Endgame Viable

Here’s something I thought was important to tell everyone.

Earlier today I drove out for chemo infusion #21 (has it been three weeks already?), and as always I pulled up the Google Maps app to tell me how to get there, even though I know how to get there by now.

Quite quickly I noticed a change in Google Maps. Over the years I have come to think of the Google Maps navigation voice as the “Google Lady.”

Google Lady was gone, replaced by some imposter lady’s voice. A decidedly younger, extremely AI-sounding voice. I suppose I should be surprised only that it took so long to switchover to the “obvious AI voice sound.”

I had to listen to it more than usual because an accident forced me to divert off of the highway down into the mean streets of the city.

I have labeled the new voice Millennial Fry Lady Voice. Because they do that young-person thing where every sentence seems to run out of gas at the end; the woman’s voice drops into a vocal fry for the last word or two.

It’s a very funny voice pattern to me. At the end of every sentence it’s like, “Oh I just can’t be bothered to finish with the same energy I started.” It’s a very professional-sounding voice that simultaneously sounds like they couldn’t care less about what they’re saying. “Like, turn up here or whatever.”