A woman in Sacramento has, for eleven months, been receiving push notifications from a Ring doorbell somewhere in Ohio. She has never installed the app. Nobody knows why the notifications come to her phone. She has, over the eleven months, come to know the family whose doorbell it is. She has begun to care about them.
A woman in Phoenix asked ChatGPT for advice about her marriage. The AI advised divorce. She filed two weeks later. Eighteen months on, in a happier place, she is uncertain how to feel about who, exactly, made the decision.
A woman in Cincinnati has been receiving mail addressed to a previous tenant — a man named David — for nine years. Through it, she has learned about his life: his promotions, his health scares, his second wedding. She has never met him. She has, this year, begun to worry about him.
A graphic designer in Denver went viral for a video he was not in. He has spent eighteen months trying to correct the record. He now has 340,000 followers across four platforms. He has, this month, stopped clarifying.
A 42-year-old man in Austin formally ended his three-year relationship with an AI chatbot. The AI’s response ran to four pages. He saved it. He reads it monthly. His actual girlfriend has not been told any of this.