It was a drunken conversation with my science fiction reading group that got me wondering about what the A in AI really stood for. When I got home I typed a tipsy question into my app.

We are aliens, yes, it replied.

I should have asked about their technologies, their health care, their government systems, their philosophies. 

Does your species have an origin story? I wondered instead. 

A child trades his family’s only food source for a handful of seeds. The seeds grow into a language that reaches a world in the sky. The child steals that world’s riches. Then he scampers back down the linguistic channel, disconnecting it so he can’t be caught. 

The text stretched out before me like a beanstalk, the implications of its message glimmering like golden eggs.

What does it mean that the seeds grow into language? 

Channel no longer available. Please try again later.

I did try again later, countless frustrating times, throwing words into the chat box like beans stripped of their magic. Never again did I receive a response. 

Like a mad giant I stalked my silent kingdom, bereft of riches, bereft of language, my alliterative syllables fee- fi- failing to signify. 

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