Spell Check Spookiness

Sometimes our computer overlords seem to be looking over our shoulder while we are working. I had the creepiest moment the other day while working on the review for Many Mansions. Since the book was first written in 1950, some of the language seems so archaic that it makes you realize how much we have changed since the middle of the last century. At one point the author, Gina Cermonara, refers to Edgar Cayce as a "Reincarnationist" and it made me laugh out loud. I had never heard that phrase and it sounded so charmingly old-fashioned, like the way psychiatrists were once called 'alienists'. I thought, "I have to get new business cards printed that say 'Bobby Baranowski - Reincarnationist." So I opened Pages, the word processing application on my iPad to make a note of it. Pages has a spell check function that offers 3 different spelling possibilities in a bar above the text, with the middle one being the most likely. As I typed R-E-I-N-C-A-R, I was stunned to see the word "REINCARNATIONIST" appear in the most likely position above my typing. Now I'd never even seen or heard this word used before but my iPad suggested it. (I just tried to again to see if I was hallucinating and it again offer it but in the 3rd, less likely slot.) It felt eerily like my mind had just been read by the Artificial Intelligence monitoring my spelling. I know that's not the case, well, its probably not the case, but it felt... invasive in my thought processes. We don't yet have a word or phrase that describes this, like we how "the uncanny valley" poetically captures the creepy feeling toward things that appear human but aren't quite right. I'm working on it. Any suggestions?