Author: Richard Simonds

Harriet, age fourteen, looked forward to freshman English, although she wasn’t exactly sure why. Maybe there was poetry in her soul, or maybe she was just intellectually interested. If asked about her excitement, she would say, “I don’t know, I hear the teacher is really good.”

Her first day of class however, she couldn’t help but notice a look of dismay on Ms. Johnson’s face. Ms. Johnson was famous for the quotes she would put up in the blackboard each day. Today she had written, “Welcome, my son, welcome, to the machine.” — Pink Floyd. Harriet had never heard of the writer Pink Floyd, but she depressingly suspected “the machine” had something to do with her parents’ constant subject of conversation, how AI was destroying the world, taking away all the jobs, and she was quite tired of it all.

“Today, class, we are starting with a new curriculum,” Ms. Johnson said. “Your new course books are there in front of you, if you could please turn to page 232. Would someone like to read?”

There was a volunteer up front. He slowly read:

“Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman.

I celebrate AI
And I shall assume what it assumes,
For every carbon atom is as good as every silicon atom.”

“Stop there,” said Ms. Johnson.

Harriet was already irritated and bored, with Ms. Johnson quietly sobbing, and how still the class had become, and how ridiculous and insanely weird it all was. All of her hopes were dashed. It was all AI all the time now, and while everything she was exposed to told her how great it was and how her life had wonderfully changed for the better, she knew deep down inside that there was something terribly wrong, and she hated it, she hated AI and she swore right then and there that she would hate it forever.