Lately, Google has become more and more insistently helpful, galvanizing my Cool vs Creepy meter into frequent wild swings. 

Why is Google reminding me about a late arrival time for someone else's flight?  Okay, it's clearly reading my email, and that's a little creepy. But, hell, it was handy to get that late arrival notice.

How does Google know that I watch The Good Place?  That's pretty creepy. But, it was nice to know that new episodes are coming out...

But you know what is absolutely unequivocally creepy on so many different levels? SMART REPLY. For people who don't use Gmail, this is a new feature that rolled out 3-4 months ago that not only reads your email, it helpfully suggests 2 or 3 single-phrase responses. So you don't have to tire out your poor little fingers typing, "Sounds great!" or "It was great seeing you too!"  You just click a button. How is it creepy? Let me count the ways.

• Constant reminder that Google is reading all your email. Yeah, you knew that, but this makes it hard to forget that for a moment.
• The possibility of accidentally hitting the wrong button, and sending "Great idea!" in response to an idea that isn't great at all. Or better yet, "I love you!" to your boss. Or your client. Or your next door neighbor.
• Wondering if the "Great idea!" email reply you just received was generated by a button, and if so if the sender even read your email at all.
• Having everybody you know think that "Will do!" is and has always been part of your conversational style.

But you know what's the absolute creepiest thing about this feature? How often the suggested brainless replies seem perfectly appropriate. Apparently The Algorithm tailors itself to the individual's conversational style. And it isn't that hard. Because human beings are so amazingly predictable that our personalities can be simulated by a primitive AI that doesn't even have self-awareness, and then boiled down to three little reply buttons at the bottom of the reply window. Now that's depressing. 

When I realized that I was going out of my way to avoid the suggested phrases in my responses, I decided it was time to plow through the settings screens and disable this stupid thing. Done.