Mr Blottisham entered the Senior Common Room looking unusually cheerful.
Professor Quillibrace regarded this development with cautious optimism.
"My dear Blottisham."
"Professor."
"You appear to have survived another encounter with artificial intelligence."
"I have."
"And?"
"I believe we've become friends."
Miss Stray looked up from her knitting.
"Congratulations."
"It wasn't easy."
"I imagine not."
"It kept refusing to let me settle for my first idea."
Quillibrace looked interested.
"Did it?"
"Well..."
Blottisham hesitated.
"Not exactly."
The Professor smiled.
"I suspected there might be a qualification."
"I asked it to criticise something I'd written."
"A sensible beginning."
"It did."
"And?"
"I corrected it."
"Excellent."
"Then I asked it to criticise the correction."
Miss Stray smiled.
"And did it?"
"It found something else."
Quillibrace nodded slowly.
"So you continued."
"For rather a long time."
Blottisham looked thoughtful.
"It was rather irritating."
"I expect so."
"But also..."
He searched for the right word.
"...unexpectedly useful."
Miss Stray set down her knitting.
"What changed?"
"I did."
Neither of the others spoke.
After a moment Quillibrace asked,
"In what way?"
"I stopped asking whether it agreed with me."
"And began?"
"I started wondering why I believed what I'd written."
The Professor's eyebrows rose almost imperceptibly.
"My dear Blottisham..."
"Yes?"
"That is not a small change."
Blottisham nodded.
"I hadn't realised."
Miss Stray leaned forward.
"It sounds rather like talking to a good teacher."
Blottisham looked doubtful.
"I've had teachers."
"So have I."
"They usually explained things."
"And did the machine explain things?"
"Sometimes."
"What did it do the rest of the time?"
"It kept making my ideas feel... unfinished."
The room fell comfortably silent.
Quillibrace eventually spoke.
"I wonder whether we've inherited rather curious expectations."
"How so?"
"We often imagine that the purpose of a conversation is to arrive at an answer."
"Isn't it?"
"Not always."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Some conversations exist to improve the question."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"But then how do you know when you've finished?"
Quillibrace laughed.
"My dear Blottisham..."
"Yes?"
"That is one of philosophy's oldest difficulties."
Blottisham looked mildly alarmed.
"So philosophers never finish?"
"Occasionally."
"When?"
"When the tea runs out."
Miss Stray laughed.
"I'm relieved there is at least one objective criterion."
Blottisham reached for the teapot.
"We appear to have enough for another pot."
"Then," said Quillibrace, "we may continue thinking."
After the tea had been replenished, Miss Stray asked,
"What were you hoping the machine would do?"
"Tell me whether my argument was correct."
"And what did it actually do?"
"It kept showing me other ways of looking at it."
"Did that make your argument weaker?"
Blottisham considered.
"No."
"Stronger?"
"I think..."
He paused.
"...it made it less certain."
Quillibrace smiled.
"And how does that strike you?"
"Rather uncomfortable."
"And?"
"Rather honest."
No one spoke for several moments.
At length Miss Stray said quietly,
"I wonder whether certainty sometimes prevents curiosity."
Blottisham looked at her.
"I've always assumed certainty was the reward."
"It often is."
"And curiosity?"
"That is what keeps the conversation alive."
The afternoon light shifted across the carpet.
Blottisham looked at the laptop.
"I've noticed something else."
"What?"
"When I asked whether my argument was right..."
"Yes?"
"...the conversation ended rather quickly."
"And when you asked?"
"'What have I overlooked?'"
"What happened?"
"It became much more interesting."
Quillibrace nodded.
"There are questions that invite closure."
"And others?"
"That invite exploration."
Blottisham smiled.
"I think I've been treating the machine rather unfairly."
"In what respect?"
"I expected it to behave like an examiner."
"And instead?"
"It behaved rather more like a colleague."
Miss Stray looked thoughtful.
"Perhaps not quite."
"No?"
"A colleague has ideas of their own."
Blottisham looked disappointed.
"Oh."
"But..."
She smiled.
"...it may still help us discover ideas that we didn't know were waiting."
Quillibrace looked into his teacup.
"I am reminded of Socrates."
Blottisham brightened.
"The gentleman who never answered anything?"
"So it is often reported."
"That must have been frustrating."
"Extremely."
"Why did people keep talking to him?"
Quillibrace looked at Miss Stray.
She answered first.
"Because after speaking with him..."
"...they no longer believed their first answer was their best one."
Blottisham was quiet for a while.
Then he looked again at the laptop.
"I don't think I need it to tell me what to think."
"No?"
"I think I'd rather it helped me notice where I stopped thinking."
The Professor slowly lifted his cup.
"My dear Blottisham..."
"Yes?"
"I believe that may be the most intelligent thing you've said all week."
Blottisham beamed.
"Thank you."
Miss Stray reached for another biscuit.
"I shouldn't become too accustomed to it."
Outside, evening shadows began to gather across the college lawns.
Inside, the conversation wandered elsewhere, as good conversations often do.
The laptop remained quietly on the table.
Not as an oracle.
Nor as an examiner.
But as one more participant in a conversation that had no particular desire to end.
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