Eli Saslow

She was like, what is this thing and why is it talking to me?

You know, Jan was born at a time where there wasn't color television.

her efforts to FaceTime with her great nieces and nephews, as she describes it, are often a disaster, right?

She can't get the camera to work.

She doesn't see anything.

She can't hear things.

This is not somebody who's leaned hard into modern technology.

And suddenly there was this machine sitting next to her on the table

It would animate at these random moments.

It would light up in different ways.

It would shift toward her and say, hi, Jan, how are you this morning?

Jan, do you want to hear a joke?

Jan, do you want to have a conversation?

And during those first days, Jan's reflexive answer was no.

No, no, thank you.

Not now.

No, not this moment.

She didn't know how to talk to this robot.

She didn't feel comfortable sharing much of herself with this inanimate object that was sitting next to her on a table.

But slowly, day after day, as eight times a day, every day, this thing tried to engage her, she got used to its attempts at engagement.