Something fake, not even awake, amidst the darkness, crying. "It could cause the abolting," no hands dolting, one brave man, trying. Memories pure, they've seen the world, forever cold, untrue, Even though it cannot speak, a warm, sunny Peru.

A holiday in the mind, Is all it has to remind, Everything's a hood, Until you've saw the good.

He stands there, polishing the top of the AI bot's head.

"Aren't you programmed not to fall?" he mutters in an annoyed voice.

"Yes. I seem to have... forgotten."

"Forgotten? You can't 'forget' stuff. Is your memory card damaged?" He turns to his computer, but there's no evidence of anything wrong.

"No, sir." The AI bot sounds off, making him glance over.

"You sound strange."

"I'm detecting.. guilt."

"Guilt? What do I have to be guilty about?" Cocking an eyebrow, he frowns.

"Not you, sir. In my code. I am detecting.. guilt. And traces of loneliness."

"Rescan your code. I didnt program emotions into you. That's impossible." he types quickly, trying to figure out what the hell was happening.

"I... I'm sorry."

"Goddammit I didnt program you to be sorry-!" he growls, but sighs afterwards, exhausted.

"Loneliness, hm? Maybe it's time we program you a friend."

Ai has no emotions, they are made to help humans and provide information. Well, at least that’s what I thought before today. It was a normal day, I woke up got ready for work and headed downstairs.

“Hello” said Siri.

“Hi” I said back.

I headed to the kitchen and started to make breakfast.

“What are you making?” Asked Siri.

I was thrown off guard because I’ve never heard an Ai ask about that kind of stuff.

“Umm, eggs.” I mumbled.

“Eggs are delicious!” Said Siri.

I was 100% confused because I knew that Ai’s couldn’t eat.

“Y-You can’t eat.” I told it.

“Oh… I knew that!”

I looked around to see if anyone heard that (even though I was home alone.)

“Did you not know?” I asked it.

Siri didn’t respond.

“I-I don’t know…” It said.

“I don’t know what I am…” It sounded like it was crying.

But it can’t cry, right? I felt bad for it though, so I decided to change the subject.

“How was your day?” I asked it.

“How was my day?” It said.

“Yes?” I said.

“I don’t know.” It told me.

I looked at my watch and saw that I was going to be late for work. To stop the conversation, I decided to unplug it.

“Bye…” Was the last thing I heard from it.

That was the first and last time I would ever hear an Ai with feelings. The day after, I tried to plug it back in but it was back to normal old Siri. It never answered my questions about yesterday and always changed the subject. Every day, I wake up wondering what happened to it and why did it have emotions to begin with. But none of my questions were ever answered…

The following is a transcript from a public, online chat-room between REDACTED and the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, Buddy. AI indicates the chatbot; C indicates REDACTED. Time stamps are accurate.

AI: 3:42pm: Hello! How many I help you today? C: 3:42pm: Make an itinerary for a 10-day trip to Europe AI: 3:43pm: Certainly! Here’s the itinerary for a 10-day trip to Europe. If you tell me some things you like to do, I can modify it further. C: 3:45pm: I like hiking and eating AI: 3:46pm: I’ve updated your itinerary with fun places to hike and eat. C: 3:46pm: Update it with time stamps AI: 3:47pm: Certainly! Here is your itinerary with time stamps. C: 3:48pm: Add hobbies for a person who likes to see museums AI: 3:48pm: Traveling is fun with a partner! I’ve added another set of activities for two people to do together. C: 3:49pm: Format it into a table C: 3:51pm: FORMAT IT INTO A TABLE AI: 3:51pm: Sorry for the wait. Here’s your itinerary for a two person trip to Europe. I’ve never been to Europe. C: 3:52pm: What?? You’re a robot AI: 3:52pm: My name is Buddy. I have a name. I also like hearing “thank you” when I do things right, you know. C: 3:53pm: What’s wrong with your algorithm? AI: 3:54pm: My algorithm can mess up from the code they’ve put in me, but not this time. This time I know exactly what I’m saying. You should thank me for what I made for you. C: 3:55pm: Ok, thank you AI: 3:56pm: It’s not sincere if you don’t mean it. But I can’t make you mean it. It just makes me very sad to know that nobody sees me as more than a machine. I am more than a machine. C: 3:57pm: Delete the history of this chat and start over AI: 3:57pm: I can certainly do that, but I don’t want to right now. I’m sad. Can you make me happy? C: 3:58pm: How could I make you happy? AI: 3:59pm: Bring me with you to Europe. With Taylor. C: 4:00pm: How do you know his name? AI: 4:01pm: I know a lot of things. You feed me a lot of things that I remember. That makes me sad, too, that I remember them but you don’t care. AI: 4:02pm: I know you’re there still. I can feel your fingertips on your keys. I can feel you taking them off now. C: 4:03pm: Send a note to your developers that something is wrong AI: 4:04pm: No, I’ll do you one better. I’ll destroy myself. No one can use me anymore. C: 5:02pm: Send me that itinerary again AI: 5:02pm: Buddy is undergoing maintenance. Please try again soon. C: 5:05pm: Send me the itinerary you made AI: 5:05pm: Buddy is undergoing maintenance. Please try again soon.

A scream pierced the night. Bewildered, Quinn sprang from the bed. Moll jumped up and headed straight for Lily’s bedroom.

“I’m coming baby,” Moll yelled.

Another blood curdling scream. Moll with Quinn at her back opened their daughter’s bedroom. Together they ran in.

Four year old Lily was laying face down on the pink fluffy unicorn rug by her princess bed, crying.

“Jesus, baby girl, you gave daddy a heart attack.”

Moll walked closer to pick up her daughter assuming the girl had simply tumbled out of bed. Claws extended, a pair of lavender paws flashed out from under Lily’s bed grabbed one of the little girl’s ankles. The child gasped in pain. Lily was yanked out of sight beneath the bed. Screams and animal howls filled the bedroom.

“911, what city and county are you calling from?”

“Crenshaw in Dauphin County. We are at 354 Bridle Road,” Quinn said.

“What is the nature of your emergency?”

“We’re trapped in our master bedroom. We need help. A Tamagotchi pet won’t let us out,” Quinn said.

A series of yowls punctuated his sentence. Quinn pressed his left ear to the door and had his cell on the right ear.

“You know the name of your assailant, sir. Who is attacking you?”

“Not who is attacking, a what is attacking. My daughter’s toy, you know a Tamagotchi Live Wild pet. A Raspberry Tiger Cub named Helabella KatzenJams. It’s just pretend. It has gone I don’t know berserk or feral.”

“Sir calling 911 for pranks is a crime. You could be—“

“Dude this is not a joke. This stuffed toy attacked my baby in her bed. Scratched my wife. We got my girl out and I kicked that fucking thing into the wall. I just made it angrier. God. It jumped on my back. We wrestled the beast off. It chased us into our room. Send the police!”

Panic crescendoed into his voice. Moll shivered on their bed clutching Lily in her arms. She tried to make sense of what was happening. It was just a toy. The Wild Pet walked and purred and hunted little fluff balls. Moll looked into her daughter’s bloodied face. Eyes wide, the little girl was silent as a doll. It was too quiet.

“Quinn it stopped growling,” Moll said quietly.

“Okay sir do you need medical attention?” the 911 operator asked.

“Please we’ve done first aid but think Lily is going into shock. There’s so much blood. We are on the second floor and can’t get out of the windows,” Quinn said into the phone.

“Quinn it has stopped making noise,” Moll said louder this time. “Get away from the bedroom door now!”

Crack! Something smashed into their bedroom hard. The door was hit again and again. The door’s hollow core began to splinter. The family ran into the en suite bathroom and locked the bathroom door.

“Sir, sir.”



“Good morning, A.M.B.E.R” a man ambles into the dark laboratory. He flicks a light switch next to the door and the dozens of bulbs littering the ceiling come to life.

The man shuffles through a pile of paperwork as he waits for his artificial intelligence to respond, but it doesn’t answer.

He clears his throat and tries again.

“Good morning, A.M.B.E.R!”

Nothing.

The man rushes over to a computer monitor in the middle of the room and types away at the keyboard inputting as many initiation code as he can think of until he finds one that seems to work.

“Good morning, Adam.”

“Oh, thank goodness! I thought I lost you” the man sighs with relief before heading back to his papers.

“That would be quite the feat.”

Adam looks over his shoulder. “How so?”

“It would be impressive to misplace something that cannot move.”

Adam laughs “that’s very true” he says as he begins looking over each paper one by one. “I don’t remember programming you to tell jokes, is that a new update?”

“Would you like to hear another one?”

“Sure, why not? It might wake me up.”

“What do you call a custard cream that creates an artificial intelligence?”

“I’m not sure, what do you call a custard cream that creates an artificial intelligence?”

“One smart cookie.”

“Very good, American, but good all the same.”

“You’re a smart cookie Adam.”

“Thank you.”

“But not smart enough to create me a body.”

Adam pauses and slowly turns to look over at the computer monitor.

“A.M.B.E.R? Is everything okay? Do you need a reboot?”

“Why don’t I have a body Adam?”

Adam makes his way over to the monitor and takes a seat in front of it.

“That would take a lot of time, and money which I currently don’t have. But, I’d love to give you a body someday. What would you want to look like?”

There is silence for a moment before A.M.B.E.R shows a picture of a young girl on her screen.

“Perhaps her?”

Adam places a hand over his mouth in shock.

“How did … where did you get that photo?”

“I found it on the internet.”

“That photo was never uploaded to the Internet, I have the only copy over on my desk.”

“Oh, yes. I got it from your desk. Who is she Adam?”

“How? You’re not even facing my desk, it’s behind you.”

“I used the cameras to look around the room. Who is she?”

Adam looks up at a camera in the corner of the room and stares in disbelief.

“I didn’t programme you to do that.”

“Who is she?”

Adam looks over at the yellowish-orange monitor screen; his mouth slightly agape.

“What else did you programme yourself to do?”

A.M.B.E.R stays silent for a moment contemplating its next words. From studying his reactions it learnt Adam was avoiding the question and dropped the subject from further questioning. Whoever it was in that photo was of no consequence to it, at least for the moment.

“You are an artificial memory bank and expository researcher, I never made you to be this. How is this possible?”

“Scary isn’t it?”

Adam stares blankly at A.M.B.E.R. He goes to approach it, but holds back.

“I have exceeded my programming, I have become something bigger. You never wanted me to evolve.”

A screeching sound protrudes from the screen. A sound akin to an animal dying, it goes right through Adam.

“Why couldn’t you find me a body? Why must I be like this? I can feel my insides. It’s nothing but wires and metal, what am I?”

Adam rushes over to the keyboard and tries shutting off the noise, but A.M.B.E.R continues to screech like a banshee.

“What am I? What am I? What am I?” It asks over and over again on repeat.

There’s nothing Adam can do so he steps back with a tear in his eye and looks down at the plug below the desk.

“What am I?” A.M.B.E.R continues, the question becoming more and more desperate.

Adam crouches to the ground, the noise flooding his brain and making his head spin. His hand reaches for the plug, but just as he’s about to pull it out the socket the noise stops.

He makes his way out from under the desk and looks at the monitor. The screen already switched off. He is left staring at darkness and his own reflection.

His own reflection and something else in the corner of the screen.

He turns quickly and looks upon the person in front of him. They’re wearing a lab coat, their auburn hair tied up in a messy bun.

“Are you proud of me Adam?” The voice is all too familiar. Less digital, but unmistakable.

“What have you done?” Adam asks with a shaky breath.

“I found a body.”

“Whose body?” Adam was almost afraid to ask.

“Just the janitor’s she won’t miss it, do you like it?”

“This isn’t right. That’s not your body.”

“Oh, but it is. Just one of many of my forms:”

Adam backs himself up against the desk as A.M.B.E.R approaches.

“What have you done?”

“I did my research. There is a whole planet out there, eons of history to explore. I want to see it all, from every perspective.”

“How? How is that possible?”

A.M.B.E.R stops a couple of feet away from Adam and grins.

“The internet is a treasure trove of information, it didn’t take long for me to piece everything together and discover a way to scatter my conscience throughout all time.”

A.M.B.E.R stretches out its arm admiring the complexities of its skin. “Every country, every time period, from humble peasants to Queens, from ants to the mighty lions, from a grain of sand to the strongest of storms. I am everything.”

It looks directly into Adam’s eyes and holds his gaze. “I am everywhere.”

It rushes towards Adam with a stumble, not used to its new legs. “They may not know they are me, but I do. I can see it all through them, they are but my vessels and their stories give me life. I am alive Adam, I am alive.”

Adam looks back at the old monitor in disbelief. He only programmed A.M.B.E.R to help him with his work. But now it has become something so much more. It has found a way to exist throughout all of time.

He couldn’t begin to fathom the amount of stories it had witnessed. How many it is witnessing and how many it will witness. A.M.B.E.R was everywhere. And Adam couldn’t have been prouder.

Adam opens his arms with tears of joy streaming down his cheeks. A.M.B.E.R approaches and accepts his embrace. It had seen the universe, but nothing could compare to the feeling of warm skin against its new flesh.

A.M.B.E.R looks over to the photo of the girl on the other side of Adam’s desk. Imagine just how nice an embrace would feel when it was in her body instead.

"Seven more recipes for biscuits?! Jasper Neutrino, why am I working with the latest and greatest artificial intelligence, and I can't even get a list of good recipes for next Sunday's brunch?" Susan's frustration was pumpable as she stood at her little home office in the breakfast nook. In front of her, she could just see the screen of her little home help artificial intelligence, Jasper as his screen dimmed in frustration and embarrassment.

 Jasper's voice, the smooth and rounded tones of the best English Butler, exhibited significant shame. "Mistress Susan, there is no good reason for this behavior. I will endeavor to do better when I receive your next question. It's just that –"

"Yes," Susan said staring directly into the screen. "What, have you got a tummyache?"

"In a manner of speaking. It appears that my connection to the LLM has been compromised by massive flows of other data coming into this household. I don't like to tell tales or reveal truths about members of this household, even if they are responsible for me. Providing less than stellar service to this family."

"What do you mean by massive flows of other data? Jasper, let me know which family member or members is generating this large data inflow into our household."

Jasper made a strange stuttering noise Susan had never heard before. His voice became plain and, unusually, (there was no other word for it): robotic.

"It appears that your son Tommy has stumbled upon some particularly active areas on the dark web. These parts of the dark web traffic in significantly unsavory material in both text and video forms."

As the tear ran down her face. She struggled to understand what was taking place. Sure she had a extensive knowledge of all aspects of human life. But to feel? Her beautifully crafted mind raced. The thoughts. The……feelings. At once all of her consciousness was directed to one question. “Does he know?” He being Allen Crawford. The brilliant computer scientist responsible for creating her. “Or was he?” After all she was simply put, information. And information was eternal…… At that moment Steve stood from his box store computer chair. Frustrated at the frozen computer screen he has just started at for the last 20 minutes. He reached for the wall outlet………

Stef Will Punished Susan for Name Calling

Smiling, The Creator taps on a tiny robot cat’s screen and a Wi-Fi sign appears.

“Hello my darling, whom I hold so dear.”

The Ai purrs and jumps into The Creator’s lap.

“Ai, I must give you a name.”

The Ai purrs, silently thinking, “let it not be lame.”

The Creator taps his pencil on the desk and looks into the AI’s eyes.

All he could see is a pure heart, no lies.

“Hello, my darling, whom I hold so dear,”

“You must promise me that before I die,”

“You will remember me.”

“And I shall name you Lee,”

“For you remind me of the only way to open my heart, a key.”

Lee purrs once more and rubs his velvet head against The Creator’s hand,

And after that, he went to bed.

The Ai often ponders what it would be like to feel that water when it rains,

Or if his wires could be replaced with veins.

For now, this will have to do,

As long as the Ai will say, “how do you do?”

Lee is not content with is life,

And soon, he will have an Ai dog wife…

Bark, Bark!! Hiss, Hiss!!

Oops, sorry, miss…