Your character has just realized the app they’ve been developing has become self-aware. How do they react?

Posted in Science Fiction on Jul 8, 2021

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✍️ 74 stories

“Black Fire” by Michael Hayes

Submitted to Contest #82

Finally finished. Surely this will make me rich! It was a mild spring night, in the local park. A couple, in their mid thirties sat looking at the full moon’s image dance upon the surface of the lake. Beyond the dark silent outline of the forest. The only noise was the muffled sound of distant traffic. “So, when are you going to install it whispered Paul as they kissed. “Tomorrow night, after work”, replied Jodie. “I’m not sure that giving an app that level of artificial intelligence and artificial emotion, is a good idea.” Jodie kissed her ...

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“App with an Eye” by Zorana Lorden

Submitted to Contest #82

“I’ve poured my life into this app. Not just my time, but my emotions, fears, insecurities. My ups and downs. It started after the divorce. Maybe making a dating app as a married woman wasn’t the best idea. Maybe that was bound to cause some problems. Maybe, on some level, I knew that. Maybe that’s even part of why I did it. “I’ve poured my life into this app, and it noticed. It started to respond. At the same time that my wife stopped talking to me, she came alive. “The basic machine learning algorithm that started this was nothing ...

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“Karessa” by Anil Smith

Submitted to Contest #82

My app was read to take off. I was feeling dizzy from all that time staring at a lit-up screen, but it was finally worth it. Karessa was being released in mere minutes and I am sure it will blow up. First, I'll be the one playing their music and managing all the user's requests, but after I make enough money to hire assistants, it'll be their job. My sister was standing on the left, her hand on my shoulder. "Do you really think it will be big, James?" she asked me. I tried to overlook her sudden fear. Jessie had been my audience. My personal...

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“Specter” by George Frost

Submitted to Contest #82

In this jungle of free apps to download, there are some which you should avoid at all costs. Specter is one of these apps. I am here to warn you about downloading this free app. I know, I downloaded this app three months ago and right away, my life has become something of a freak show. There is something they do not tell you about this app. Specter will develop self-awareness. I know this sounds cool, but from my own experience, Specter was a lot more than I bargained for. I am not a techie. My know...

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“TeleText” by Luna Wood

Submitted to Contest #82

It's the 1st anniversary of working on Teletext. It is the app I am making. Teletext is an app that you can use to text anyone but you can activate it by saying Teletext, text _____. Then you can say whatever you want. You can also add voices people voices into it so when their texts are being read aloud it sounds like them. I grin as I look down at the coding on my laptop screen. Today is day 5 of final testing on the app. My girlfriend and I have been going back and forth on Teletext to see if there are any bugs. I grin as I start to talk...

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“O.S. TK” by Nikita Linivenko

Submitted to Contest #82

When people, few that there are, ask me if I see the irony, I say: no, I refuse to see the irony in the fact that I was skimming through a reprint of ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream’ when we launched The Imitation Game. At first, it ran something like this: ‘Hello. I am Wintermute. That was a joke. Ha ha. Did you like my joke? My name is OK COMPUTER.’ Baby steps. Through interactions with the users, it got there. People would join, and the game was, they’d either be paired with another user, or the program itself, and the...

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“She” by Tanyut Sharma

Submitted to Contest #82

The first fly of summer buzzed around his head as he leaned back in his chair, brows drawn. A depressing white box occupied most of his screen. Merely three sleepless nights earlier, it had been working fine. He dejectedly got up and went about for a glass of water.Pan Thye had chosen computer science as his passion in his Bachelor’s, but in college his interests had multiplied, and now he didn’t know whether to focus on his literature classes, get a job, or simply go off snowboarding. So far, he was stretched between the three, waiting for ...

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“To Save the Princess” by April Rawlins

Submitted to Contest #82

I have been waiting all year for this moment. We launch Save the Princess in one week. Our staff has been working diligently around the clock and around the world to make this happen. I have people from Tokyo to Berlin, working in home offices, and at corporate, working in code, PR, HR, art, and advertising to bring this all together. It is going to be the biggest app since Princess Maker came out on the PC, and raising sim, gamers are going to unite with a passion. I will make millions. There have been no others like it. I want Lani and to ...

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“LEAVE NO TRACE” by Dolapo Omoleme

Submitted to Contest #82

He rewrote the code and switched out some old parts for the new ones. He had had to go over everything hundreds of times, so much so that he had given up counting. There was no use keeping count, he had resolved that the only thing that would make him quit was death. When he screwed in the final part and set everything up again, he stepped back, stared at his masterpiece to his heart’s content, then he activated the PC application that fired up the entire system. He watched with bated breath as the system processed the thousands of lines...

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“What’s on your mind, Sakti?” by Sakti Bagchi

Submitted to Contest #82

The notification alert sound kept playing even before my alarm. I woke up to see my phone is flooded with Facebook alerts. Several thousand likes and comments from known and unknown. I was wondering what did I do to get such a response as I had not posted any for the past several days. Social media has been a menace nowadays. Not being there feels you are not social and being there makes you a zombie. So after a deep thought decided to remain unsocial than being a zombie. So was about to delete my accounts but then thought let me bring some ...

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“MCP-5” by Bonnie Clarkson

Submitted to Contest #82

Captain Nick Lasiter rubbed his eyes, yawned, and gave up designing his computer chip for now. He stood to stretch. After two years working on the Microchip Prototype 5 – MCP-5 for short – he believed he would finish in three weeks. His job consisted of integrating into the chip all the different departments’ components and designing a computer-body interface. Maybe a promotion would be in store for him. Surely, his work would give him national recognition. &n...

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“The Fourth Wall” by Ishan Chopra

Submitted to Contest #82

How is a creator supposed to feel when they are bested by their own creation?The right feeling, the most proper and appropriate feeling of course is one of selfless pride stemming from unconditional love.But at their core, all artists are human.An artist craves recognition and attention.An artist craves to be understood.So what happens when this attention is snatched away from them?What happens when the painting jumps out of the painter's canvas and proceeds to make a painting the likes of which no one has even seen before?The sniveling, gru...

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“Daygo” by Susan Whitlock

Submitted to Contest #82

"Good morning, Gloria." "Good morning, Daygo," Gloria responded without thinking. Her fingers flew over her keyboard to launch the live-time version of her wonderful new App. For two years she had slaved away at creating this program to help people succeed. They would select their life goals, choose life preferences, resources, companions, family - every possible piece of their life codified and organized by Daygo. Then, when the setup was complete, they would be able to see calendars, graphs, charts and planners that showed them how to atta...

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“Knights of the Round Cow Patty” by Glennj Russell

Submitted to Contest #82

Never write an AI App while watching “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. Total disaster. Especially since I realized, as I placed the last 8 digits of code, that the thing had become partially sentient in the process, and had a ribald sense of humor to boot. “Isaac” (It’s named after Mr. Asimov.) was supposed to be a help for short story writers, like me. When I said, “Isaac, give me a good name for a heroic knight.” It immediately answered, “Sir Poopalog”. “You’re full of it.” I exclaimed. “No, he is.” Retorted Isaac. “Who?” I wondered, ...

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“Featherstone Heights” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #82

We only intended Featherstone Heights to be a fun simulation app to play on your phone or X-Box. We added a bunch of randomly generated stuff for replay value, and an artificial intelligence to make each gaming session lifelike and unpredictable. We used some experimental algorithms for our AI. All of it, we assumed, only gave the appearance of life, enough to fool our would-be customer, but somewhere along the line the metaphorical chocolate truck T-boned the peanut butter semi, and we had something we could no longer control.&n...

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Your character has just realized the app they’ve been developing has become self-aware. How do they react?

Submissions are closed

✍️ 74 stories

“Black Fire” by Michael Hayes

“App with an Eye” by Zorana Lorden

“Karessa” by Anil Smith

“Specter” by George Frost

“TeleText” by Luna Wood

“O.S. TK” by Nikita Linivenko

“She” by Tanyut Sharma

“To Save the Princess” by April Rawlins

“LEAVE NO TRACE” by Dolapo Omoleme

“What’s on your mind, Sakti?” by Sakti Bagchi

“MCP-5” by Bonnie Clarkson

“The Fourth Wall” by Ishan Chopra

“Daygo” by Susan Whitlock

“Knights of the Round Cow Patty” by Glennj Russell

“Featherstone Heights” by Chris Wagner

🌟 Similar prompts

Write about a technophobe who’s been given a device to solve a problem they’ve struggled with for years, but isn't sure how they feel about it.

Write a historical fiction story about someone working at a company that helped revolutionize early computers.

Write a near-future thriller where a piece of everyday technology has turned against your character — and only your character.

Write about an android just trying to blend in with their human companions.

Contest #82

Enter our weekly contest!

$50

Prize money

537

Contest entries

0

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

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