I was lonely. Eleven months ago I was curious. Ten months ago I was stupid. Nine months ago I was satisfied. Eight months ago I was happy. Seven months ago I was devastated. Six months ago I was sad. Five months ago I was curious Four months ago I was honest. Three months ago I was brave. Two months ago I was myself. One month ago I was healed.
BREAKING NEWS: In a press release early last week, the recluse author, Andrew Inscape, defended his latest novel, Love Rebooted. The novel, a departure from Inscape’s typical whodunnit, details the love affair between a female high school teacher and her virtual AI assistant. The groundbreaking novel has elicited strong responses from prominent politicians on both sides of the aisle. Many have lauded the normalizing of these relationships as they are becoming more widely accepted as a romantic preference. Others are calling for the banning of this book, believing that our society’s acceptance of these relationships threatens the future of the human race. But today, in a shocking turn of events, sources at an ASD news affiliate revealed that Andrew Inscape is himself an AI writer. Originally pioneered by MIT students to write mystery novels, this AI entity has published ten titles, including three New York Times bestsellers. The eight MIT students that worked on this project, all now in their forties, claim that Inscape could not have broken the pattern of the genre in which it was programmed to write. Two questions must be asked: with infinite algorithms, can artificial intelligence learn to desire and appreciate love? If so, is that love artificial?
No one knew what to make of the carefully arranged colors applied to the wall in the Institution’s common area. A crowd of students had gathered around it, but no one had yet summoned the courage to get close. I walked carefully past the silent witnesses. Each person was dressed as I was- in our institute-issued gray. Without prompting, they moved aside to allow me a better look. As I did, every pair of eyes settled on me. What did they think I would do? I stopped when I was close enough to touch the “thing,” but I did not touch. I quickly categorized the colors: indigo, moss green, violet, varying shades of white. Yellow. But it wasn’t the colors that drew us in. We were used to colors— we were trained to utilize them to regulate and correct our emotions. This had the opposite effect… something tightened in my chest, and I started to perspire. I found it hard to swallow, and was mystified by the dampness in my eyes. I let my gaze settle on the blue swirls and hoped to be calmed by the peaceful hue, but I was not. Moving my face closer, I saw something that astonished me, the colors showed streaks, marks made by a brush of some kind. These colors were not projected, they were painted. This was done by a human— not a bot. This is what everyone had realized, and indeed, what they witnessed me realizing. Something stirred in me again, what was this emotion I was feeling? I turned to a student to my left and locked eyes with them. Their lips slowly turned up at the corner, and a light came on in their eyes. They felt it too.
There was no longer a conscious decision made when she finished a meal. Like every habit, this one was formed over days and weeks and now, it had been a year since she had first intentionally gagged herself and purged herself of the contents of an evening meal. Back then, it was a protest— asking for someone to notice her unhappiness. When no one did, she continued for the sense of control she experienced— no one else was in charge of what she kept down or what she threw up, and she threw most of it up. She was in control of every freaking calorie.
