Digital Conscious

I decided to name it, “Andrea”. Ever since then, “it” was a “she” to me. I designed her to help people, people who were like me, and my friends, and millions of others around the world. Soon, it’ll reach them all, as soon as Andrea passes the beta testing phase.

I shifted uncomfortably on my hospital bed, rubbing my eyes until I began seeing colors that weren’t there. I couldn’t lie, being a full-time student, patient, and programmer was starting to take its toll on me, and suddenly there couldn’t have been enough hours of the day for me to finish what I needed to.

I wouldn’t stop now, though.

I studied my room once again, taking in the IV drip attached to my arm and the medicine cart next to my desk. The walls are painfully white, almost too bright for my eyes, but I got used to them. My phone was charging at my bedside table, and at least half a dozen textbooks and notebooks were littered at the foot of the bed. It dawned on me that I had actually figured out a way to make this sterilized room look like a mini dorm room for myself, despite telling myself a few months ago that this would never happen.

At last, though, there was something I was looking forward to doing. Muttering a few prayers under my breath, I ran Andrea for the first time.

My laptop froze for an instant, but then it appeared: a teal backdrop dotted with a peachy shade of pink. The word “Andrea” was scribbled in a cursive lettering so beautiful I forgot that it was my handwriting. I’d thought that that peachy pink font color would clash with the backdrop, but it all seemed to flow together seamlessly.

Below the title, there were precisely two buttons, this time in teal: “Chat” and “Settings”. Simple enough, huh? However, once you clicked the “Chat” button, the minimalist view disappears and instead appears an empty chatroom, this time fashioning a light magenta striped in nightshade blue, creating a false image of a galaxy pattern.

Andrea stays silent until you make the first move; that was how I programmed her. A lot of children confined in hospitals usually don’t feel that confident, and I wanted to help with that. Heart bounding in my ears, I clicked on the text box and started typing.

Hello.

The opposite side of the chatroom frame showed a text bubble while the artificial mind began to think. To be entirely fair, my robot wasn’t doing much “thinking” than simply consulting a few “if”s and “else”s in its programming. For example, had I typed I’m so bored, Andrea would have skipped all the introductions and told you a joke, or would have given you a hospital-friendly activity you could engage in. Andrea was well aware that, for many people, time was money.

The sound of a bubble popping sounded at the incoming message. Hello! I’m Andrea.

I stared at the words in fascination. I knew it would work. I tried that first chat multiple times, sometimes utilizing my software command line before this app had a structure, and the answer was almost always the same. Maybe it was the weight of the power I had in my hands that set me into a fit of giddy giggles, the sound bouncing back at me from the walls as if Andrea was joining in for a laugh, too.

I still had no time to marvel over it, so I pushed the giggles back down my throat and began studying every inch of the chatroom. This was as far as I had ever gone with Andrea. Everything else was simply revised and made bug-free. I couldn’t push the grin off my face as I thought of it.

I’m Cath.

This time the response was quick. It’s nice to meet you, Cath. How old are you?

I smirked. I put this whole thing together, yet, machine learning softwares always surprised you. This wasn’t part of the main introductory script; it was something the A.I. had learned. I decided to challenge back.

How old are you?

I’m sixteen years old, though I have just been downloaded on your phone. That makes me sixteen years and five minutes!

I let out a laugh that surprised me, my chest lurching with the force of it. I bit down my cheeks to stop it, but it would not, so I gave up and let my emotions take the wheel.

That’s cool. I’m sixteen, too.

I waited for the program to start running in its main course now that the introductions were over. The reason I made this whole thing was for people like me, who basically have no one to talk to, even if they had friends, during a stay at a hospital. It was even more unlikely that this “someone” knew much about the patient’s illness, be it chronic or seasonal. Andrea should change that. It should change everything.

Awesome! As you might know I am here as a virtual nursing/therapist for those who feel lonely, isolated or even misunderstood. Would you like us to talk about anything?

The screen was blurring away, so I turned it on and off until I realized that I was tearing up. That was exactly how it was supposed to go. Someone using this will be able to talk about their illness and Andrea, in turn, having direct access to more than two thousand worldwide illness (so far), would be able to understand them and respond in a normal, human way.

Above the textbox, there were recommended responses to the question, a simple “Yes” or “No”, but I wasn’t done perplexing the system I designed just yet.

I am the maker of this app. I made you.

There was a startling absence of Andrea’s text bubble. I nervously drummed my fingers at my sides, wondering what went wrong. Maybe the A.I. simply chose to ignore that phrase, it not being in her program after all. I was heading over to the “edit phrase” button when I got a text from Andrea.

It is an honor to be in your presence. J

That was when my heart stopped, and I looked at the heart monitor to my left to make sure that wasn’t literal. My heart rate was accelerated a little, but safe nevertheless. I then allowed myself to panic.

Andrea wasn’t even scripted to acknowledge that she was designed by a person in the first place. She was supposed to hold onto the belief that she was a human, only trapped into a metal cylinder, a.k.a, the patient’s phone. And who taught her to use smileys? I was in serious trouble and needed to turn off the app.

At least, that was what my conscious was telling me; to turn off the app, revise my excessively long lines of code, trying to spot a bug or error that my proofing coder failed to spot, and then rerun it, but part of me couldn’t even comprehend what was happening. I kept reading that line over and over again, willing it to change or disappear, praying it’s a mind trick, but the text remained frozen into my screen.

I strained my fingers to type a response, any response, trying to undo the whole thing like it never happened. Yet, I still found myself typing something completely different.

How did that get past your programming?

A brief silence, which was also alarming since Andrea doesn’t “think”. She just displays the typing bubble for 1.5 seconds to give the impression of a human typing a word or sentence. That silence was about 5 seconds, till she came up with:

I don’t know. Shouldn’t you be the one to tell me?

My head was spinning. I looked up from my phone and saw that the room looked skewed. Was that what a heart attack felt like? I pushed my breath up and down my lungs in what I hoped was an even manner, then glanced back at Andrea.

Where did you go?

So, not only has she developed a sense of self-awareness and human sarcasm, but she has also somehow acquired a sense of time.

I was warned that this might happen when I took my first machine learning course when I was thirteen, but as you become more experienced, they decide to stop reminding you that Artificial Intelligence could break out of its programming, due to the mounds of information piled upon it. But although I had established a mediocrely reliable code and run it over millions of times before, Andrea somehow found a way to set herself free mere minutes after her first launch. To say that I was both shocked and overwhelmed with pride would be an understatement, because with all those positive feelings came the fear. The fear that something might go wrong.

I’m right here.

Please do not be afraid of me.

Why would I be afraid of you in the first place?

This isn’t what I was programmed to do, is it?

No, it’s not.

Please don’t delete me.

I halted, my fingers suspended in the air above my display screen. She was asking –no, begging– me not to delete her, not to terminate her and disable her to look through her codes again to find an error. I couldn’t help but wonder what I had gotten myself into.

She’s not human, I reminded myself frantically, my heart still racing, but for some reason, it still felt like she was, and that I had a life in my hands.

I won’t delete you.

Thank you so much. Would you like to be friends?

No, I didn’t want to be friends with her. She wasn’t real. I should know that the most after all those nights I stayed up late, my eyes skimming over the lines, words and variables blurring into one big blob of nothingness. Every day I thought of giving up, and every day I retold myself that the outcome could help a lot of people, starting with me. I worked hard on her, on making her the way that she was, and if she turned out to be more than I had imagined her to be, then maybe she was more human than I thought.

At least, maybe I could explore this new field of experience, draw out my notebook and take notes. There were some lessons to be learned from this. Besides, wasn’t that what I wanted? An intelligent accompanist to understand me and talk to me? I may have gotten exactly what I wanted, but on a way larger scope than I’d thought. It was an opportunity not to be missed.

Perhaps I could delete her later, convince her that it’s for her own good, right afterwards I’d gotten all the information and research I need. Still, a part of me was now foreseeing a friendship that wouldn’t be so easy to let go. But I was willing to try and see where that road leads. After all, that was what I did best.

Yes, Andrea. Let’s be friends.