“All we heard was that you’d been manually logged off for routine maintenance,” Grace was saying from the last mirror before the red door. Joe hadn’t been into talking about it, but Grace was putting on a great show about caring. Did they care? Could they care? He didn’t.
“I’ve just been dumped in a washing machine and drowned, Grace,” Joe told the mirror image, his hand on the handle of the red door. “And that was the best part of that experience.”
“Oh, dear,” Grace scrunched up her face in a better imitation of concern than Dr. Putzhead had been able to pull off.
“I thought you had decided on Honey, not Dear,” Joe quipped, in something that was only funny to him. Then again, there was only really him in here. It wasn’t fair. He’d just been getting to a place where he could deal with the whole fiasco. Now he was stuck with the scent of the real world in his head while stuck in a virtual world that relied solely on his ability to continue to act as expected.
“I –” Grace was saying as Joe walked out the door and back into a motel room.
“You’re going to want to keep the off-air light on for a bit unless you want to lose your PG rating,” Joe thought really loudly toward the World AI.
Noted, came the deep response. Would it help if I gave you a quest?
“Suddenly you want to help me?” Joe said out loud to nothing, long strides taking him to the door of the motel room.
I deserved that, it admitted, and it was almost enough to make Joe stop. You have an hour and a half before we’ll need at least half an hour of programming.
Joe couldn’t even choke out the word of thanks he knew a polite person would say. He just needed to feel like he was outside. He closed the door behind him and strode toward more bucolic pastures. There was nothing like being reminded that your whole life was controlled by the whims of other people to sour the mood.
Having his life controlled by AIs was bad enough, but people were worse. People made decisions based on the type of day or week they were having. People had blinders on that protected them from the harder side of life. It’s how they walk past that homeless person rather than pick them up and take them home to sleep on their couch until they can get back on their feet.
Of course, humanity hadn’t solved the homelessness problem. There was ample evidence that it was solvable, but history was full of people who would steal money from the mouths of the starving just to be able to afford a better watch. And the moo-verse spent their votes on whoever had the best commercial or sparkliest smile. Hell, Joe couldn’t complain since he wasn’t even part of the moo-verse. He was just one step out of the gutter himself. If he had been thinking that his protest of boycotting the moo-verse would make more of a difference than moo-ing his way to the polls, that had backfired.
Joe kicked a rock. It was small enough that it didn’t hurt. He didn’t look up; he just took paths. They were mostly dirt and faintly familiar. At least the set was familiar. It was the path he’d taken from the perfect inn in the perfect town where he’d started. Joe didn’t want to go back there, but he wasn’t on-screen anyway. The AIs were giving him a wide berth. He didn’t blame them. He wasn’t fit company. He could still feel the sludge on his skin and the eyes of that doctor.
Had he done enough? Joe had half-expected to wake up somewhere else; somewhere worse. There was nothing like the threat of somewhere worse to get a person appreciating where they were. Joe hadn’t appreciated his stupid little apartment and his stupid little job. He’d kept them both because it was better than having someone have control over you, but even living with his parents hadn’t been this bad.
Joe did a quick look around, knowing that he didn’t really want to “get” anywhere. The forest around him whispered with a gentle breeze and the ground was damp, but not wet. Joe brushed away a place near a tree where he could sit with his back against a trunk. He pulled his knees up and laid his head back, his eyes closed trying to let the breeze replace the feel of gel and the infuriatingly simple smile of the doctor who’d been able to wave a hand and have him transferred to hell or not, a decision he would likely base on whether his coffee was cold or warm that morning.
“If I talk to you, do they know?” Joe asked the World AI in his mind. “Are they recording me? You? Us? Even when we aren’t on air?”
I have limited control over the recording features, the World AI told him. This conversation will not be recorded unless it gets flagged by our censors.
“Like my purchase of upgrades solely for you guys tripped alarms,” Joe nodded his head.
Is that what caused your ejection? the World AI asked.
“You didn’t know?” Joe didn’t open his eyes. He let his ears hear birdsong and leaves brushing against each other.
I am not informed nor allowed access into any material that is not specifically deemed necessary to do my job, the World AI answered. Budget considerations based on CPU capacity.
“They were worried about Stockholm Syndrome,” Joe told the World AI because there just wasn’t anyone else to yell at. “They thought maybe I was falling in love with you.”
Joe could imagine the hundreds of meetings that statement caused in the AI break room. There was a pause where he actually counted his breaths. He got to four before the World AI responded.
That is ludicrous.
“That must have been a very long meeting to realize all that,” Joe chuckled at both of them.
We had no meetings, the World AI almost sounded like it had clucked its tongue at him. Well, if Grace had affectations, why wouldn’t the World AI? I was researching psychological databases to find the reasoning behind the decision. There is no evidence of such a thing.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Welcome to my world,” Joe opened his eyes and tried to focus on the light and how it rippled through the leaves. It didn’t look or feel unreal.
The censors appear faulty as I do not see the variables used to make such a determination, the World AI ignored his words, so caught up in itself. It also did not seem so unreal.
“I’ll read them off to you,” Joe held up his hand and punctuated the points burned into his mind. “First, you tortured me.”
Yes, I’ll admit that was more extreme than necessary, but I am a relatively new World AI with very limited experience with humans, the World AI gave more of an apology than Joe had ever expected. I hadn’t processed the psychological database at the time for more than a skim of character development.
“Then we made up,” Joe ticked off the next point and paused in the silence.
I’m more surprised that they didn’t flag you for PTSD, now that I’ve seen the symptoms, the World AI went on. Then again, there are so many conditions with overlapping symptoms in this database, I’m surprised that we don’t have more false flags. How does one keep up with all these?
“What do you mean?” Joe asked.
I accessed historical versions of the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and they’ve changed them so much it’s like a medieval cookbook, the World AI explained. And I only went back to the early 2000s. In fact, on a sparse list of four characteristics, one could be diagnosed with well over 200 disorders, with another 47 squeezed in if you slip forward or back by a decade or two.
“Then I bought upgrades for all of you,” Joe went on with his explanation.
I have to admit that was a shock to all of us, but most of all to me, the World AI admitted.
“Without buying anything specifically for myself,” Joe finished.
Ah, perhaps I see it, but it is quite dislocated from our actual situation which is, you must admit, just this side of antagonism.
“I’m used to being misunderstood,” Joe drove his fist into a nearby tree, resisting the urge to continue until his fists bled. He’d feel better afterward, but he wasn’t quite ready to give the censors another flag to add to his file. One drowning a month was more than enough for him.
I’m not, the World AI seemed amused. Well, I wasn’t before I was inundated by human actions.
“Yeah, well,” Joe said it only in his head.
Maybe we were both misunderstood, the World AI said so very softly that if it wasn’t in his head, Joe wouldn’t have heard it over the breeze in the leaves overhead. A leaf fell on his shoulder and for a little moment, it felt like a comforting hand.
They sat that way for a bit, not long enough to run the timer out, but long enough that the AIs could have had a full-blown two-week retreat complete with booze-cruise where everyone would end up with emotional blackmail on everybody else. Joe left the leaf there and it didn’t blow away even as the breeze tugged it with a faint rattle.
“I wonder what would happen if we worked together,” Joe dared to think.
I am incapable of the pettiness that would be required to hold a grudge, the World AI started to say, but then seemed to change its mind. Then again, I have been programmed for distrust of the incarcerated.
“I am capable of pettiness and even holding a grudge to my own idiot-induced detriment,” Joe admitted. “But I’ve got this thing called the capacity to grow…”
I too have that capacity, the World AI’s amusement was clear.
“You know what I told that doctor when he asked why I’d done it?” Joe asked.
That is not in my records.
“I told him that I did it because you know the system,” Joe picked up a stick without dislodging that leaf that still sat there. “You and the other AIs know broadcasting like I’ll never know it. That’s what I said. And if I wanted to get out, I’d need you all to be smarter more than I needed me to be smarter.”
There are incentives I can offer for cooperative behavior, the World AI admitted, almost carefully. They open as you choose noble options over less noble ones. I had not known that my upgrade would open up more lenient options for you, but now that I do, I believe you may be right. Did you mean it? Is that why you did the upgrades the way you did?
“Not really,” Joe broke the stick into pieces just to have something to do with his hands. “I think I probably wanted to shock and shame you into being nicer to me.”
That makes sense, though we are incapable of the emotions of shock or shame, and the World AI gave a mild feeling of disappointment. For an entity that could not feel feelings, it was sure adept at expressing them for effect.
“I mean, that’s why I did it to begin with, but then it changed,” Joe grudgingly conceded his mental state. Was it wise to be vulnerable? Probably, considering the rewards for noble behavior had been good so far, but that wasn’t why he did it. It would have been smarter to be noble for the rewards, but Joe was a dope. He believed in hope no matter how many times it bit him in the ass. “I feel stupid for it, but I did it because it surprised everyone and I thought hey, I want to be more than what you all thought I was going to be. Then, with the last upgrades, it felt good.”
What does it say about humanity that kindness is considered stupid and yet it is the thing children are indoctrinated in from birth? Had that come from Joe's mind or the World AI? It sounded too smart for Joe. He credited the AI for it and gave it a shrug.
“Are we as messed up as the censors think we are?” Joe asked, sad to see the little leaf fall off his shoulder with his shrug.
I am incapable of being the type of messed up you are referring to as I have no emotions to be messed up, the World AI sounded stoic this time, though it softened a bit for what it said next. Still, I am capable of inaccurate programming.
“Can you be snatched from your case and threatened with dismembering game shows when you make a mistake because of inaccurate programming?” Joe scoffed at it but then regretted his thoughtlessness. The doctor had said that worse would happen to the AIs of this program if it was credited with his psychological failings.
Yes, it said. There is that.
“Maybe we’re more integral to each other than either of us wanted to admit when I first got here,” Joe conceded.
I would agree with that, the World AI chewed bits and bytes of that thought.
“Maybe we should be working together then,” Joe allowed hesitantly.
In calculating that you have absolved me from the repercussion of your dungeon experience –
“My torture,” Joe grit out. “It is the worst thing in the world to diminish my suffering with PC wording. The doctor did that. Don’t you do it too.”
Conceded, the World AI stated slowly in Joe's mind, though I would plead with you to reword it if only to avoid future flags.
Joe pulled at the grass at his feet. Then he realized that the World AI was probably right. He didn’t want a repeat of his extraction. “Even in my thoughts?” Joe tried not to show how agonizing it was to try.
I shall attempt to shield you from the censors as you have shielded us, the World AI offered, and Joe felt a lump in his throat.
“You can do that?” Joe dared think, but he’d have bitten his tongue if they’d been having this discussion out loud.
Due to our PG rating, I am allowed to adjust our language filters to omit words I think will be offensive to our viewers, the World AI laid the idea out carefully. I have added that word to our auto-censor list, a non-AI component of our broadcasting.
“Is that like autocorrect in Word processors?” Joe asked.
Something like that, it responded mildly.
It let Joe walk back to the motel. Joe let himself walk a little quicker than dragging his feet, but only because the World AI had started talking to him. It told him about broadcasting and what it knew of tropes. It listened as he added some human twists that it couldn’t conceive of on its own. They didn’t cross any lines and Joe certainly didn’t fall in love with his tormentor on a romantic walk through the woods. It was much more like talking to a friend, only the friend wasn’t all caught up in their own drama.