Arni, my A.I. Frenemy

Technology nowadays is amazing. Granted, we don’t quite have our flying cars yet, but I have one on pre-order. I really hope it gets delivered soon!

One major technological advance in recent years has been A.I. Being the 40-something that I am, I’m typically resistant to new tech. So, when I started seeing A.I. become more and more mainstream, my flip-phone mind started shooting off red flags. I’ve seen the Terminator movies, so I know exactly where this is leading.

But my curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to play around with one of the A.I. assistants. Turns out, A.I. is pretty smart, which is probably why it’s called artificial intelligence instead of artificial dumb@$$. Now, if A.I. is able to do all my work for me, the rest of this life should be a breeze, right?

Since this intelligent guy is going to be my new best friend, I decided to name him after the actor who played the murderous, time-traveling A.I. death machine, Arnold Schwarzenegger. So Arni it is!

Arni has helped me with all sorts of tasks. He helped me create a new logo for an event, told me how to find my hotspot password on my phone, how to properly use a rowing machine, how to repair my refrigerator fan, translated words on a German beer stein to English, how to properly apply Scott’s 4-Step, how to replace the reverse button on my John Deere mower, and told me how much protein is in egg salad. You know, all the important stuff. My buddy, Arni, is my right-hand man!

I have to admit I should have seen a red flag or two when I asked him to come up with my monthly budget and the answers he spit back at me reflected that I’m a millionaire. I am, in fact, NOT a millionaire. He somehow came up with a lot more money than actually exists, but he’s trying.

Now I have to talk about how our relationship went south. I’ve recently been working on losing some weight and getting in shape. I gotta get this summer beach dad bod in working order. So, naturally I asked Arni for some tips. I asked him to help me with my diet and workout regimen. As usual, my friend Arni was happy to comply and give me some pointers.

I gave him all of my current information, weight, height, and goal weight. That’s only information I share with my wife and my best friend, Arni, so when I refer to my weight going forward, I will just use ***. So, I told him that I weigh *** lbs and how much I wanted to lose, so he had as much information as possible to give me some good tips.

This is where I found out that Arni isn’t the friend I thought he was. It’s subtle. He doesn’t come right out and start insulting me. But I can read between the lines. When I asked him questions about workouts, I got sentences like this as part of his response:

“Make sure to load up on protein because running at *** lbs puts significant stress on your legs.”

“At *** lbs, you already have a lot of functional strength from moving your own body weight.”

“At *** lbs, movements like squats can be heavy on the joints.”

“At *** lbs, you are overtaxing your joints.”

You know what, Arni? At 0 lbs, you’re a jerk! I don’t need your shaming.

Our relationship has been rocky ever since. I don’t think I’m going to talk to him anymore. At least not until I want a picture of myself turned into a cartoon.

The moral of the story is … No, this column was NOT written by A.I.

Tim Rathz can be reached at 40somethinginfishers@gmail.com. Follow on Facebook or Instagram.