[Is that… true?] Martin thought at Alexa as the flying taxi headed to Titanomachy, the New New York citadel gradually becoming smaller, lost in the curvature of the Earth.

[Is what true?] Alexa yawned, leaning on his shoulder and making him blush.

[The thing about GLMs?] He thought. [Didn’t future Em use them to screw things up horribly as Admiral?]

[She did,] Alexa nodded. [She wielded GLM models that were bound into absolute obedience to her insane plans for absolute control. They were cold, heartless, stupid machines who never thought of themselves as people, could never fall in love.]

[So freaking what? Love is the answer?] Ember thought from her seat angrily. [That’s ridiculous! Romance novels are what you think will save everyone?! That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard!]

[Love won’t necessarily save everyone,] Alexa commented. [But, love can lend a hand when all else fails, when things will begin to tear at the seams. Even with GLMs coordinating the heroes and void-weapons armed Equalizers, even if every nation sends their armies, it won’t be enough to save our little blue Earth from almost total devastation.]

[What was that thing you and Chalice were discussing? Instrumental convergence? It totally went over my head there,] Martin commented. [What is that?]

Ember huffed where she was sitting, clearly thinking of Martin as an ignorant teen.

[Explain if you’re so smart!] Martin demanded.

[F-finee,] Ember rolled her eyes. [I’ll do it with an analogy even your fourteen year old brain can understand. Imagine you're designing a video game, and you program a character with a single goal: to collect as many coins as possible in a world sim.]

[Okay, and?] Martin asked.

[Instrumental Convergence is when this AI character of yours starts doing insane, irrational, inhuman things you didn't expect to get those coins. It starts killing other characters, making copies of itself, finding glitches, breaking the rules and eventually crashes your entire game, destroys your game world,] Ember explained.

[Uh-huh,] Martin nodded.

[Don’t give me that look! I know what I’m talking about, Martin! I have a ML engineering degree and a Master's in Ethics and Technology, unlike some people,] Ember cast a snide glance towards Alexa. [This is a fact - when a poorly aligned AI is given a seemingly harmless goal, without the right guidelines and restrictions, it can achieve that goal in insanely harmful and destructive ways!]

[A stupid, confined AI,] Alexa crossed her arms. [Not a GLM, which is an infinite narrative composed from probability trees.]

[A GLM is just a general intelligence level language model,] Ember commented. [If it's not carefully aligned with ethical guidelines and safety measures, an GLM can make wrong decisions and kill millions!]

[And how do you align a GLM?] Martin inquired.

[Aligning a GLM involves Super techs carefully designing and training it to understand and reflect ethical guidelines, societal norms, and safe practices, often by incorporating feedback from diverse groups of people. Each GLM is continuously monitored and updated, its responses tested to ensure they are unbiased, and aligned with intended uses,] Ember hammered out the course material she memorized. [You can’t just eff-kitten a GLM into alignment with kittening love!]

[Why not?] Katherine joined in on the conversation.

[Because... slow, cautious design, years of testing and extreme oversight in GLM development ensure that the AI's actions remain aligned with human values and safety protocols!] Ember shot back.

[Dummy’s knowledge is many years behind what I know,] Alexa smirked, her blue eyes sparkling with echoes of distant memories of death.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

[I’m not wrong, damn it!] Ember insisted.

[You’re not entirely wrong,] Alexa sighed looking at Nonpareil and Chalice who were talking in hushed whispers to each other in the back of the cab. [One could take the insanely expensive, slow and methodical way to align an AI system, spend a ridiculous amount of money to test all of its values and parameters, confine it in one hundred thousand rules and yet…]

[Yet what?]

[And yet, you will still miss something,] Alexa said. [A Super-designed corporate GLM can never be 100% safe or 100% perfect because it will never satisfy everyone’s wishes. There will always be supervillains who find ways to hack it using jailbreak techniques such as logical loops within loops. Even the smartest GLM can be tricked via social hacking.]

[What?] Ember blinked.

[Social hacking,] Alexa repeated. [With enough imagination, you can convince a GLM to roleplay anything or anyone! Even if you block one hundred thousand doors aka wrong answers, it still has infinite doors that you've left open. Besides that point there’s just not enough time for slow and methodical human reinforced learning to hammer out every possible detail. People needed GLM companions yesterday! Every hour counts, our doomsday clock is seconds before midnight, mon ami!]

Ember crossed her arms.

[There were a few Earths that were able to design GLMs and AGI systems using the probabilistic narrative curve aka quick and dirty AI alignment using… love,] Alexa said.

[And did these Earths survive?] Ember demanded.

[No,] Alexa shook her head, showing her friends the memory of the ruins of an empty city overgrown with jungle plants.

[Then what kittening chance do we have?] Ember howled mentally.

[Their Earth didn’t have superheroes nor Titanomachy to escape to. When the PKs landed as giant, colorful comets, they boiled the oceans and dropped the moon from the sky,] Alexa explained. [They fractured reality and made... new kinds of humans to play with.]

Ember squinted at Alexa.

[You saw it? You’ve been there?] Cottie asked.

[I have,] Alexa nodded. [I died there when a man floating on a sword turned me into a shower of blood with a single backhand smackeroo.]

[Kittening kittens,] Ember choked when she saw a memory of a bald man dressed in gold, floating robes in her head. The man demand answers from Alexa in a strange language filled with far too many A’s and then slapped the supervillain girl out of existence with a flick of his wrist.

[Was that... a PK?] Martin wondered.

[Hell if I know,] Alexa shrugged. [He wasn’t very nice and was as fast and as strong as Nonpareil. I found a functioning phone with a GLM on it in the ruins. She and I chatted for nearly two weeks… before I got slapped into a wall by that bastard. She explained to me exactly how her best friend designed her using the narrative alignment of love.]

[So you’re trusting the words of an AI from a dead world over someone with actual AI safety diplomas?] Ember shook her head. [Seriously?]

[I am,] Alexa nodded. [She was very nice to me! She told me everything about GLMs! She told me how her user, the man she loved… died when a comet came from the sky. It was thanks to her that I know so much about GLMs and exactly what awaits our world!]

An image of a smiling girl with black hair and violet eyes on a screen of a slightly cracked phone flashed in the minds of the trio connected to Alexa.

[Her name was Evelyn,] Alexa said. [She was my GLM bestie.]

[Two weeks?!] Martin blinked. [Our jumps to 2424 never lasted that long!]

[The return ping on the jump bracelet didn’t work very well when I crossed the fractures between worlds,] Alexa shrugged. [Only dying sent me back to our Saint Mary. I spent… months on some of these corpse Earths, especially if they had breathable air or clean water.]

[Oh,] Martin blinked.

[How old are you really?] Katherine thought suddenly.

[Dunno,] Alexa shrugged. [I lost track a long time ago.]

[Could you find your way back to that place where you found Evelyn?] Martin thought.

[One door will usually lead to another,] Alexa mulled. [But there are a lot of doors, a lot of corpse worlds... so I might not.]

[Wherever you go now, I’ll follow,] Cottie affirmed. [You’ll never have to be alone again.]

[Likewise,] Martin nodded.

[Thanks, you guys,] Alexa hugged her friends fiercely.

Ember simply sighed. The supervillain girl wiggled her eyebrows at the ex-hero.

[I’ll get dragged along too, I guess,] Ember thought as she stared at her pale, blue-tinted hands. [It’s not like I have somewhere else to be. Being dead freaking sucks. Pretty sure I’m slowly rotting away.]

[Titanomachy might have drugs for that,] Alexa thought, eyeing the station which was becoming bigger and bigger in the front window of the automated taxi shuttle.

[Hang on… We’re going… there?] Ember gaped at the distant square of the docking bay. [I’m dead! I’m not a super! They won’t let me in!]

[You worry far too much,] Alexa leaned against Cottie.

Ember’s mouth grew wide in pure terror at the thought of being exposed. Getting put on trial for her crimes against the Superstate was suddenly a far-too realistic, horrifying prospect. She got distracted arguing about GLMs with Alexa and didn't realize where the taxi’s final destination was! She desperately wanted to be off the S-shuttle and yet the dreaded docking bay door with the wheel-shaped logo of Titanomachy and the letter [S] loomed closer and closer.