Connections

I was probably already running late, because São Paulo, when it comes to traffic, is a very unpredictable city. Not like my own, where I can cross the whole city in fifteen minutes – and I keep forgetting how other cities can be different in this respect. In São Paulo, when we get an Uber, the app might say something like “your driver will arrive in 8 minutes,” but on the screen you can see he’s only about 500 feet away… that is how you end up taking an hour and a half to get somewhere you could reach in 20 minutes.

My intention was to get up early, have breakfast somewhere nice and then go to the university for the seminar, but I lost some time and it was almost 9 a.m., so the wise thing to do was to go straight to Universidade de São Paulo and wait for the coffee break. I almost regretted my decision to stay close to Avenida Paulista.

I exhaled in frustration while brushing my teeth. I was really looking forward to a nice breakfast. That might seem too small, but the thing is that I live in a town where there’s almost nowhere to go if you want to do or eat anything different. For example, there isn’t a single French bakery nor bread made with natural fermentation. That was precisely why I decide to stay close to Avenida Paulista, the heart of the city, from where I can easily go to several nice restaurants. People say that those who where born under the sign of Taurus are people who really enjoy a good meal – I don’t know about other people but I’m definitely the living and breathing proof of that. I had already stayed in that same building on Rua Pamplona, that’s because it’s about ten feet away from a great supermarket and from a fancy greengrocer’s.

But I had problems with the Airbnb last night, the host did not send me the check-in instructions until late afternoon, and also there was a problem with the toilet flush.

“Do you authorize me to send someone to repair the flush?” she asked me then.

It was the toilet flush; how could I say no? When I arrived at the Airbnb studio, I had to go pee in the pool’s common area bathroom because the flush wasn’t working… The Airbnb assistant offered me the chance to change places, but it seemed like a lot of work, there wasn’t any place nearby and prices were higher… I would have to pay more than the refund would cover. So I agreed to the repair, but it took longer than I could have predicted, and I ended up going to bed very late.

São Paulo was very cold for someone from a city in the north of Minas, used to hot temperatures; I felt like I could freeze to death while waiting for the Uber. I could have taken the subway, but it was late even for that.

The seminar was about Artificial Intelligence and Education. My school had sent me because I had done research on prompt generation the year before, so they thought I was the most suitable person for that. Of course the seminar could be attended online - other teachers from my school were going to do that - but they sent me to make connections with other professionals interested in the subject.

In my school, teachers’ opinions were split between those who think artificial intelligence is the ultimate evil that will destroy education for good - and humankind with it - because, of course, both education and humankind had been doing great before, I thought to myself… and those who think artificial intelligence will replace teachers for good - that it is the “new future” - and that we only need to help our students become good “information curators” while using AI; that would be the new role of teachers in the world. That sounded a little too convenient to me - an excuse not to worry about teaching anything anymore; after all, “the kids will be curating the information”.

I don’t know about their students, but mine can hardly even use Google properly to search for real information… Last month, the University of Brasília had to release a statement online, informing that classes across the whole university would not be suspended because of the breakup of the couple Virgínia and Vini Jr. – beloved among young people – apparently because college students couldn’t figure out by themselves that it was fake news.

Did anyone mention once or twice that, in order to be any kind of good curator, you need to have at least a minimum knowledge of the subject you’re curating? I didn’t, of course; I’m not looking for enemies in real life.

I arrived a little late at the seminar, but that was a good thing. Just in time for the first presentation. Before that, people usually only thank each other in their speeches. I was astonished by Professor Sara’s talk, from Portugal; she was very provocative and didn’t worry about pleasing anyone, so she spoke some truths in an uncomfortable way, and I liked that. She said that the teachers at their university mentioned that they were not teaching anymore; they had become supervisors of their students in order to prevent them from cheating using AI.

“That is because our students were angels before AI, they never cheat before”, she said, and I found myself wondering that the problem might not be the AI, but something that was already there before — that maybe education didn’t have its compass properly calibrated…

After Professor Sara’s presentation came the coffee break; I was looking for an opportunity to talk to her, but I ran into Michelle instead.

“Michelle!” I was instantly happy.

“Hi!” She smiled back.

“How are you, Michelle?” That was not a rhetorical question; I really meant that.

“I’m doing okay.” She smiled, looking at her cup of coffee. “Healing,” she said, putting her free hand on her heart.

We went to school together, and three months ago she went through a heart transplant.

I noticed that she was looking down at the coffee, stirring it more than it needed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked directly. We had been good friends, although life had pushed us apart and we had lost frequent contact. I’d heard she was finally going into surgery, but I didn’t want to send her a direct message; I was afraid that might disturb her during her recovery.

“Well…” she looked at me, “to know that someone else had to die for me to live? That is too…”

Ohh, that was it… yes, that was a heavy one…

“It is harsh…” It was the only thing I could say.

“Yes, you know, I keep thinking about his family…”

“Do you know anything about this person? Is it a him?”

“Yes.” She put her coffee aside after a single sip.

I thought that this kind of information was confidential…

“I have a cousin,” she said, as if she could hear my thoughts, “she is a nurse at the hospital where I was operated on, and she ended up finding out…”

I did not know what to answer to that, so I just served myself some tea and took it to my lips, but I put it down on the table right after – it was too hot.

“He was single, no kids, thank God! About our age, and he lived on Pamplona.”

Pamplona…

“Did she find out all of that about him?”

“Yes, she looked at his Instagram account.” She glanced at the table with the finger foods, as if searching for something in particular. “But she didn’t tell me his name or show me his account, it was too unethical, she said, even if she had already been unethical in her own words…” She said that, rolling her eyes. “But that was probably for the best anyway.”

I agreed only with my head, showing I was still listening. My mouth was full of coxinha, a classic Brazilian savory snack.

“I pray for him and his family… but ” her eyes were filling up again…

I tried to shift her focus a little:

“I once heard that someone who had a heart transplant began to appreciate the violin afterwards, even though they’d never had any interest in it before. She ended up discovering that the donor was a musician and played the violin. She decided to learn the violin after that, as a tribute to the donor. Did you experience anything like that?”

That worked; she stopped the tears. She shook her head no, then put both hands over her chest:

“I only feel that he was a good person,” she said, smiling. “That makes things even worse, didn’t it? Because how can I get my happiness from his sacrifice? Why would a person about our age, and a good one” - we were in our thirties - “I didn’t want to lose my life; why should he lose his for me?”

The tears again, but she went on, with a forced smile:

“Sometimes I think I’m falling in love with him.” She forced a bigger smile. “Finally I have a nice guy beating his heart for me!” She smiled more naturally then. “I like to think he’s good-looking too…”

I laughed to help her: “Of course he is!” It was a dark joke to release the tension. When we were teenagers, she usually fell in love with guys who didn’t care much about her…

“But you know…” it occurred to me, “his sacrifice has nothing to do with you, it was not your fault and…”

“Even though…” she interrupted me.

“And,” I interrupted her back, “if you received his heart, it was his choice; the best way you can honor his sacrifice is by living a good life, don’t you think? Being happy about it…”

“Yes…” she replied, as if considering something from a new point of view.

We had to go back to the seminar. I invited her for lunch after the morning presentations, but the school where she worked had only dismissed her for the morning; she had to rush back for the afternoon classes, since the school was far.

After that, I talked to different people from the seminar, doing my best to make new connections with people engaged in the subject.

I had dinner alone at Hiro Izakaya; it was cold, and a ramen was just what I needed to finish the day. I called an Uber after dinner. I could have walked, like the last time I stayed at Pamplona, but it was too cold for that.

“Hi there, ma’am. Are you Mara?”

I nodded while saying good evening.

Back at the studio, I had to look again for the password the host had given me, I didn’t have it memorized yet. I wondered what it would be like if a previous guest managed to get past reception, because I’m sure they don’t change the studio’s password after every guest, because that would be too much trouble… That thought occurred to me because I once stayed in the same studio twice and the password didn’t change. And that was my luck, because I went out to take the trash out one night and forgot my cellphone inside the studio - where I had the password saved.

I showered, noted a few reflections from the day, and went to bed.

The next day, with just the first clarity of morning, I woke up from a strange dream, something involving schooling, students, and a pillow… But the pillow wasn’t in the dream because of my own pillow in bed, but because of what Professor Nathalie had said in her presentation:

“We are not going to be able to suffocate AIs with a pillow in the middle of the night. That would not work at all… we are going to have to deal with them. We can’t just pretend they don’t exist and simply forbid students from using them. On the other hand, we shouldn’t build all of education on artificial intelligences…” She was proposing the use of storytelling techniques as a way of captivating students’ attention in the classroom, since she considered - as I did - that the more knowledge we have about a subject, the better we can use AIs.

I thought that was very interesting and even took notes on it; somehow the pillow ended up appearing in my dream.

Then I heard someone grabbing a bunch of keys, then slipping one into the lock and turning it, pushing the door open. Probably some neighbor arriving almost in the morning after a long happy hour, or sleeping over at his girlfriend’s place or something… those new buildings have terrible acoustic insulation.

But no, that was not it. He was inside my studio! How could he come in? Was this some kind of mistake? Did he use to live here, forget he didn’t anymore, and come here drunk or something? What was happening?

I was terrified. All covered with the blanket, I stayed still, hoping he would realize his mistake and go away. But he entered the room; the first sunbeam was coming through the window.

And he sat down beside me on the bed. Was he mistaking me for his girlfriend - or something worse?

It crossed my mind to ask him, “Have we met before?” but it wasn’t the context where it would suit.

And I felt a heavy weight when he put his hand over my rib. I wanted to move, to clarify that I was not his girlfriend, or at least run away, but I was paralyzed by fear. I tried harder to move, but could only tremble while still feeling the weight of his hand over my rib.

With a huge effort, I finally was able to get up.

I was completely alone in the room.

I breathed in with relief and said out loud:

“Thank God it was just a ghost.”

No, wait, what?!