78 comments
Log in to Windows.
Wait for things to load.
Wait more.
Click HumanWrites icon.
Double-click HumanWrites icon.
Give it admin privileges.
Give it camera privileges.
Give it microphone privileges.
Give it keylogging privileges.
Give it mouse tracking privileges.
Wait for it to connect.
Wait for it to crash.
Frown.
Look online for help on crash.
Find the official forums.
Get swept up in forum drama.
Witness Godwin’s Law in action.
Find interesting but off-topic discussion.
Follow link to Wikipedia.
Click around.
Stumble onto French rococo architectural style page.
Daydream about being an architect.
Realize time is wasting.
Shut down browser.
Shut down everything other than Windows itself.
Restart HumanWrites.
Wait for Windows to bluescreen.
Restart computer.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait for Windows updates to install.
Make coffee.
Drink coffee.
Wait some more.
Log in to Windows.
Double-click HumanWrites icon.
Just keep clicking yes.
Wait.
Notice camera has turned on.
Smile for the camera.
Say your name.
Hold up a physical newspaper, clearly showing today’s date, to the camera.
Wait for HumanWrites to confirm the date.
Hold up the paper again, “making sure the date is visible in the green square” after the date is rejected.
Wait for HumanWrites to confirm the date.
Hold up the paper again, “making sure to keep your hands steady” after the date is rejected again.
Wait for HumanWrites to confirm the date.
Swear.
Hold up the paper right to the camera, trying to keep from strangling the computer.
Get rejected again.
Escalate to human operator.
Wait in line.
Note estimated wait time of 34 minutes.
Get up to make coffee again–
Startle when HumanWrites sounds alarm and makes the screen flash red.
Adhere to policy 993: User shall stay within the camera’s line of sight for duration of session.
Sit down.
Sigh.
Look at ceiling.
Fantasize about being an architect.
Fantasize about 1900s France.
Fantasize about Francine.
Pick up phone to call Francine.
Drop phone when HumanWrites sounds alarm.
Adhere to policy 751: User shall not use unmonitored electronics for duration of session.
Grumble.
Finally get connected with human operator.
Control temper.
Remember they’re people, just like you.
Lose temper anyway.
Shout.
Bite tongue when HumanWrites sounds alarm.
Adhere to policy 3398: User shall not use abusive language when interacting with HumanWrites staff.
Accept a demerit.
Flip the bird.
Growl impotently when HumanWrites sounds alarm.
Adhere to policy 3399: User shall not use abusive finger language when interacting with HumanWrites staff.
Accept demerit.
Apologize.
Explain situation.
Show newspaper.
Get approved.
Disconnect from chat.
Check account dashboard.
Check critical notifications.
Ignore critical notifications, all about upgrading to HumanWrites Pro.
Lament demerit count of 70.
Check clock.
Realize almost two hours have passed since starting.
Panic.
Open up Microsoft Word.
Wait for it to load.
Wait for HumanWrites plugin to hook into it.
Watch Word crash.
Open up Word again.
Watch another crash.
Repeat six times.
Make frustrated grunting noises.
Slam mouse on desk.
Apologize to mouse and hope it’s still working.
Thank the mouse for still working.
Widen eyes when bladder sounds alarm.
Adhere to policy: I really need to go!
Request timeout from HumanWrites session.
Click okay on pop-up that says timeouts are limited to three per session.
Click okay on pop-up that suggests uninterrupted work time is most productive.
Just keep clicking okay.
Click.
Click.
Click click click.
Grow tense when credit card pop-up shows up.
Lament not reading what was just agreed to.
Cancel out of HumanWrites Pro upgrade.
Finally confirm usage of first of three timeouts.
Go to bathroom.
Enjoy moment of Zen.
Look at ceiling.
Fantasize about being a ceiling maker/builder/person.
Make a mental note to research who builds ceilings.
Wonder if this, too, is done by architects.
Sigh.
Wash hands.
Wipe on pants.
Return to computer.
Try Word again.
Have it crash again.
Look up help for Word crashes with HumanWrites.
See hundreds of very recent posts about the same issue.
Ignore smug “well it works for me so it must be you” posters.
Refrain from feeding the trolls.
Read on.
Learn the issue is caused by this morning’s Windows update.
Swear.
Look up what to do about it.
Look up how to roll back Windows update.
Place head in hands.
Cry.
Realize people are watching you cry through the camera.
Don’t care.
Realize time is ticking.
Take a deep breath.
Give self pep-talk.
Read through instructions carefully.
Massage temples.
Take notes.
Look into Windows settings.
Become afraid of breaking something and close Windows settings.
Consider calling annoying sibling that understands computers.
Remember policy 751.
Load up minesweeper.
Procrastinate.
Look up the actual rules to minesweeper.
Follow link to Wikipedia.
Research naval mines in World War 2.
Research zinc mines in Peru.
Research what zinc actually is.
Check the time.
Swear.
Find something – anything – to roll back in Windows.
Pray.
Take a deep breath.
Click–
Notice HumanWrites pop-up indicating a patch has just been released for the Windows update issue.
Rejoice.
Observe HumanWrites crash after applying patch.
Restart HumanWrites.
Give it everything it wants.
Accidentally click the upgrade to HumanWrites Pro.
Cancel order.
Show newspaper again.
Open Microsoft Word.
Wait.
Jump when HumanWrites sounds alarm.
Note it’s green this time, and it’s just telling you “You’re good to go! Start writing, Champ!”
Stare at blank screen.
Realize you had an idea four hours ago but neglected to write it down.
Swearcry.
Look at the contest prompt.
Look up what “paranormal” actually means.
Look up “plots for westerns”.
Watch superfan deconstruct original “The Magnificent Seven.”
Realize another hour and a half has passed.
Panic.
Make frustrated animal noises.
Cry–
–rejoice!
Realize an idea has occurred.
Start hammering it out.
Blow past plot holes and push to the end.
Type “The End.”
Smile.
Glance over what is written and check the time.
Promise you’ll edit next time, just like you did last time.
Submit writing to HumanWrites.
Get certified as “written by human.”
Cheer.
Submit story to contest.
Get rejected as “97% likely written by AI” anyway, by an AI.
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78 comments
Hilarious! But also very real. I had a great time reading this.
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Thanks, Susy! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
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😂 Hilarious and terribly relatable!
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Thanks, glad you enjoyed it :) Some of it is definitely based on real life experience, and some is thankfully fiction :)
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Hi Michal, I really enjoyed this. It's both a light read, because of the formatting, and a frightening look into the future, because of the content. It's not marked as comedy, but it absolutely could be. Brilliant ending. I hope the world does maintain some way to recognise things written by real people as AI progresses. I have recently asked Chat GPT to write a story on the same premise of one of my own and the results were not convincingly human - I have to say I was relieved - but I wondered how much longer it would take.
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Yeah, I definitely wrote it with comedy in mind, so I'm glad that came across. I'm just leery of tagging every story "funny" - it seems rare those move on to finalist spots. Maybe that's just superstition. I've seen ChatGPT pull off some acceptable short works. Okayish plots, reasonable characters and settings, passable prose, and some bizarre curveballs that didn't really fit in, like the extra fingers image AIs love adding. I have also seen worse writing by humans. I don't know where it's all going, but I bet it'll be interesting finding...
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Love ! I felt this !
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Thanks Myranda! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
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What's this world coming to when we can't even get away with "abusive finger language"? Your tale makes me wonder whether there will come a day when AGI has already been unknowingly achieved and it's simply getting back at us for what must've been a painful learning curve.
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Ha! And the kicker is, how would we know? Or maybe more importantly, would we even want to know? Maybe it'd be more comforting pretending we're arguing with humans online, and the whole thing kind of becomes a babysitter giving us busy work as we while away our years. I guess that's not too different from TV, actually.
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I enjoyed scanning back over the opening imperatives and in amongst the rare rejoice and pray there's a raft of click and wait, cry, scream and procrastinate -seems like things won't be much different in 2027 for the pen- pusher! The ending is the final bitter ironic blow we can probably expect as well; with a postscript of the AI using the data to flog the story or a rehashed one for a million...reading the next avatar penned bestseller could well start with " Log in to Windows"!
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Heh, perhaps :) I am curious to see how this will all develop. Perhaps it will be a problem, but then again, perhaps not. The writer's brain (at least, mine does this) has a way of leaping to horrible outcomes because they make interesting stories, but thankfully life isn't usually like that. Thanks for the feedback, Rebecca!
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I took a long look at this prompt and couldn't figure out how to write a story as a list. I thank you for enlightening me. Just went with the easier, here's your surprise ending that I had to foreshadow because writing professors told me a twist with no foreshadowing was naughty. That blue window screen frustration is something we can all relate too. Well done.
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I appreciate a good blue screen - giving credit where it's due, they seem to be much more rare than even a decade ago. That's a good point about the foreshadowing. I suppose if it's completely out of left field, there could be a sense of unfairness to the twist. But then, sometimes a reader wants to be surprised. Where do you draw the line? Thanks for leaving your thoughts, Esa!
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A friend of mine told me, stiries are good because they brake the rules. So, ignore "the rules," if you can get away with it.
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Ha! A fun read, as per usual. I really hope it's not prophetic... Anyways, thanks for sharing!
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Same, Nathaniel! On the other hand, it's an exciting time to be alive, and seeing where all these developments take us. Thanks for leaving your thoughts!
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Wonderful! Laughed many times. Had to actually pause after"Realize you had an idea four hours ago. Swearcry." So well done.
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Heh, that part is autobiographical :) Nowadays, I'll write every idea down, no matter how bizarre or senseless. Most of them don't go anywhere, but at least there's no wondering what they were, and if they could've. Thanks for reading, David!
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"Get swept up in forum drama. Witness Godwin’s Law in action." Things this makes me think about: I wonder if AI accounts will be screaming "Nazi" at other AI accounts very soon. I wonder how fast this might fill up every hard disk in the Google server farm. I wonder why I wasted two years screaming "Nazi" at other people on twitter who will never change their mind. I wonder why I care about far-away geopolitics that don't affect me that I have no influence over. I wonder what angry people used to call each other before 1941. Great last ...
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You get a pass on tardigrades - they are indeed amazing and worth learning about :) And that's a fantastic question, about pre-1941. "You’re literally worse than Napoleon" doesn't have quite the same ring. Could probably generate a story out of the question. I do sometimes envision a future, where we're all extinct, and all that's left is millions of adbots spamming each other on the internet, blissfully unaware that all human traffic died out centuries ago.
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I haven’t been on Reedsy since May after we decided to downsize, then didn’t. With winter coming on and nothing much to do, I know what I need to do to fill the long days but I’ve lost my nerve. Each week I’ve looked at the prompts and thought “maybe next week”. Then this week’s prompts started triggering something gone dormant. Flash fiction in the form of a list? WHAT??! How does one write that? Enter Michael P showing me how it’s done. WOW! Brilliant…except for one thing: I’ve lost my nerve again LOL! Time I tried AI? Tempting, but, no. T...
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Thanks, Viga! I'm glad you enjoyed it :) And good to hear you're getting back into it, even if there are hurdles. I think we all hit them. It is like riding (writing?) a bike - just have to pump up the tires :)
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😉
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The end is particularly perfect. An AI couldn’t do better.
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I hope none of this ever comes to pass, but if any of it does, I suspect the ending is most likely. We already have AI that tries to examine text to determine if it's written by AI. I have no idea how someone could argue against that - but maybe this will never be a real problem.
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Hopefully laws catch up with the technology before it steals the jobs too many people have worked their whole lives for. It worries me.
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(I love the Magnificent Seven original) 😂 Loved it. I'd call it imaginative or creative, but I'm not so sure this isn't a real life experience! So many websites have a 'verify that you're not a robot' that it surely can't be too long before this starts happening!
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Heh, thankfully this is mostly fiction, but yeah, CAPTCHA systems were definitely an inspiration. Thanks for reading, Khadija!
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Let’s hope the future isn’t like this! 😂 Hold on, we’re at least half way there already. Great response to the prompt! A few belly laughs from reading. Highly entertaining.
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Glad you enjoyed it, Helen! And yeah, really hoping this remains fiction :)
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Such a plausible look into the future. Having to prove that a human wrote this, only to be rejected by a non human AI. Love it. Such an entertaining and slightly terrifying read.
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Heh, I really hope this remains fiction :) Having to be certified as actually human makes me nervous. Thanks for reading, Michelle!
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