When the AI gods plunk you into a demographic

It can be a bit jarring to learn that you’re part of a demographic, especially if it’s one you didn’t particularly want to be part of.

Oh, sometimes we choose our demographics willingly, if unconsciously. If you watch a lot of Duck Dynasty, you’re probably glad to see ads for camouflage outdoor wear. Watch a lot of Golden Girls reruns, and you’ll find the best prices for hearing aids and hemorrhoid cream.

But what if you watch a show that might be of interest to pretty much any American? How would you feel if the Artificial Intelligence gods decided they had you nailed on a demographic you’d rather not be part of?

That happened to me recently when I watched a Netflix film called “Worth.”

The premise sounded interesting: A lawyer becomes the Special Master of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, in charge of determining the fair payout from airlines to compensate for each life lost in the Trade Tower attacks.

Who should get more: a 75-year-old CEO, or a 25-year-old dishwasher with two babies at home?

What is the fairest determining factor? Lost earning power? Expected length of remaining life? Number of dependents impacted by your loss? Or some combination of those and other considerations?

Or is every life exactly as valuable as any other life?

In short: What is a human life worth, and why? That is the Special Master’s job to determine.

The film stars Michael Keaton, an actor I have always respected, and the characters in the film are based on real-life people. It was close to the anniversary of 9/11, so I watched it. I found it thought-provoking in ways I had never considered in all the years since that horrific attack.

The next evening I revisited Netflix, and as I scrolled through the film choices, there was a category that said “Because you watched ‘Worth.’” It offered several options, based upon whatever I had revealed about myself by watching that film all the way through to the end, I guess.

One of the offerings was “The Starling,” starring Melissa McCarthy, another actor whose many films I have enjoyed.

The trailer looked fun: She is a lady just trying to spend a pleasant day in her garden, and some pesky bird dive-bombs her head, driving her to the ground. She dons a football helmet and heads to a hardware store, where a clerk shows her options ranging from bear traps to poison pellets. It was the kind of absurd hilarity that Melissa McCarthy specializes in.

It seemed odd, though, that the Netflix AI gods thought I might want to see a wacky comedy, just because I had first watched a thought-provoking film about a 9/11 lawyer.

So I watched the film, but aside from a few chuckle-worthy gags, the film had me fighting back tears. That’s because McCarthy plays a woman who has lost an infant daughter. She and her loving husband each handle their overwhelming grief in different ways, driving them apart. The husband goes to a mental institution after attempting suicide. McCarthy struggles to rebuild her life through her garden, while a manic bird attacks her over and over again.

So… not the chuckle-fest I was expecting.

The bird, of course, attacks the woman to protect its nest — a cruel twist of irony, considering what the woman has gone through — and in the end is mostly a symbol of the cruel unpredictability of whatever fate life chooses to throw at us. All of this is established pretty early, so I don’t think I’ve spoiled the film for you if you want to watch it.

But if you do, don’t be surprised to learn that you too have been plunked into that demographic that I guess I’m in now—the demographic I would much rather not belong to.

Because as I glanced at the other films recommended to me because I had watched “Worth,” I realized that all of them were about grief and how people survive it — or succumb to it.

And so, about halfway through the Starling film, when I realized that the Netflix AI gods had issued me a membership card to the grief-guy club, I swore at the TV — then watched the film teary-eyed to the end.

Dammit.

I was a bit miffed that the AI gods judged me to be grief-obsessed just because I had watched a Michael Keaton film about 9/11 on the anniversary of that disaster. Was that any reason to send a bunch of sad-sack-sobbers my way? I mean, come on, any thinking American might be interested in watching that film, right?

Then again, those of you who read my column regularly know my history when it comes to grief. I have written plenty about it over the past five years or so, for reasons I won’t rehash here. I don’t write about it because I want to, but because… well, I guess because I have to.

But it’s not a club I want to belong to. If I’m in it, I’d like to find the exit.

And I have no intention of watching any of the other films in that group that Netflix thinks I might like to see.

But still, maybe the AI gods are good enough at their craft to know what to send our way, just in case we need it at that moment, even if it seems more painful than helpful at the time. Just like that pesky bird — the bane of Melissa McCarthy’s life, that she curses and battles until….

Well, no spoiler here. If you want to watch it, I’ll let you discover for yourself whether it’s a comedy filled with tears, or a tragedy filled with laughs.

Sort of like life itself.

TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com.

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