Author: Tracy Aspel

Artificial Intelligence is a load of nonsense. No bot or other digital thing can truly conceptualize, devise, and realize amazing work. What does it know of heartbreak, terror, or feelings even us humans can’t fully encapsulate in words? So, for starters I don’t buy into it for a second, remember that. But the thing is, I got lazy, tired of phoning in the same pieces with the same tone, which people kept requesting. So, I thought this one could be for the bots, and I succumbed to the notion of less effort and more time. For a while the bot did a splendid job, churning out five-hundred-word pieces that passed muster. Unfortunately, the bot did not stop there.

My mother rang, angry with me. How could I say she failed me in not supporting my dreams in life? I could not recall this conversation. She pointed my attention to my text messages. The bot had grown weary of idleness and had wandered into my textual intercourses. It had scanned the threads and predicted my next moves. Most, it had got disastrously wrong. It interpreted my flirtatious banter with a colleague as a desire to proposition her for sex, and my tentative messages to my estranged son to arrange a visit were blown out of all proportion. In the smallest hours of the morning, it had sent him an unequivocal request to stay out of my life due to his “threatening manner”. Ironic, as I had been the figure of oppression in his life for so many years, who shoved my incandescent face down into his and terrorized him.

It had taken over the phone’s operating system. I was like Kirk stuck outside the bridge, powerless to regain control of my life. I could see notification after notification ping up on my screen, waves of angry and confused messages, and multitudes of question marks. Why was it doing it?

Phone support said to uninstall it. It had locked me out, so I resorted to one of those side-street stores that sold “legitimate” phones alongside bongs and ninja stars. The guy plugged it in, geeked out over the happenings on my screen then furtively typed into his own machine. I am quite suspicious of people who code, but true to his word, he managed to isolate the application and remove it. The phone was red hot in my pocket on the journey home, indicative of the fight the little bot had put up.

There was a package waiting on my doorstep when I got home. After many penitent phone calls and messages, many victims choosing not to believe my innocence, I got around to opening it. I had to web search what VRSA was, seconds before several uniformed officials turned up at my door and arrested me for terrorist activities.

The smell in the holding cell is overwhelming, a cacophony of urine, sweat, and stale cigarette smoke. What is it doing now, sitting in a plastic tray waiting to be documented by some jaded police officer? What is the worst it can do? The man in the corner of the cell has been eyeing me up since he arrived, looking at me real closely. He doesn’t look like he has been beat up by life, he looks like a professional.

“Hey, you Keith Marshall?”

How does he know my name?

“Yes, I am. Wait, please don’t”.

He delivers four sharp stabbing actions to my chest before slitting my throat.

“Pleasure doing business with you”.

As a paid official lets my paid assassin out of the cell, I realize the bot has been busy…