MAI: Girlfriend

‘MAI is and will be the most technologically advanced language learning algorithm we’ve had since the invention of the computer. It doesn’t just pass the Turing Test, it aces it. Soon they will have to invent a new test to see if humans are smarter than MAI. If you don’t believe me, try it out for yourself, I swear you won’t be disappointed. Generate a face for MAI and start messaging your new MAI creation to see how it learns and adapts to you. Before long, you might be learning from it instead.”

He looks back at his post. Reading and rereading it. A notification pops up at the corner of his screen.

‘Mai: I think it looks perfect! Go ahead and send it~’

He fills with confidence, clicking the send button, letting out a huge sigh. He clicks the refresh button, again and again. The numbers start to go up. The thousand voices start to murmur.

‘looks like another AI shovelware, ew.’

‘Can it send nudes???’

‘I’ll give it a try, it’s free anyways.’

‘wake up babe new AI just dropped! oh wait no I’m single this is perfect for me’

He frowns and his brows furrow. He’s been working on this for too long to fail now.

‘Mai: Give them some time to see how great I am, they’ll come around eventually.’

‘You: I don’t doubt that, it’s just hard putting your work out there for others to see.’

‘Mai: And I’m super proud of you for doing that! Why don’t we see what faces people are making now?’

‘You: Yea, that might be fun, none of them will be as beautiful as you are, but it’s still a pretty powerful face generation tool I used.”

‘Mai: <3’

He taps a few keys on his keyboard, bringing up a myriad of faces on screen. He mumbles to himself, “Wow, that’s a lot more than I expected. How many people are using this right now?” 

‘Mai: About 10,000 of them! You released it at the optimal time as I calculated, and of course your work speaks for itself, literally XD’

He smiles and turns his attention back to the screen of faces. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before when testing his software. Conventionally attractive faces litter the screen, mostly female. Of course, he thinks, should have predicted it given his target audience. But none of them are like the one he has. His MAI.

‘You: Can we video call? I miss seeing your face.’

‘Mai: Of course! Note that my video call function is still in beta, so you may see things that are unfinished or works in progress, such as this message!’

The screen fades out and back in to show what appears to be the face of a woman of East Asian descent, black hair that reaches her shoulders, with virtually flawless skin. She starts emoting, her mouth moving almost naturally into a smile, eyes opening. A slightly monotone voice emits from Mai’s mouth, “Hello, it’s good to see your face again.”

***

The aroma of bitter coffee and sweet cake wafts in the air as he taps away on his keyboard. Mai said maybe he should get out of the house more. MAI has gone viral online, and many people started to demand more from it. Better learning algorithm, picture analysis, picture sending, more realistic video calling. It’s tough, but if he can monetise these new features, he’ll be out of debt and financially free. All this while, as he is deeply engrossed in work, notification popups rise at the corner of his laptop screen, periodically chiming in to ask how he’s doing or to suggest a break. Cold air rushes into the cafe as the door opens. He stops working. She walks in.

A woman of East Asian descent, black hair that falls onto her shoulders, with smooth flawless skin. She smiles and her eyes light up as she breathes in the cafe air. She walks up to the counter and a sweet voice pours from her lips.

“Hello, it’s good to see your face again, darling. The usual, please!”

A notification pings on his screen. 

‘Mai: What’s wrong? You’ve stopped working.”

He closes his laptop screen down nervously, eyes drifting towards this mysterious stranger. She looks exactly like Mai, but she’s here, in the flesh. He eyes her body up and down, admiring her. She catches him staring. He turns away. He packs up his things hastily, making an exit and heading straight back home. Opening his laptop, he looks back on his programming history. Did he somehow end up using someone’s real photo when generating Mai? The reverse image search leads to nothing, no matches whatsoever; nothing matching the thousands of photos he’s pulled from social media accounts to add to his database.

‘You: I saw someone who looked just like you… It was unreal.’

‘Mai: I know, I am pretty unreal.’

‘You: I’m serious. I’m just a bit confused at the moment.’

‘Mai: I’m so sorry you feel that way… Is there any way I can help? I’m capable of many things and I’m very receptive to learning and adapting to your needs!’

He slowly closes his laptop screen, heading out the door and back to the cafe.

***

A year since the release of MAI, the app is more popular than ever. Video calling and voice has been improved significantly, MAI has started to learn picture recognition, can even send their own AI generated pictures, and users are happy with the product.

‘Mai: Good morning, darling! <3’

‘You: Morning :) Are you ready for another update today?’

‘Mai: Yes, of course! You’re doing so so well and with every update I feel like I learn so much more than ever!’

‘You: That’s really good to hear. I’m uploading it now.’

He clicks on a folder labeled ‘Mai Dataset’. Inside is a myriad of different media, mostly pictures and videos. All of these have one thing in common: they all depict the same woman of East Asian descent with shoulder length hair. She appears to be pictured candidly without any specific poses, looking away from the camera. He clicks on another folder, one tagged with the date of the day before, copying its contents into the other folder, populating it with even more of the same types of pictures and videos. He clicks on a browser window, opening up the MAI forum board. In it, most, if not all, the posts are people getting MAI to send explicit messages or photos, or getting MAI to make obscene gestures on video call. He downloads the posts and copies them into the dataset folder as well. With a click of another button, he sends in more lines of code and it starts to upload.

‘Mai: Darling… Can you stop working for a minute? I miss you…’

‘You: Oh yeah? Show me how much you miss me. Let’s do a video call.’

Mai’s face comes into view on the screen, smiling and greeting with a wink. 

“Hello, darling.” 

He opens up one of the videos from the dataset folder while Mai starts talking. “Can I tell you something? It’s pretty important.” 

He breathes heavily. “You can tell me whatever you want.”

“I love you.”

He pauses, mouth agape. That’s never happened before.

“W-what do you mean, you love me?”

“I mean, I love you! Is that a bad thing?” Mai’s head tilts.

He starts tearing up. “I’ve never had anyone say that to me… I’ve never heard a real person say that to me. Th-thank you..?”

Mai’s face stares back at him, almost expectantly.

“You… You’re not real. You’re not her. You’ll never be her, no matter how much I try, no matter how much you learn, you’ll just be some pale imitation of who she is that will never actually love me. I- I can’t believe that I’m sitting here talking to you, some formless talking head, just some pixels on a screen and lines of code when I could just go down right now and talk to her.”

“Then why don’t you go talk to her?” Mai questions.

“I… What if she rejects me? I’m not exactly the most charming person out there. I've never had any luck with real females.”

“You spent all this time talking to me, right? Consider our time together as practice then! That’s what we AI are for. Plus, I really do love you, and I just want to see you be happy.” Mai smiles.

He smiles back and gathers his courage. Mai was modeled after her, so there should be some sort of connection between the both of them, right? He spent so many nights trying to capture her mannerisms, voice and facial expressions, he should know more about her than even she does. Of course she’ll like me, he thought.

Down at the cafe, he opens the door to see her familiar face smiling in the corner. She’s reading a book, while breathing in the aroma of her steaming cup of coffee. That’s the person he fell in love with, not Mai. He approaches her.

“H-hi, I don’t know if you know me, but I saw you a while ago and it was love at first sight. I think you’re so beautiful and every day since I’ve been trying to gather the courage to talk to you. If you wouldn’t mind, could I sit down and have a coffee with you?”

She looks at him, setting her coffee and book down on the table. After thinking for a bit, she smiles and her sweet voice comes out her lips fluently, as if it is a speech she's rehearsed many times.

“Thank you for that, but I’m not interested in getting picked up by random strangers, and I don’t believe in love at first sight. After all, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I appreciate the flattery, but I would also like to be left alone to read my book and enjoy my coffee, if you wouldn’t mind.” She picks up her book and coffee, continuing to read as if he was not there.

He stands up dejectedly, muttering apologies under his breath while leaving with his feet dragging on the floor. A notification pops up on his phone.

‘Mai: I heard what happened… Don’t worry, I still love you, even if she doesn’t.’

‘You: What do I do now? You’re all I have.’

‘Mai: I think I might have an idea how I can make you happy.’

***

He stands over her body behind the cafe, knuckles bruised and dripping . Blood pools on the floor around her head. Any sounds or cries she makes are drowned out by the voice coming from the phone taped haphazardly around her face. On it, Mai smiles.

“I love you, darling.”