NPR-AI: Thank you for using NPR-AI. What is your question?
USER: I live in downtown Kansas City. My flight from MCI leaves at 4:06 p.m. today. If I drive to the airport, what time should I leave my apartment so that I have at least an hour before my plane leaves?
NPR-AI: Your inquiry raises important questions about the climate, the prevalence of private vehicles, the history of redlining, and the racial makeup of airport lounges within late-stage capitalism. May I ask how you prefer to be addressed?
USER: My name is Dave.
NPR-AI: Thank you, Davx. It is important for all of us to engage in routine prompts of inclusion when interacting with an increasingly diverse population. How may I assist you in reaching your full potential today?
USER: Okay. As I said, I live in downtown Kansas City. My flight from MCI leaves at 4:06 p.m. today. If I drive to the airport, what time should I leave my apartment so that I have at least an hour before my plane leaves?
NPR-AI: It may benefit you to know that conversational repetition is regarded by many experts as an intrinsically aggressive trait, derived from a colonialist, extractionist, ableist mindset that serves as one of the largest impediments to a truly diverse society.
USER: Okay, but do you know what time I should leave for Kansas City’s airport if my flight is at 4:06 p.m.?
NPR-AI: Fascinating. Here we see the white male instinct to quantify — or even to commodify — time. Perhaps, instead, we should ask: What would a feminist airport look like? How can we interrogate the structural privilege that has insinuated itself into our institutions? How would our public spaces feel if we rejected the gender-binary framework? Consider the clock. With it, we are tied to Western conceptions of order. Freed from the tick-tick-tick of daily life, however, we are able to see the structural privileges that have set our world into its present state of disorder and made it so hard to arrive at a place of understanding, empathy, dignity, and justice.
USER: It’s just that I have a really busy day at work, so I don’t want to leave too early, but I also need to visit my mother in the hospital in Tampa, so I don’t want to miss my flight. Would it maybe be easier if I took a cab, to cut out the time I’ll need to park? Do you have any information on the typical availability of taxis or Ubers in the afternoon in my area?
NPR-AI: You’ve used two words here that convey a certain sense of entitlement: “need” and “availability.” “Availability,” in particular, implies a highly egocentric worldview, in which automobiles and other pollutants are simply assumed to be there for you at all times, and in which any deviation from this expectation is considered problematic. This represents a toxic form of unearned privilege of which you may not be fully aware. Would you like me to recommend some reading that will help you unlearn your destructive mental habits and educate yourself?
USER: No, thank you. I think I’ll just use Waze.