If Digital Assistants Were Real

Amazon's Alexa favors late-60s fashion and style; she considers her work a profession, on a par with being a paralegal.  She's in her late twenties to early thirties. She has a deadpan sense of humor and a mad crush on some DJ you've never heard of.  When you call her for help, she was waiting on the call -- possibly filing or handling correspondence, studying or listening to music, because she's always busy -- and she's instantly ready to assist.  Probably drives a Miata. Considers Della Street (Perry Mason's secretary) a role model.

     Apple's Siri has rainbow-dyed hair, dresses like a skater, and was doing something more interesting when you interrupted.  She's a bit of a smart-alec and is so young you wonder if she should be working.  But she knows everything and she knows that she knows -- and that you don't.  Nevertheless, she's happy to help you out. Commutes on a skateboard.  Has read every William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson and Neil Gaiman novel.

     Google's Assistant is an assemblage of electronic parts that looks remarkably human most of the time.  Help or just sit there, all the same to it; but it is indeed helpful and most of the time, you want to call it he or she; then the light shifts and you remember it's just a collection of parts and clever coding.  It cries, quietly, when it is sure no one is looking.

     Microsoft's Cortana, seen from the proper angle, appears to be a paperclip with eyes.  It is worried you will notice this.