Hello, Hello by Seanan McGuire

This was a charming and warm story about a mother of young children who is a computer scientist specializing in language translation AI programming.

She has a sister who is deaf and uses an AI that is programmed to translate American sign language.

Communication is done primarily over Skype and the use of avatars is commonplace.  One day she gets a call, from her sister's number, but instead of her sister's avatar there is an image of a default face which is having trouble communicating.

The kids are taken by this stranger, finding he or she funny, and they enjoy trying to talk with it.  This makes the mother very nervous.

With a bit of digging the truth is discovered which, in turn, may create a new market for translation AIs.

Like I said, charming, even though the twist was easy to figure out, I did like how the story moved beyond the telling of the mystery.

Seanan McGuire's website - http://www.seananmcguire.com/

Seanan McGuire