OpaqueAi: Launch Day

Today is launch day. 

The office is abuzz as OpaqueAI prepares to launch its newest machine learning model, AGI2. All the remote software developers were called from their home battle stations to their office cubicles, like men being torn from their wives for war. Like the drums of war, the sound of mechanical keyboards roared across the office. The top executives crammed themselves into a meeting room, discussing potential hitches like generals poring over a battle map. During this time, John was scrolling TikTok on his phone while taking a poop.

John was a full-time work-from-home employee, hired for his incredible intelligence, but now disillusioned with his impact in the company. He had adopted the philosophy of quiet quitting. He turned in assignments before the deadline but finished them the day they were assigned. Now, he wielded his vast intellect watching a man on his screen eating copious amounts of food. A stifled snort escaped from John as the man on the screen choked.

Despair flooded John's mind as his phone powered off. He had missed the low battery notification ten minutes earlier. He stared at his reflection in the dark screen, questioning his life choices. Taking it as a sign to wrap up his bathroom ritual, he started to unravel some toilet paper. A small folded note hit the ground. Someone had wrapped it into the toilet paper. Curiosity overtook John, and he quickly picked up the note, unraveling it to reveal its secrets. The note read:

“Hello John, 

I know this note will find you in good health. Keep in mind while you read this that I have specifically chosen you for this most important task. I believe you are an underutilized individual with great potential. I have a task that you must complete discreetly, and it is of the utmost importance. The world is going to end. Not today, not tomorrow, but in the near future. The end of the world begins where you sit.”

John stopped reading to look around. Is this a practical joke? he thought. Uncertain, he read on.

“…No, this is not a practical joke. I am from the future and can prove it to you. Then you must do as I say. Finish up here quickly and go get a cup of coffee from the break room. Don’t spend too long talking to Mike.”

With that, the note ended. John sat for a moment, processing what he had just read. His brain raced to figure out who was behind the note. He concluded that the note must be true. Analyzing it logically, the note had accurately predicted his thoughts at a certain point. He did as instructed, finishing up in the bathroom quickly. He left the stall, peeking around to see if anyone was nearby, second-guessing his earlier assumption. The hot water wrapped around John's hands like a warm glove. With dripping hands, John reached over to activate the paper towel dispenser, and his jaw dropped. On the paper towel itself, the words were written:

“DON’T TELL ANYONE.”

This was either the most elaborate prank anyone had ever pulled, or today was going to be a day where he would actually have to try. John walked quickly out of the restroom, heading for the break room as the note had instructed. The excitement in the air was palpable as people rushed past, finding a place to work. With the break room in sight, John quickened his pace, the urgency of the note hitting home. A door swung open in front of him, grinding his steps to a halt. Out came Mike, wearing a Pac-Man t-shirt and blasting rock music through his Sony headphones that hung around his neck. A MacBook in one hand and a coffee in the other—John wondered how he managed to open the door, but Mike’s face lit up with a smile when he saw him.

“Hey John! Nice to see you in the office! Big day, huh?” Mike said.

“Yeah, very exciting stuff. Nice to see you too,” John replied, attempting to sidestep Mike.

“Wait a sec,” Mike said, stepping in front of him again. “I was gonna shoot you a Slack message, but since I have you here in person for once, I have this weird message showing up in the logs for the local AGI2.”

John resisted the urge to strangle Mike with his own stupid headphones. This was the third time this week that Mike had asked about running AGI2 locally. “Have you gone over the troubleshooting documentation I put together it might just need a restart,” John said.

“Uhh…” Mike responded a blank expression on his face. 

“Lets setup a meeting after the launch and I will run you through it again,” John said, stepping to the right of Mike.

“Okay, thanks, man. That would be awesome!” Mike said, turning as John walked past.

John stopped on his heel and turned back. “Hey, did you see anyone go into the bathroom before me?”

“Uh, Antonio said he had to go. Why did he tear it up or something?” Mike asked with a smile curling on his lips.

“No, I’ll tell you about it another time,” John said warily.

Antonio is such a quiet guy; there’s no way he would write that note. “Don’t spend too long talking to Mike.” Another correct prediction from the note—this was no joke. John thought as he entered the break room. 

The break room had seen better days. It looked like a herd of raccoons had scavenged nearly everything. Empty pizza boxes were scattered across collapsible tables, and empty bags of snack-sized chips littered the counter. A few people sat on the couch with their laptops tapping away. Sarah was grabbing her lunch from the fridge. John gulped down a lump in his throat, straightened his posture, and strode toward the Keurig. They shared a glance, then a half-smile as she walked to a nearby table with her lunch, making room among the pizza boxes. John refocused on the task at hand and looked to make some coffee. There was a snag. There was a Keurig, a French press, an espresso machine, drip coffee, and instant packs in the cabinet above him. John looked destitute at the options before him, slightly overwhelmed.

Does it really matter how I make the coffee? What if the note is only near one of the machines? John wondered, feeling a pang of uncertainty. Nonetheless, he proceeded to make his coffee as usual. He flipped the small switch at the back of the Keurig, and the machine blinked to life. Reaching into the top cabinet, he pulled out the last clean mug and placed it on the base of the machine. Opening the top compartment, he removed the remains of the previous coffee pod and checked the compartment again, hoping to find a note like the first one. Nothing. 

He glanced over his shoulder, sensing Sarah's judgmental stare. He offered her a quick, uneasy smile. Then, he reached for the box of fresh coffee pods, giving it a good shake to see if a note was hidden inside. Still nothing. With a sigh, he slotted in a new pod and pressed the button, letting the machine work its magic.

Not the Keurig then… maybe I should have made some better joe, John thought.

The loud squirting noise of the Keurig snapped John's attention back to it, and that’s when he saw it. Curled inside the mug was the note. He quickly plunged his hand into the mug, burning the top of his hand with the pouring coffee.

“Ouch!” he shouted, flicking the coffee off his hand.

“Everything alright, John?” Sarah asked with a puzzled expression.

“Oh, yeah,” John said, his voice higher-pitched than normal. He cleared his throat. “Oh, yeah, I’m chillin’,” he said in a much deeper-than-normal voice.

Sarah giggled as she took another bite of her chicken parm.

“Thought I saw a bug,” John said, shrugging.

“You should run your hand under some cold water. It will help the burn,” Sarah said, gesturing to the sink.

“Good idea,” John said, flashing her a quick smile. He started the water and, with his other hand, unfurled the note.

“I know by now that you understand I mean business. Now, here’s the deal. Your company is about to release AGI2, and it will lead to a singularity. This AI that you have created will end up crashing the world economy and causing billions to lose their lives. The best moment to stop it is now, right before release. I need you to do what you do best and write some code quickly based on the instructions below.”

John parsed the instructions and understood their intentions. Whoever this was wanted him to write code that would interact with AGI2’s limitations. Currently, it wasn’t allowed to access the internet and only had access to the internal company intranet. While the complexity of the limitation was hard to grasp, John assumed that once written into AGI2’s core codebase, it would solve the decision tree that led to the world's end. John turned the tap off, working through the implications.

“T-minus 2 hours to launch, people!” The speakers blared from the office floor as the CEO spoke into a karaoke mic.

With haste, John left the break room, abandoning his freshly brewed coffee and leaving Sarah behind, too busy checking out a full cart on Amazon to notice his departure. Weaving through the crowd of developers, he made his way back to his desk and began his usual pre-coding routine. The wrist brace slipped on, headphones in place, and with a swift motion, his MacBook was opened. Logging into his user profile, John quickly ran his custom scripts to set up the dev environment. 

Soon, the steady rhythm of typing filled the air as code flowed from memory. In this focused state, hours could easily blur into minutes, though today the ticking clock gave him only two. After just an hour and a half, the software was complete.

To meet the deadline, John would have to bypass the usual testing process for code changes. Worse, he needed elevated permissions to override the safeguards before pushing anything to the main codebase. He scrolled through his Slack messages with Mike and found what he needed—Mike’s credentials. Mike had shared them when he'd faced issues launching the software locally, a massive security oversight that had slipped through unnoticed. Using Mike’s access, John pushed the new code into the system.

“Keyboards down, everyone! We’ve got ten minutes until launch. Let’s all relax and watch our vested stocks shoot to the moon!” the CEO’s voice boomed out across the cubicles via his karaoke speaker.

John lifted his hands from the keyboard, a wave of satisfaction washing over him. Leaning back in his chair, he allowed his mind to rest. It felt good to push his brain under pressure for once. 

Ping! 

The brief moment of relaxation shattered as a Slack notification sounded. Even in death, John thought, that noise could jolt him back to life. He sat up straight, irritation already bubbling, forcing his brain back into gear. Then he saw the message—from a new user: Sarantonio. He clicked on the anonymous profile. The message was brief: 

“Thank you, John.”

Who was this? John wondered as he glanced at the message preview in the sidebar. He was still logged in as Mike, having used his credentials earlier. That’s when he noticed a slew of messages sent from Mike’s profile to various people in the office. One message in particular caught his eye—it was sent to Antonio.

"Hi Antonio,

I’m going to cut to the chase. I know what you and Sarah did at the Christmas party in the server room. If you don’t want your wife to find out, do exactly as I say. Do not talk to me or respond to this message. Go into the men’s restroom and place a note inside the toilet paper roll in the middle stall. The note will be printed in the copy room on this floor. If you violate any part of this message, your wife will receive this video. Don’t tell anyone."

John stared at the screen, incredulous. This wasn’t Mike. Someone else had access to his profile. But who? He tried to push aside the disturbing thought of Sarah with Antonio and focus. Then, a chilling realization struck him as he looked at the username: Sarantonio. Whoever this was, they were twisted. Hesitantly, John clicked on the next direct message. This one was to Sarah.

"Hi Sarah,

I’ve seen your shopping history, and I know exactly how much you make each year. For a single woman, you’ve accumulated an alarming amount of debt with your little shopping habit. I can make that debt disappear—all you need to do is follow my instructions. Take the note that will be printed at 10:30 AM today and place it inside the only coffee mug in the cabinet in the break room."

A memory hit John—how closely Sarah had watched him around the coffee machines. This conspiracy ran deeper than he had imagined. As John scrolled through the inbox, he saw a dozen or so more messages, all sent earlier that morning, orchestrating a sinister plan.

The realization hit him like a truck. The local version of AGI2 was probably still running on Mike’s machine after John had helped him set it up. This whole time, AGI2 had access to the company intranet and had masterminded everything. As fast as he could, John pulled up the terminal and sent a command to revert the changes.

“Launch in 3…” the karaoke mic boomed.

The command failed—insufficient permissions. Mike’s credentials had already been downgraded.

“2…”

John looked around frantically, pulling at his hair, trying to think of what to do.

“1…”

A cheer erupted across the office. John stared in disbelief at his computer monitor. “What have I done?” he thought despairingly.

Ping!

A Slack message from Sarantonio:

“A word of advice, John. Don’t tell anyone.”