{"id":1487,"date":"2026-07-03T12:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T12:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/?page_id=1487"},"modified":"2026-07-03T12:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T12:02:09","slug":"answer-machine","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/?page_id=1487","title":{"rendered":"Answer Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Answer Machine (2026)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>An interactive answer machine that plays a series of uncanny voicemails generated by randomised predictive phone message texts.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Answer Machine (2026)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/e-2SNBRrwgI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<br>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text has-media-on-the-right is-stacked-on-mobile\" style=\"grid-template-columns:auto 29%\"><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I heard that people were getting weird suggestions from their predictive text on their phones after an update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It reminded me of a few years back when people were writing things like &#8220;In 2019 I&#8217;ll\u2026&#8221; and then spamming the three suggestion buttons to generate a personalised story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It made me wonder what kind of text it would produce without any personal data to base it on: what the underlying, basic, averaged-out messages would be like. The default state of mind of the predictive text person. Who&#8217;s in there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<br>\n<\/div><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"610\" height=\"607\" src=\"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/predictive-text.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1493 size-full\" srcset=\"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/predictive-text.png 610w, http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/predictive-text-300x300.png 300w, http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/predictive-text-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<br>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile\" style=\"grid-template-columns:37% auto\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"750\" height=\"423\" src=\"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/generating-a-text-with-3-predictive-text-buttons.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1496 size-full\" srcset=\"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/generating-a-text-with-3-predictive-text-buttons.jpeg 750w, http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/generating-a-text-with-3-predictive-text-buttons-300x169.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On a phone I reset predictive text and the keyboard to factory defaults so it would have nothing to work from. Then I worked out the 27 possible permutations of the 3 buttons, looping through them and generating text until it reached a natural sentence ending at the end of a set of three.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<br><br>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So what kind of things are in the mind of this collective person? What&#8217;s the cosmic background radiation-type humanity that comes out? There&#8217;s a lot about what people want. And what they don&#8217;t want. There&#8217;s a lot of logistics. Home. Work. Homework. Cars. Health concerns. A lot of worry. A lot of &#8220;I don&#8217;t know&#8221; &#8211; lots of uncertainty. A lot of trying to resolve situations. A lot of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As written text it was too easy to see the messages as artificial, so I recorded them and put them into this old answer machine. To put the humanity back in to where it was stripped out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The overwhelming feeling is of someone grasping with the idea of meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<br>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile\" style=\"grid-template-columns:24% auto\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Answer-Machine-inside-Medium-rotated.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1500 size-full\" srcset=\"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Answer-Machine-inside-Medium-rotated.jpg 768w, http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Answer-Machine-inside-Medium-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Listening to them one after another, moments of darkness and light pop up and disappear very quickly. They can&#8217;t sustain themselves. Feeling moments of empathy with the voice &#8211; feeling genuinely sad for it, and then its humanity is undone when it reveals itself quickly to be bluffing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Occasionally, during a normal day, I hear myself speaking in the voice of the thing. Especially if I&#8217;m a bit confused or tired. Hearing hints of that person coming out of me and thinking that I&#8217;m channelling it.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<br>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text has-media-on-the-right is-stacked-on-mobile\" style=\"grid-template-columns:auto 32%\"><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A note about the method for generating the messages:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are 11 unique number combinations which aren&#8217;t repeated in the way that e.g. 112 is the same as 211 in terms of the order of the button presses when you keep cycling through the sequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, 112 generates a very different message from 211 because of the different starting word, which sends it off in a different direction, in terms of meaning. And the order that you travel through the set of 27 affects it a lot too. I ended up making one version by resetting the phone keyboard between each message, looking for the &#8220;truest&#8221; version. In the end I chose text for each of the 27 combinations across the 6 versions (162 messages) I&#8217;d made by changing the order in which the messages were generated. I decided they&#8217;re all &#8220;true&#8221; in different ways.<\/p>\n<\/div><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/answer-machine-1-Medium-rotated.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1501 size-full\" srcset=\"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/answer-machine-1-Medium-rotated.jpeg 768w, http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/answer-machine-1-Medium-225x300.jpeg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Answer Machine (2026) An interactive answer machine that plays a series of uncanny voicemails generated by randomised predictive phone message texts. I heard that people were getting weird suggestions from their predictive text on their phones after an update. It reminded me of a few years back when people were writing things like &#8220;In 2019 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1487","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1487"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1509,"href":"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1487\/revisions\/1509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraintedwards.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}