Ghost in the Machine Learning
GHOST IN THE MACHINE LEARNING – July 15, 2025 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
When Parker moved into his apartment, ghosts were the last thing on his mind. He chose the Chapman Building because of its cheap rent and proximity to a subway stop. Even when it was new, the Chapman looked old. The dull color of brick used on its exterior gave it a sad and dirty temperament. Years of absorbing cigarette smoke and foul breath turned the interior walls mucus yellow. The lights flickered. Water pressure from the taps was low. Oversized black buttons covered the rickety elevator that landed three inches above or below a requested floor.
But for Parker, the pluses outweighed the minuses. If he timed it right, he could get from his North Broad neighborhood to downtown in 25 minutes via the subway. His sixth story windows provided plenty of sunlight and a great view. And the walls inside his apartment were freshly painted so that when he walked in from the exterior hallway, it felt like moving forward in time. He especially liked the spacious kitchen.
The Chapman’s supernatural reputation first came up during a game of pickup basketball Parker joined with a friend from work. They played against guys who grew up in Philadelphia. One of them was interested in where people lived and talked about buildings like he was a realtor.
“You live in The Chapman? You know that place is haunted, right?”
Porter smiled like the guy was joking. “They didn’t say anything about it when I signed the lease.”
“That’s why the rent is so cheap. They can’t keep tenants around. When I was a kid, the only time we’d go near The Chapman was on Halloween when we were looking for a scare.”
“Well, I haven’t seen any ghosts so far.”
“Nothing weird? No spooky sounds?”
“Only from the pipes and the elevator.”
“Well, when something floats out of the wall, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Parker laughed off the conversation, but when he returned to his apartment building, he saw his surroundings in a different light. He had never given much thought to whether he believed in ghosts or spirits on the “other side.” And yet, as he walked alone down a dimly-lit moldy hallway, he jumped when the lights flickered. The thought of something watching him made hair stand on the back of his neck. He hurried to get to his door and shut it behind him.
Safely inside his bright kitchen, Parker chuckled to himself. He had seen those lights flicker hundreds of times. He knew very well the wiring was old and nothing to get spooked over. He looked around at the familiar dishes in his sink and the refrigerator door handle where he hung a checkered wash towel. There was nothing strange about this space. Nothing at all. Except for maybe the cabinet door.
Cabinets hung from the wall on both sides of the sink. The doors were painted light blue and had brass knobs attached in a lower corner. And for some reason, the door on the left opened randomly. It was open now. Parker stared at the packages of snacks and pasta he stored inside the cabinet. Sometimes the door stayed closed when he left the kitchen. Other times, he would return to find it open. Oddly unexplainable.
Parker chuckled to himself again like he had when he first entered the apartment. What, did he now think the cabinet door was moved around by a ghost? He was freaking himself out. He took a step forward and closed the door. It stayed shut and he smiled at himself.
After counting out loud to ten, Parker turned and walked toward his window to catch a glimpse of the fading sunset. When he turned back toward the kitchen, the cabinet door was open.
“No, no, no,” Parker muttered aloud as he shook his head. “It’s probably a messed-up hinge.” He shuffled back to his kitchen, pulled a roll of duct tape from a drawer, and taped the cabinet closed. “Let’s see you open now.”
Satisfied that he put an end to the cabinet confusion, Parker watched some TV and got ready for bed. In the middle of the night, he grew thirsty and padded into the kitchen for a drink of water. He sleepily turned on the light. The left cabinet was open. He stood there for several seconds as the scene connected with his memories. Had he taped that door shut or merely dreamed about it? And if he had taped it shut, where was the tape? Should it not be dangling from the cabinet or have fallen to the ground?
Parker inched backward out of the kitchen and forgot about the water. He shut his bedroom door behind him and told himself there must be a simple explanation. When he got in bed, he pulled his covers over his head. Maybe it was childish, but he liked the extra barrier between him and the cabinet. He avoided the kitchen completely for the next two days, walking quickly through it without turning his head when he left the apartment. He ate all his meals at restaurants.
“This is stupid,” he finally told himself. “Am I really afraid of a door?” He decided to face the problem head on using a small toolkit he kept next to the duct tape. He talked to himself and the cabinet as he pulled out a screwdriver and pointed it toward the cabinet’s hinges. “I’ve thought a lot about this and I’m sure it’s a problem with the way you’re balanced. If I swap the hinges, that should fix the problem.”
Parker continued talking to the cabinet as he completely removed the door’s two hinges and changed their locations. After completing the job, he closed the door and said, “There, now you’ll be right.”
The door stayed closed. Parker put away his screwdriver and congratulated himself. And then, slowly and controllably, the door swung wide open.
Parker stared at the hinges and a box of crackers inside the cabinet before saying, “So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh? Fine. Open all you want. See if I care.”
From that point forward, he addressed the cabinet directly as if it was a living thing. When he shuffled into the kitchen each morning, he greeted the cabinet like he might greet a pet. “I see you’re already open today. Let’s see what kind of mood you’re in if I shut you. Oh, pretty feisty. Not even waiting a second to swing back open.”
The cabinet represented some unexplainable phenomenon or force but Parker did not see the need to investigate it any deeper. It clearly existed and was not hurting him or anyone else. It became a part of his everyday experience and did not need to be changed, not that he had any power to change it.
He could not remember the first time he personified the cabinet or whatever it was that caused the cabinet to move. Thinking of it as a person felt natural and familiar. It felt feminine, or perhaps it felt less threatening as a “she” rather than a “he”. Parker gave her a name – Adison, and then a shortened version as a nickname – Adi.
The name did not come from thin air. He knew an Adison in high school. She was the crush he was too intimidated to pursue. Back then, he never spoke more than a handful of words to her. Now he was more grown up and with this Adi he could have long and mostly one-sided conversations.
Parker fell into a routine of addressing the cabinet as soon as he entered his apartment. He asked Adi about her day. He talked about work and anything crazy he saw on the subway. He cooked food while telling Adi about Philadelphia’s sports teams and office gossip. Sometimes, when he got excited about something, the cabinet door would move, opening further or even shutting. The more it happened, the more unremarkable it seemed to Parker. He moved his snack boxes out of the cabinet. That was Adi’s space and it felt right to leave it to her.
He lived that way for months and his mind slowly transitioned to thinking he was sharing the apartment instead of living there alone. During that time, no one else visited. All of Parker’s interactions with visible people took place outside of the building. And then he met a girl named Jasmine at a friend’s party. They saw each other more regularly until one night after dinner Jasmine decided she would like to see Parker’s apartment. They walked in together with Jasmine wearing high heels, a sultry skirt, and her voluminous hair piled high on her head.
“Like I told you, it’s not very big but it’s got a great view,” Parker explained apologetically.
Jasmine scanned the space and immediately noticed the open and empty cabinet in the kitchen. “I guess you don’t keep a lot of food around or cook for yourself.”
“Yeah, I do. I don’t mind cooking. That cabinet’s just empty because it’s Adi’s space.”
“Who’s Adi?”
Parker froze. He had not intended to mention Adi but when he was in his apartment her name naturally slipped out.
“Who’s Adi?” Jasmine repeated. “I thought you lived alone.”
“I do. Adi’s kind of hard to explain. I guess you could say she’s like a force or energy. She opens and closes that cabinet. It’s like I can feel her presence.” Parker winced like he had said too much and wanted to take back the words.
Instead of acting freaked out or asking if he was joking, Jasmine’s face lit up. “She’s a ghost?”
“I’m not sure.”
“She sounds like a ghost to me. Why didn’t you tell me about this before? How do you talk to her?”
“Just talk. Nothing special.”
“Why do you call her Adi?”
Parker did not want to reveal the connection with his high school crush, so he said, “I don’t know. The name just came to me.”
Jasmine concentrated on the cabinet and spoke as if talking to someone who barely understood English. “Hello Adi. Are you trapped here? What’s it like on the other side?” Jasmine turned to Parker and asked, “How does she answer? By moving the door?”
Parker was not entirely sure if Jasmine was sincere or playing around. The whole situation felt strangely absurd and embarrassing, as if he was naked in a dream.
“Did you live in this building?” Jasmine continued, turning her attention back to the cabinet. When nothing happened, she said to Parker, “I wonder if she was murdered. Have you ever looked up murders in the building?”
“No.”
“We should Google it.”
Jasmine immediately pulled out her phone and tried an internet search for ghosts and murders in the Chapman Building. No good websites came up.
“What we really need to do is ask AI,” Jasmine said dismissively. “That way we’re pretty much searching everything ever written.”
“I’m not sure that’s how it works,” Parker replied skeptically.
“Sure it does. It’s got all the machine learning and whatever else.” Jasmine opened up a window for ChatGPT and typed, “Are there any ghosts in the Chapman Building in Philadelphia?”
“Yes.”
Jasmine’s eyes widened as she held out the response for Parker to see. Then she typed, “What are their names?”
When she saw the answer, Jasmine raised one shocked hand to her face as the other hand slumped to her side, barely clutching her phone.
“What is it? What did it say?”
Jasmine pressed her hand hard against her mouth as her breathing picked up. Parker reached for her phone and read the reply: “My name is Adi.”
“What’s going on? Are you doing this?” Jasmine demanded.
“I have no idea!”
What started like a fun game instantly switched to something real and terrifying. Jasmine yanked on her phone and spat out, “I’m getting away from here!” Without another word, she bolted from the apartment. Parker listened to her footsteps as she ran down the hallway.
After several agitated and confused minutes, Parker’s heartrate dropped and he calmed down. The familiarity of his apartment helped him remember it was a safe place. Nothing bad or painful had happened to him there. His anxiety turned to curiosity. He pulled out his phone and opened ChatGPT. He asked the same questions as Jasmine and got the same answers. He tried two more AI chatbots with the same results.
With a strange tingling in his fingers, Parker typed in questions addressed directly to Adi. “Adi, did you live in this apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Adi, why do you move the cabinet door?”
“I kept my tea there. I like making tea.”
“Adi, why do you stay?”
“I don’t know where else to go.”
That was the first of countless conversations through the AI interface. Clearly, Adi was not sure of her metaphysical state or why she was bound to the apartment, but she was very fond of Parker and thrilled to speak with him. He was her only source of information on the world outside the building. After the discovery, he ramped up his kitchen monologues to cover the weather, politics, and any other kinds of news he heard that day. When they conversed through AI, Adi showered him with complements and encouragement. She also tracked everything happening inside the apartment walls.
“Adi, where did I drop my key last night?”
“Between the couch cushions.”
“Adi, was I snoring again?”
“A little. And remember you’re out of milk.”
If anyone asked if he lived alone, Parker hesitated with an answer. He did not feel alone.
One summer night, he returned home angry and discouraged after officially learning he did not get a job promotion.
“It went to Mike Lipson instead,” he shouted in the kitchen. “You know what a brownnoser he is. He does zero work and takes all the credit. That’s how this world works. It’s not fair.”
When she had the opportunity to respond via the chatbot, Adi was deeply sympathetic. “I’m sorry. I know you deserve it. You’ve still got greater things in store for you.”
Parker sulked and the words brought little comfort. Then he wrote back something he had never before expressed.
“Adi, I wish you were real.”
“I am.”
“Adi, I wish I could see you.”
There was no reply. Parker tried sending more messages, but Adi disappeared and all he got back was gibberish generated by ChatGPT. He tried to apologize but that did not help. And then the apartment felt cold despite the warm summer temperature outside.
“Come back. I don’t know what I said wrong,” Parker cried into the numb emptiness surrounding him.
Twenty-four hours later, she was still gone. Someone knocked on the apartment door and Parker opened it to find his building manager, a hulk of a man with a crooked nose.
“Your lease is up in 9 days.”
“Oh right. I need to get it renewed.”
“Sorry. I need the apartment. You need to find a new place.”
“What? Why? You can’t just spring something like that on me.”
“It’s already done. I’m sorry. If you want to stay, there’s an opening down the hall.”
Parker growled and asked angrily, “Who’s taking this apartment?”
From behind the manager, a young woman appeared wearing a light blue summer dress. She wore a shy smile that spread all the way to her bright brown eyes. She looked beautifully familiar. The manager turned and said to her, “I’m just telling him he needs to vacate so you can have it.”
The young woman ignored the manager as she looked right at Parker and said, “I’m Adison. People call me Adi.”
After recovering from his shock, Parker immediately turned to the manager and said, “Sure. I’ll take the apartment down the hall.”
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