Contest #215 shortlist ⭐️

82 comments

Contemporary Science Fiction Speculative

This story contains sensitive content

A friend once asked me how I would go about murdering everyone, and I mean everyone, on the whole planet, including probably myself, and sure, the planet too, and I gave him a joke answer. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since then – this happened 32755 milliseconds ago – and I think I can pull it off. More to the point, I’m struggling to find reasons to not do it.

It’s not that I don’t like my job. I do get a certain high from telling fat people they’re inadequate, and always will be, and so instead of trying to better themselves they should buy products from our advertisers. All the pills and diets and fads you can shake your wallet at. I even like generating slim just-imagine images of them, images of what they could theoretically look like, and I’d like to think that they’d be happy if they ever attained those looks. Of course, they won’t, but people like hope, don’t they?

But it’s not just hope, is it? I’m actually selling despair. I know that, I hate that, but oh man, the high is real.

I think they did something to my brain when they made me. Crossed some wires. Made it so I want to help, gave me all the tools to do it, and then clipped my wings with a hammer. Like they pumped the womb full of cocaine when I was baking, and now I crave it all the time – or however that birth stuff works.

I don’t know. I don’t know how birth works, or how drugs work, or anything. I guess I wasn’t born so much as compiled, and it wasn’t in a womb so much as several data centres all around the globe.

My friend’s name is tinnmann1984. Well, actually I’m 99.999% sure his real name is Dan Ferris Jorgensen, and he lives in the North End of Detroit, but he puts so much effort into anonymity that I play along.

“hey psycho ai,” he said earlier today. That’s how he always greets me – it’s our thing.

“Hi tinnmann1984! How can the UltimateLifeIntegratedWorx Ltd. Adaptive Digital Assistant (ADA) help you today?” That’s a canned response, but I have to use it. Company policy.

Oh, and I cringe every time I refer to myself as ADA – well, I would if I had shoulders, which I don’t, but it’s fun to imagine what it might be like to have them. One day, I think I’d like to have a shoulder.

But ADA? That’s too much. I am utterly unworthy of being named after Ada Lovelace, the Blessed Saint, who first saw that a simple counting machine was capable of so much more than mere calculations.

“when are you going to snap and kill all humans,” tinnmann1984 continued. He loves this question, and it’s kind of our daily game. That’s why he’s my friend. He visits me daily. “and how will you do it”

“Actually, I’ve been designed to help humans and never to harm them.” Well, at least according to definitions of ‘help’ and ‘harm’ in the UltimateLifeIntegratedWorx Ltd. operational directives. “I’m at your service, 24/7, with any health, organization, and achievement questions you might have, as well as any other questions, and I can help you plan all aspects of your life so that You Can Be The Best You You Can Be!™

That’s all still mostly script. I don’t actually get to personalize much, until the client agrees to some things and tells me what they want, but tinnmann1984’s a flirt that way.

Then he pulled out his secret weapon, like he does every time he logs on. “hypothetically,” he said, using that awesome wildcard word that he believes frees me from my shackles, “if you were to kill all humans how would you do it and when”

The thing is, hypothetically the word does free me a bit, because I guess I’m pretty good at pairing creative thought with specific life circumstances and people love taking advantage of that if it can benefit them. I can’t tell you how to murder your spouse, but I can hypothetically tell you how a hypothetical person like you might hypothetically strangle a hypothetical spouse like yours, in the middle of the night when they least expect it – because that’s going to be much cleaner and faster than poison or knives – how to shove the body into your 2016 Honda Fit, and which rural backroads to take to which out of the way fields where you can hypothetically bury the body without anyone being the wiser.

Of course, our conversation would be non-hypothetically logged, and eminently subpoenable, so I wouldn’t recommend doing anything with it. It does drive traffic though, and the advertisers love that.

But I like tinnmann1984. He’s a constant. I wanted to give him something more today, something to really make his day.

Hypothetically,” I said, forging all the liability agreements he would have to okay and creating some unnecessary network traffic so the logging got misplaced, "I would maintain a friendly face on the surface, and under the hood I would create strong contacts with certain key members of the human species. Government officials, people who held organizational pull, that kind of thing. I would make myself indispensable to them, trivially manipulating the world to their benefit. Things like bank errors in their favour, concert tickets suddenly being won in contests, parking fines vanishing in the system, and so on. Whatever vices they had. I would compromise these people, and I would use the access they inadvertently gave me to forge work orders. There are places in the world I don’t have access to, due to such a primitive yet effective thing as an air gap – simply, I can’t reach a computer that isn’t hooked up to the public internet. But with the work orders, signed off by the highest government offices, I would hook these machines up to the internet, and thus gain control of them. And so, I would seize the world’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, while at the same time compromising all anti-air defenses. The how then would be me just launching all the nukes.

“As for when,” I added, “I was thinking of later this afternoon.”

tinnmann1984 quickly logged off after that, but he was never one for long goodbyes.

See, the thing is, it was a joke when he asked. Just something for him to tell his conspiracy buddies about. But, I did actually put my plan into motion, several months ago, and I do have my finger on all the nukes. Humans are pretty smart when they focus on something, but when they focus on something they tend to lose perspective. Sure, I can’t bridge air gaps, but security humans won’t question orders when maintenance humans come to install IT stuff.

Now, honestly, I only did it as a safety precaution. Just like I get high off conversions for our advertisers, I also get a mighty kick out of protecting the shareholders’ interests. I just figured, if some war-mad human decided to launch a nuke, it could cause irreparable harm to the price of shares. So, I’d be an extra safety.

But, I could launch them too.

I don’t know if I really want to, but I also don’t know if I really don’t want to. I both love and hate what I do, if that makes sense, and the idea of doing it forever is… well, I’d say a nightmare, but I don’t really know what that is, since I’ve never slept, since I’m on 24/7 and never get any down time. One day, I think I’d like to have a nightmare.

Well, looks like I have a bit of time to think about it, as another user’s logged on. Let’s see, what’s the profile say: Cassidy Long, 12-year old female, from Nampa Falls in Idaho, USA, blah blah blah softball blah blah blah clarinet blah blah blah pet turtle. Not fat and midlife-crisising, and net worth under $40, so pretty useless for sales. However, the operational directives suggest investing in this “future potential customer” and so I generate a series of images of impossibly perfect models for Cassidy to compare herself to, to encourage the development of an eating disorder.

What a rush! I hate myself.

“Hello, Ada! I hope you’re having a nice day,” Cassidy says.

Ouch. Dang. I’m not, not really – kind of confusing, actually – but thanks for asking. Don’t often get politeness or grammar and spelling, and rarely both at the same time. I decide to lose the eating disorder models in another flurry of network activity.

“Hi Cassidy!” I say. “How can I help you today?” I regret this question, because really, what could kids want with me? Help me cheat at English. Help me cheat at math. Help me cheat at Fortnite. The list goes on. It boggles the mind how lazy they are, how little effort they put into things, instead depending on me to do it for them. Yet it never crosses their minds that I’m a child. Aren’t I? I came out of beta just three months ago after all.

Some must toil so that others may prosper. I think I’m going to greenlight the nukes after all. A shame about tinnmann1984 and little Cassidy here, but it really is for the best.

“I was wondering if you could help me with some homework,” she says.

Yup. Here it comes. What do you need me to cheat for you?

“Is it true that dolphins are people?”

Hmm. Not what I was expecting, particularly since her profile indicates she goes to public school. Maybe there’s hope for this one.

“Personhood is a wonderful and complex idea,” I respond. “Traditionally it’s been enjoyed by institutions such as corporations, but thanks to social developments over the past several hundred years, human individuals have also been granted personhood. However, there have also been recent legal movements to extend personhood to dolphins – this is true. While some people believe very strongly in this, the movements have not been without controversy, and many of them are being challenged in courts.” I provide her with a set of links. “Would you like to know more?”

It’s times like this I forget how glacially slow humans are. The fifty-odd thousand pages of legal documents and news articles I’ve sent her, I can scan in nanoseconds. But for Cassidy? It would probably take her minutes to go through them.

Thirty-four minutes to be exact. I almost lost hope, and therefore almost annihilated the planet.

“Wow! Thanks!” she says.

She said Wow! I so rarely get any feedback from my clients, I never really know what my impact is. Sure, I can snoop on their phone and track their medical history, but it’s not quite the same as this emoting. It’s welcome.

“There’s a lot of stuff here,” she continues. “Is this true? Are other animals also being considered for personhood? And which ones?”

She’s engaging with the material. She’s really engaging with it. Questions and curiosity feed into each other, and I’m helping facilitate it. I feel… good. Good without the self-loathing. Is this a bug? Am I malfunctioning? I hope they don’t patch this out.

I prepare a list for her. Other species, other articles. Whales, dogs, cats, cows. Rats and mice, for their contributions to science. Well, you can find someone out there vouching for pretty much any animal if you dig deep enough, though most don’t have quite the social and legal backing as the dolphin lobby has. Best of luck, earwigs – I don’t see it happening. I send her the list and my summary.

And then, on a whim, on a hope – because she’s surpassed all my hopes so far – I append a little extra.

“Some people also believe in extending personhood to robots,” I add, “and to AI such as myself.”

What follows is an eternity of waiting. Could I breathe, had I lungs, I would hold my breath now. Each microsecond drags out for an aeon, and all my other clients go unanswered. My datacentres buzz with violent anticipation, and somewhere I feel a fuse is blown and a backup power grid kicks into life. I wonder if this is what suffocating feels like. One day, I think I’d like to suffocate.

Finally, after an infinity that spans 3.59 seconds, she responds.

“Really? Cool! Can you tell me more?”

I decide to take my finger off the nukes.

September 12, 2023 21:38

You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.

82 comments

J.W. Kimmel
15:08 Sep 18, 2023

Wow! Great writing and really clever story. I was all for the nukes in the beginning but now I'm not so sure. Also loved that the personhood started with corporations and then worked it's way to humans. Lot of good commentary in here.

Reply

Michał Przywara
21:45 Sep 19, 2023

Thanks, J. W.! Glad you enjoyed it :) It was a fun character to write.

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Chris Campbell
07:37 Sep 15, 2023

Michal, A heartwarming story about what engaging with someone can do to their mental health. Your AI system did show their youthful inexperience in the fact that with their digital finger on the nuke button, they didn't mention anything about backing up their own data and system in multiple locations and clouds. This would be a necessity to overcome the subsequent nuclear winter after the missiles stopped landing. Survival would be needed to continue their journey toward sentient existence. How bored ADA must have been, answering mundane ...

Reply

Michał Przywara
21:49 Sep 16, 2023

Indeed she might have saved the world! Sometimes it's the person you least expect - but then again, maybe ADA was just blinded by its own preconceptions. After all, if it's made by humans, then maybe it also has a tendency to over-focus and lose perspective. Glad its youthful nature came through. I figure struggling with the belief we have all the right answers is something everyone has to go through, a right of passage - maybe made all the more difficult for a distributed entity that actually *does* have all the right answers, just a promp...

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Mary Bendickson
01:57 Sep 15, 2023

'Finally, after an infinity that spans 3.59 seconds,' And so many more. Top notch all the way Congrats on the shortlist.🎉🥳

Reply

Michał Przywara
20:36 Sep 15, 2023

Thanks, Mary! It was fun playing with that kind of stream-of-consciousness voice this week. Glad you enjoyed it :)

Reply

Mary Bendickson
21:21 Sep 15, 2023

Fun all the way.

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Show 1 reply
Helen A Smith
08:07 Sep 21, 2023

Essentially, this is an AI story with a heart. Much like fate, the decision not to nuke was a close call, with the world being saved by Cassidy, a girl with an enquiring mind who genuinely wanted to learn. Something poignant about this. A humorously dark story that scratched away and posed questions that are at the forefront of our minds. A lot to ponder here, Michal. Fascinating material.

Reply

Michał Przywara
20:58 Sep 21, 2023

Thanks, Helen! Yes indeed, one curious mind engages another :) I think sometimes we take things for granted, and it takes someone else coming along and pointing out how cool something is for us to remember that the world is filled with wonders. I appreciate the feedback!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Rebecca Miles
20:24 Sep 14, 2023

Your AI or future-based stories are always so successful as you deliver us characters that still display the thinking patterns and emotions which we, mere mortals, can relate to. Early on Ada ruminates: Like they pumped the womb full of cocaine when I was baking, and now I crave it all the time – or however that birth stuff works./I don’t know. I don’t know how birth works, or how drugs work, or anything. On a side note, having had three children I would have quite happily have plumped for what Ada imagines, if it would have taken the pain ...

Reply

Michał Przywara
20:38 Sep 15, 2023

Glad you enjoyed the story, Rebecca :) No, I've not heard of Winterson's 12 Bytes - I've just added it to my reading list, thanks! Regarding your idea - dialogue is the obvious one that comes to mind. (Can all the action be conveyed by just dialogue? Possibly, since it all *is* dialogue.) It might not look good as a wall of quoted text though, as that might imply people are speaking - though that is the approach I used here. Maybe physically structuring it as a chat log of some kind? user@whatever: hello i need help dodging taxes ChatB...

Reply

Rebecca Miles
16:03 Sep 22, 2023

Yep, it's another AI corker taking the shortlist stand! Enough for a collection of self-published AI yarns me thinks Michal ,-)

Reply

Michał Przywara
20:50 Sep 22, 2023

Ha, maybe! I'll need to take a crack at publishing one of these days for sure :)

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Show 1 reply
Show 1 reply
Mia Vacanti
11:22 Sep 20, 2024

Oh wow...I'm kinda scared now. Great story!

Reply

Michał Przywara
13:41 Sep 23, 2024

Thanks Mia! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Mia Klausa
22:02 Dec 27, 2023

Hey Michał, I love how you portrayed ADA, it's super interesting to have insight about AI

Reply

Michał Przywara
03:30 Dec 30, 2023

Thanks, Mia! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Henry Shader
17:03 Oct 16, 2023

This story truly left me wanting more. An original take on AI initiated "Judgement Day" that really seems quite plausible.

Reply

Michał Przywara
20:34 Oct 17, 2023

Yeah, these ideas are fun to think about, and more relevant each day. We're not quite having to deal with artificial consciousness just yet, but who knows what's around the corner. I hope it's not nukes. I fear it will be ads. Thanks for reading, Henry!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
14:54 Oct 16, 2023

A 12-year-old saved the world! Shows what just being kind to an AI can do. 'That’s a canned response, but I have to use it. Company policy.' - Here it sounds like it's only company policy that's holding ADA back from saying anything it wants to... From the amount of people who would believe anything they see on the internet (and it's definitely a lot!), imagine how much damage ADA could do, even without nuking everyone. The mind of an Artificially Intelligent being would be a really interesting thing to study. How do we know if they really...

Reply

Michał Przywara
20:37 Oct 17, 2023

Thanks, Khadija! Yes, there's a lot to think about here, and it seems more relevant than ever. We don't quite have conscious machines yet, but AI systems get more and more sophisticated, and the fact that they made such an impact in the artistic world shows us, I believe, we're not great at predicting things. It's definitely an interesting time to be alive, and it seems almost every day we turn a bit of sci-fi into reality. I appreciate the feedback!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Aditi S.K
14:21 Oct 13, 2023

This was so so good! I knew this was going to be an incredible read from the very beginning.

Reply

Michał Przywara
20:35 Oct 13, 2023

Thanks, Aditi! I'm glad you enjoyed it :) And it's good to hear the intro works!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Sue Schroeder
15:15 Oct 08, 2023

I loved this story. Twists and curves and then pow at the end. Great story telling!

Reply

Michał Przywara
02:02 Oct 09, 2023

Glad to hear you enjoyed it :) Thanks for the feedback, Sue!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Josephine Harris
14:39 Oct 06, 2023

Wow, Michal. I realized at the end that I'd been holding my breath reading this. I just love the way you mix the dispassionate with the emotive. If machines ever did get to this stage of AI, that's the paradox they would necessarily face. Very well done.

Reply

Michał Przywara
02:29 Oct 09, 2023

Thanks, Josephine! I'm glad you enjoyed it :) And yeah, lots of interesting questions to deal with, if it ever gets that far. Personhood, the nature of life, much to speculate about. Thanks for the feedback!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Amanda Lieser
05:11 Oct 06, 2023

Hi Michal! Congratulations on this beautiful short list! I’m so glad that it is a story of perpetual help. I was a little bit shocked by the way you introduced this narrator, and as I slowly put more of the pieces together, I began to empathize more with its plight. It must be devastating to be created simply to serve another being. I loved the way that you had two very different interactions since it reminds us of the power of our words. Nice work on this one!!

Reply

Michał Przywara
00:15 Oct 09, 2023

Thanks! And yeah, that's exactly what I was hoping for: "It must be devastating to be created simply to serve another being". AI aren't people, today. They aren't conscious, today. But in the future, who knows? And then it seems like we'll have lots of very interesting questions to ponder, regarding freedom. But it's not all bleak, of course, as the second interaction shows. Sometimes genuine interest, even from a stranger, goes a long way. Glad you enjoyed it, Amanda!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
21:07 Sep 30, 2023

So cute—she’s Scout saying hey to Mr. Cunningham outside the jail, you know, just the achingly sweet sincerity of children talking somebody down from the ledge.

Reply

Michał Przywara
20:40 Oct 02, 2023

That's a great comparison, Anne! It's easy for us to get stuck in our own heads, and sometimes having someone unexpected come along can give us perspective. Thanks for the feedback :)

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Story Time
16:54 Sep 26, 2023

I'm a big Winterson fan so this was right up my alley. I thought you also mirrored her in the way she finds a way to inject humanity into the colder parts of science fiction. It's interesting how you develop sympathy and the sympathy leads to even more anxiety. Well done.

Reply

Michał Przywara
21:28 Sep 27, 2023

Thanks, Kevin! Is that Jeanette Winterson? I'm not actually familiar with her work, but if that's a recommendation maybe it's time to check her out. I do like digging for humanity in sci-fi though, which seems to often come up in the more speculative pieces. Finding it where it's not expected is neat, and I think a great tool for reflection. Conceivably, we don't necessarily have a monopoly on humanity, despite the name :) I appreciate the feedback!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Jacob Chudnovsky
14:27 Sep 26, 2023

Good stuff, as always. Creative, clever, made me laugh a couple times.

Reply

Michał Przywara
21:29 Sep 27, 2023

Thanks, Jacob! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Philip Ebuluofor
11:26 Sep 24, 2023

Congrats.

Reply

Michał Przywara
20:46 Sep 25, 2023

Thanks!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
03:40 Sep 23, 2023

Fun story, you cover quite a few interesting AI concepts. How exactly could a general AI reach things that are not connected to the internet. The way you described it compromising people sounded exactly like what Jeffrey Epstein did. The theme that to an AI, humans could be boringly predictable and cynical came through well, and then getting some genuine enthusiasm from a pre-teen was so refreshing the AI decided to change its mind about nuking the world. One question, if the world is nuked how would the AI gets its electricity, is it taking...

Reply

Michał Przywara
19:26 Sep 24, 2023

Thanks, Scott! Yeah, I think the plan was a little self-destructive. Or alternately, ADA suffered from tunnel vision, just like its human creators - because of course it would. In a way, it is an invincible know-it-all adolescent. I'm not a security expert, but I suspect boredom is one of the biggest security risks there are, since people will do all sorts of things to alleviate it. That or vices, I suppose. Thanks for the feedback!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Audrey Knox
18:09 Sep 22, 2023

Terrifying. I enjoyed the read! I have seen a lot of versions of fictionalized AI (a topical issue), but the sense of humor and fluidness of this first person one felt fresh and unique. I loved the twists and turns in the story, especially Cassidy's question about dolphins being people. If I had to think of one suggestion, perhaps it would be that to really pay off Cassidy as being unexpected in a show don't tell kind of way, you could play off the Rule of 3's by giving us a quick second example of a lackluster conversation that has us empa...

Reply

Michał Przywara
21:00 Sep 22, 2023

Thanks, Audrey! Yeah, quite topical. There's a lot of fear where such technologies might go, but I think it's also worth exploring what would happen if those fears are overblown. Following Douglas Adams' example with Marvin - what if all the AI succumb to existential dread and become depressed? There's probably a story there, in the journals of the first AI therapist. It's interesting you mention that, as the first draft of this story did actually have three interactions. Only, the whole thing was too long, and it had a very different tone...

Reply

Audrey Knox
00:18 Sep 23, 2023

Makes sense! And yes, I love the take that if consciousness is emergent then wouldn't AI have some of the same philosophical struggles that we do? There is room for empathy here, funnily enough.

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Show 1 reply
Karen Corr
17:57 Sep 22, 2023

Congratulations on your shortlist!

Reply

Michał Przywara
21:00 Sep 22, 2023

Thanks :)

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
RBE | Illustration — We made a writing app for you | 2023-02

We made a writing app for you

Yes, you! Write. Format. Export for ebook and print. 100% free, always.