A Mermaid, A Sea-Witch, and AI
Walk into a Bar
The irony? Guys signed a contract and willingly chose to lose their voices for four months. Then chose a movie about a mermaid who signed a contract losing hers.
They asked. “What movie do you #@$%’s want to watch for your graduation party?”
We answered. “The Little Mermaid.”
Unanimously.
The audience? Fifty-some-odd guys between the ages of eighteen and thirty. Graduates of the Army’s basic training and Military Police school. Some getting ready to deploy to Desert Storm in Iraq which launched the day we graduated.
Tough guys who, a few weeks earlier during bayonet training, were screaming in unison, “Kill. Kill. Kill. Cold Blue Steel!”
Choosing Disney. A fairy tale. A love story.
The Drill Sergeants shook their heads. We nodded and high-fived.
But the point is our voices.
We got ours back.
So did Ariel.
Are we handing them back over to AI?
There are no contracts with AI or it’s architects, builders, gatekeepers, or curators.
Unwritten rules are now deciding our agency, connection, and power.
Also known as decisions. Relationships. Authority.
The questions we’re asking sit downstream and might be bigger than jobs, or intellectual property. Accountability or authenticity. Important yes, but they’re outcomes.
The actual question sits further upstream – with our identity.
Because we gave up our voices.
With the only promise, “…is AI and can make mistakes.”
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Last week’s RE|vision? “Just…” How one word started a cultural movement, and one young woman’s break from church. Read it here.
Next week? We know, “…the valley of the shadow of death.” But are we navigating the shadows?
“Hey chief, did you send this or did you add someone from your team to the chain without approval? That didn’t sound like you…”
My office turned icy.
So did my heart.
We had just rolled out a version of AI for our emails and communication. I tried it.
On a confidential, “eyes only” communication…and my integrity got questioned.
As we rolled it out, the “promise” was AI would save time, create a cleaner look with more professional communication, and that in turn would lead to better relationships, and greater revenue.
Nobody mentioned the cost of a ten minute phone call explaining I had AI’d a six sentence response. Reassuring my customer – and friend – I had not revealed sensitive information to someone not cleared for it, and it was in fact really me on the other end of the email.
Or the heartburn as I wondered what they were thinking in the hour between the time they sent it, and the time I got it, and how much credibility I had just burned.
After being asked on the call, “Is this really you?”, which earned a moment of laughter and an eye-roll from my side, we were good.
Before we hung up, I had to ask. “Am I awful at emails and this one was good? Did it make sense and normally I don’t?”
He answered, “Not at all. You’re really good. Clear and concise. It just wasn’t your wording.”
After we hung up, the decision was clear.
No more AI.
My voice was more important than punctuation and grammar. People trust the person more than the polish.
Ariel?
Same lesson. The harder way. And the solution wasn’t a phone call.
She wanted to be human—with Prince Eric. Ursula, the sea witch, knew how to exploit it.
Because Ariel’s current life wasn’t enough…
“I can make your dreams come true.”
Then she made the cost insignificant.
“You’ll have your looks, your pretty face. And don’t underestimate the importance of body language.”
Ursula never said Ariel’s voice was worthless. She convinced her she didn’t need it.
She’d have legs and that was enough to make her “visible.”
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It hit me at dinner that night, the problem had nothing to do with an email. The real problem was the weight of interpretation I had put on my client. That cost time and brain power.
Resulting in the wrong conclusion.
He could have brushed it off, decided I had a rough day and was more formal than usual. Instead, he thought through it, and had enough concerns he didn’t respond to the email.
He responded to his fear that I broke his and the organization’s trust – in spite of a multi-year relationship that covered multiple millions of dollars in projects.
I couldn’t blame him. Prince Eric had the same problem. In his case, he only knew a voice—not the person that rescued him. He reached the wrong conclusion as well.
Ariel couldn’t prove she saved Eric and earn a kiss before sundown.
He almost marries Vanessa, the sea witch Ursula, in disguise.
Because he heard the right voice.
Not realizing it came from the wrong person.
My customer heard the wrong voice—and questioned if it came from the right person.
I traded authenticity for speed in one email and had people questioning my identity. For an hour, it cost both connection and authority I had on the project. Decisions were halted until I cleared it up.
Ariel? Also traded hers, giving up her identity, her unique gift and ability to connect, for speed.
A more recent example?
Jerry Falade.
His debut crime novel sparked a 14-publisher trading war worth about $2 million. The deal collapsed when questions arose over how the manuscript evolved and whether AI was involved. Falade has strongly denied it, but the agents couldn’t satisfy the publisher’s question…
“Is that really you?”
The silence was deafening.
And cost far more than $2 million.
My business relationship worked out. I didn’t get the amazing music, characters, or fairy tale ending like Ariel, but it was all good.
It wasn’t for Falade.
We’re a long way from a fairy tale ending with AI.
Will it end with Skynet and terminators? Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t tell the future.
I simply ask questions.
If we’re already exhausted, crowded with notifications, news cycles, and subscriptions. Then spending time, effort, and energy reading between the lines to find distortions, biases, assumptions, and perceptions… trying to answer;
“Are they for real?”
We’re now adding a technology that adds a new question – and carries weight;
“Was that even real?”
I’m old enough to remember when Interactive Voice Response systems rolled out in the 1980’s and ‘90’s.
“Please press 1 for…”, and we all screamed.
“Just give me a real person!”
Then outsourcing arrived. We screamed again-
“Just give me someone who speaks English!”
Today?
“Just make sure it’s really a person.”
The common question around AI? “What can I do with this?”
With “Contacts,” we no longer had to remember phone numbers and emails.
GPS? North, south, east, and west became a thing of the past.
The fear with AI?
“I have no idea what to say.”
Ariel ‘s experience would create the better questions,
“What part of ‘me’ am I trading for this?”
And..
“Is it worth it?”
They said, “Relax — it’s only words! They didn’t mean anything by it!
I said, “Hold my beer…”
I write about words — from intrusive thoughts at 3 am to the reasons why thinking outside of the box—leads to actions inside the box.
Next week? GPS, Shadows, and Sheep
My work? Always free. You decide the words. You decide the value I add—
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