Keeping them on Read

Keeping them on Read

When I was in school, the English language and composition test had three letters to be written, one to the teacher or principal from a parent, another one to someone in an official capacity, say a municipal commissioner, on a public issue, asking to change bus routes or cleaning of garbage vats, and third one would be to a grandparent describing a new hobby.

The way to hack the test was to get the address line, and the signature greeting right. So, for the principal, your exalted studiousness, or for the municipal commissioner, Dear Honorable Sir and an esq. behind the name would get giggles from the class but usually high marks from the teacher.

The grandparents address line was usually hotly debated, with fellow mates struggling to convert from Hindi and Bengali; How do you translate ParamPujya or Sricharaneshu into English? We would be writing similar letters in Hindi and Bengali classes as well. We soon found out “Dearest” works fine in English.

By the time we hit the work force, handwritten letters to the bank branch manager were the only things one did, the rest was mostly on neatly composed printouts to be faxed and soon thereafter, emailed. That seemed to work for about a decade and half. With similar rules, mostly unwritten conventions, of address and sign offs taking over.

And as globalization gathered steam “Dear” was replaced by other more direct words of address such as the ubiquitously cringeworthy “Hi/Hello” and dropping the Mr./Mrs. with more LGBT awareness to simply the first name. Though, at times that became difficult as in a number of Indian cultures, the village or town name is the first name, then grandfather and then father’s name, followed by surname which could be a trade name like “mechanic, or Bottleopenerwala” if the person was a Parsi, or the lineage or community name.

Sign-offs became even more in your face. From the obsequious “I remain, Your Humble Servant” and “Yours Sincerely”, getting quickly replaced with Thanks, or Regards or versions of that such as Many Thanks and Best Regards. I didn’t hold my breath waiting for “Many Thanks and Warmest Regards”, but am sure that made it into someone’s inbox.

And then finally, emerged the generic inbox. With all social media came that personal messaging option, and some became chat groups with threads and comments. That almost happened in convergence with the proliferation of mobile phones and good quality data networks.

And as quickly, the new rules or unwritten conventions started emerging. Do you send a text first and then call? Or do you send a text, then an email, then another text confirming you have sent the email and then call. Meanwhile, the address lines and signatures had been replaced with emoji stickers. Or do you simply keep them on read, like so many spam mailers and messages offering everything from a spa session to crypto fortunes to a jackfruit tree.

And finally, with Covid came the video call, first on one platform and then on as many platforms as possible, with social media also chiming in. What started as a letter with copies to a mailing list, (a subculture called cc: culture in large corporates) became invites to calls on text, and email and then reminders in text and email and finally calls.

After so much communication about the nature of communication where are we headed with the advent of generative AI. With large language model machine learning softwares coming up with letters fit to purpose, collecting payments, writing like Hemingway, or even sonnets like Shakespeare the shoe is now on the other foot.

The task now is not what letter to write to the municipal commissioner, or the school principal or your grandparents, instead of doing a video call or leaving a voice note. The task now is asking the right question! Once the question or “prompt” in AI lingo, generates the desired letter in format and tone, the self-same softwares or derivatives generously adapt it to social media and videos for effect.

What happens to mail etiquette, and junk messages as in keeping texts on read without response, is something that AI can worry about. Including perhaps an effective useable equivalent to ParamPujya or Sricharaneshu.