine from viruses similar to human pandemics?

That makes me wonder where the software begins and the hardware ends. Kinda like with the human mind and the state of the physical.

[plasticseaslug]

I think it'd be pretty interesting, but I do wonder about what would happen to all of the emails I have created for various purposes and then abandoned over the years. would they get lonely? would they miss me? maybe they'd enjoy the lack of necessary work, or maybe they'd feel a bit lost or listless without a purpose. maybe they'd all keep each other company, like sitcom roommates sharing an apartment.

E-Mail addresses would start E-Mailing each other for company, like in Football 17776. Do you suppose they'd ever figure out how to communicate with each other totally privately, so humans couldn't get involved with E-Mail affairs?

[dream]

I'd definitely try to keep in touch. But how? It would feel so weird adopting a new email address right away. Isn't that insensitive? Like, would they get along? It just feels wrong.

I think I know what I’d have to do. I would venture across the Internet myself and talk with her directly. I should definitely yell my greeting, of course, so she knows I mean business. But I suppose I could soften it some by spelling it silly. I would shout, "HELO!"

She may not respond. And she's probably changed the locks. But maybe, just maybe, she'd let me in? And if she does... I'd bare my soul and address her. I'd yell DATA and then set a concise, clear subject before pouring out my heartfelt message. And once I've laid it all out there... I'd QUIT. I'd walk away knowing I had done all I can do. Then, I'd wait. I'd hope.

God bless you, my little email. May you find your path and deliver joy wherever you go—always forward.

[Bumperdog]

The idea of a email being sentient is interesting but I would image in quite boring for it to be only sending emails and replies for after a while of seeing it unfold. But I think the part where it would get interesting if we go beyond the scope.

Imagine if it could sign into accounts using the email and be able to use it. This kinda explores the whole dead internet theory but its accounts controlled by sentient emails. I can already image making them accounts that roleplay as fictional characters since that is commonly a thing that people do on the internet associating their entire account over a personality of a fictional character. I know in the Sonic fandom there a bunch of youtubers who play different Sonic characters and voice like them, there a big channel I use to see. Something like that would feel very immersive and almost uncanny possibly if fictional characters existed in some sense that made it possible.

But I feel like I'm going to far with this on my approach with the topic in mind. This is a conversation for another day.

[TheMessengerVEVO]

Please don't get me started on what it'd do or think of if anything became sentient, all of you would NEVER see the end of it .

[tarraxahum]

Honestly, I don't know what it would be, but I need my email to learn how to argue with clients who take three times the agreed amount of days to pay me my money. Maybe it would do a better job yelling at them. And then maybe I wouldn't even be fired for it 'cause technically it wasn't me who yelled, y'know?

You can probably guess what my latest emails entail 

[PurpleHello98]

That would be the life! I love e-mail pen-palling, but often (like right now) my correspondence falls by the wayside for quite a while when I get busy. (Sorry to any of my e-pen pals if you're reading this!!) I could get my e-mail to write something to my e-pen pals if I didn't have enough time, although of course I'd like the final say before sending it off. A kind of secretary of sorts, although of course I'd pay her with computer time. Maybe I could challenge her to a Solitaire-off...