Quite recently, I had cause to stay in a hotel rather plusher than is my custom.  On the whole, it was rather a nice experience; a brief bubble of luxury.  But, one thing in my room that I found a little disconcerting was the toilet.

Now, I have stayed in places with fancy toilets before, but this one was a whole different level of technology and sophistication.  I have experienced toilets with heated seats and self-cleaning mechanisms; ones that come with an array of buttons and options for bidet functions and air dryers, but this one went beyond all of that.  It had a degree of… sentiency. 

It was unnerving.  It could sense my approach; anticipate my intentions.  I would scarcely have entered the bathroom and it would automatically raise its lid by way of welcome to me.  But it was not a friendly greeting; it had about it the ironic and insolent cap-doffing of the indentured labourer to his ancestral landowner.

I did not like its presumption either.  By raising its lid, it was making an assumption about me; about my intended actions.  Admittedly, more often than not, its assumption was correct, but it still riled me.  Was I that predictable?  I found myself trying to deliberately fox it: walking up to the toilet so that it raised its lid and then immediately turning around and going out without using it, leaving it gaping, open-mouthed at my impudence.  Keep the worker guessing.

It had become a battle of wills.  I would stand, waiting, just outside the bathroom door, wondering what would be my adversary’s next move in this cat-and-mouse contest for supremacy.

From this listening post, I would hear the toilet automatically shut its lid again.  Left to its own devices, the toilet led an independent life of its own.  At intervals, it would release a little squirt of water into its bowl; not a full flush, more an expression of contempt.  Contempt at its owner; contempt at its lot in life.  It was like a snort made by a horse; or a spit from a llama.

I felt as though my toilet was judging me; weighing me up and considering me unworthy of these opulent surroundings; an upstart; someone not fit to wipe his arse among these hallowed walls.

And there was another problem.  The greater degree of sentiency that I bestowed upon the toilet, the harder it became to use it for the purpose for which it was intended.  It seemed like an act of defilement.  A crude deed of desecration against a fellow thinking being.

Something had to be done.  Attack my adversary at source.  Did the toilet have a simple on/off switch?  Something that would render it back into a simple, unquestioning utility once again?  I couldn’t find one.  It was clear that I needed to call in additional support.  I took my problem to the hotel’s concierge.  I felt sure that I couldn’t be the only hotel guest who had made a similar request.  The look of bafflement on the concierge’s face quickly suggested that I was.

“Turn off the toilet, sir?”

“Yes, you know, is there an on/off switch somewhere that I have missed?  Or a plug in the wall?”

“But why would you want to turn it off, sir?”

That was a harder question to answer.  Somehow, I didn’t think the concierge would understand all the psychological complexities, which lay at the root of my anxiety.  My pause before answering made the concierge realise that he had over-stepped his remit; his not to question a guest’s desires, merely to attempt to achieve them.

“We can have a maintenance team called to dismantle the entire toilet for you, sir?”

I was horrified at the idea:

“God, no.  Don’t do that.  I don’t want to cause any fuss.  I only asked if there happened to be a simple solution.  Don’t go to any trouble.  It’s perfectly fine as it is.”

I returned to my room; to my bathroom; to my toilet.  It raised its lid at my approach.  It was a mocking salute.  We both knew that it had won.

© Simon Turner-Tree

Simon Turner-Tree believes that most AI belongs in the toilet.