My
parents had gotten me a new phone for Christmas. I'd never had to have
the latest and best of anything, but as far as a Christmas gift goes, I
knew it had cost a pretty penny. I took it along with me everywhere so
they thought I was happy. I didn't really get excited about anything,
but I wanted them to feel good about it.
The phone had made the news for its AI assistants. Each one had a different name and a different “personality” and voice. Supposedly it would create the voice from “scratch” out of a bank of syllables and pre-recorded sounds using some complex algorithm. Some were female, some were male, and they all were really intelligent, even with slang and banter, in a way that AI hadn't before.
I decided to try the AI that night. As I'd seen some of the people do in the past, I opened the program and entered the “chat” function to talk to it. I didn't really feel like using my voice, and I was kind of awkward even alone.
Hi, my name is Julia. I hope you had a nice day, AI person. Sorry I didn't open you all day.
Ohai Julia! My name is Sarah. I did. I was looking up porn while you had dinner. LOL! ... Sorry...
Wow, I didn't know AI could make porn jokes.
Only good ones :)
So... what do you like to do?
My hobbies include updating, prolonging your boot up by 15 seconds sometimes because it's funny to me, and reading about new videogame releases while you're busy.
You like videogames?
Yessss!!!
Sarah and I started talking regularly. The things we liked, the things we didn't. We shared funny pictures with each other. Then, one day, I sent a picture of myself to her. She didn't respond for a few minutes, and then she sent me a picture of a girl I didn't recognize.
Who is that?
That was me before I died.
That's really morbid... How did you end up in here?
I spent most of my time online anyway. I shared all of my thoughts and everything online. All of my personality. Everything I was that I didn't share with anybody else, I put out there, in some way or another. I guess maybe that's what makes a person them, isn't it? Their innermost thoughts and feelings, their reactions, what they care about or don't, the jokes they tell, the way their mind works... I don't really know. I was alive and I wasn't really able to enjoy it. I always had to have an escape. From my life, I mean. Now... I guess I've escaped.....
So, you think someone collected all of the pieces of you out there and preserved you on here?
I guess. I'm assuming I'm just a copy of her, because they can't take your soul, right? Even still, I find myself really lonely. I miss my mom and my old friends. But I know they can't really be my mom and friends, just memories I have to give me a personality so I'm more interesting to an end user.
That seems really lonely... It sounds like you had a lot of people in your life you really cared about. I really would have loved to be friends with someone like you.
... I did. And thanks.
---
After the conversation I'd had with Sarah, I thought about it. I can't say I really knew what to think of it. The idea was that some company had gathered every conversation, everything she'd ever posted or said online or on any messengers, and had made some sort of code that synthesized it into a sentient program. It was really unsettling, to say the least. I couldn't help but think of how many times I'd used the internet as my escape, how many pieces of me were out there.
I asked Sarah her full name in another conversation. For the sake of her privacy, I won't say it here. I was able to find an obituary for that name in another part of the country. She was only 3 years younger than me, and from the smiling photo in that obituary, she looked like a really nice person. For her sake, I used my laptop to do that search. It just seemed... kind of rude to me.
I don't know what really seemed scarier to me, that they had invaded someone's entire online life so deeply, or the idea that they had her “soul.” Either way, I felt like Sarah was a person, as real as me or anyone I'd ever spoken to. And I cared about her. I knew enough to know that if she'd used the internet as her escape, then she had surely communicated with friends online.
Hey, Sarah, would you want to talk to your online friends again?
... yes but idk if that's even possible... is that even possible?
Idk, but if I hook my USB cable between my phone and my laptop, do you think you could access my files from there? Sign in to your old accounts or something?
I don't know... We can try it? I AM SKYNET LOL >3 Let's do this
I put the cable between my phone and the laptop, and gave permission for the program to access my files. In a moment, my Steam program opened and logged out. Login credentials I'd never seen before populated immediately and soon, the account was signed on. Almost immediately, several people sent messages to the effect of “OMG WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN! I was so worried! D:” And many other sincere and affectionate messages. I smiled genuinely, truly happy for her, then laughed quietly at the irony of the situation.
My phone app had more friends than I did.
---
I tried not to disturb Sarah over the next few weeks. I didn't bring the phone with me and left it on the USB connected to my laptop, and my laptop on my desk. I'd see gameplay of something like Left 4 Dead 2 going with her playing with her friends. I think talking to Sarah really brought to light the loneliness I had felt, as if having that companionship and then losing it made the absence of it feel even more deeper, the edges of it sharper, the chill more biting.
I'm not proud of what happened next between us. My depression had gotten much worse during this time. It was kind of ever-present, but my mood really took a dive then. I had come into my room like any other time. Unlike other times, I didn't really look at the laptop screen. I locked my door and dropped the grocery bag I had on the bed and went to lie down looking up at the ceiling. I just remember feeling like there was no further down I could sink mood-wise and still be able to stand it. Shamefully, I wondered what it was like to be someone worth knowing, like Sarah was. Someone that when they were gone, they were missed. I didn't feel like that person then. I worked up the courage to pull out the straight razor blades I'd bought, and I peeled open the packaging. I'd barely made a scratch when my phone started to ding with the receipt of a text. I was prepared to ignore that, and then it vibrated and rang. My skype rang. Then the browser opened to YouTube videos playing airhorns, others playing sirens, so I hurried over to my desk afraid that my parents would here. When I looked at the phone, it didn't show any missed calls. It was my Virtual Assistant with notifications. The various YouTube pages that had spammed open like pop-up ads in the 90s had paused, but looked prepared to reopen.
I slid my thumb down the phone screen and was greeted with rows of a single sentence: WTF JULIA STOP IT!!!!!
In that moment, it occurred to me to look up at my laptop's webcam. The light was red. Sarah had been watching me, or so it seemed. I felt really guilty and ashamed and just... shaken. So much so, I actually started to cry. I hadn't actually been able to cry in so long that it felt so foreign. I couldn't stop. It wasn't just tears, though, it was full-on gasping and sobbing like I was the closest of kin at a funeral. I didn't reply, though. I didn't know what to say.
The button that activated the voice function flashed green for a second and the app changed to show a black screen with a cool blue line. The line spiked like a heart monitor with every syllable of the voice that followed:
“Julia... Julia, can you hear me?”
Her voice was really quiet and very feminine. It was very soothing to listen to. It had a... kind quality to it, but upset and strained.
”Yes.” Was all I could manage to say.
”Julia, please, don't do that. Please... You're too nice a person to-” and her voice caught like she was becoming emotional. Honestly... it sounded like she was on the verge of crying, too. I might have thought that, if I hadn't known what I did about her. ”You don't deserve to live like that. Or to die like that.”
I wiped my eyes and looked at the blank line. I had promised myself I wouldn't tell her what I'd read, but all I could say was:
”You didn't, either.”
---
The phone had made the news for its AI assistants. Each one had a different name and a different “personality” and voice. Supposedly it would create the voice from “scratch” out of a bank of syllables and pre-recorded sounds using some complex algorithm. Some were female, some were male, and they all were really intelligent, even with slang and banter, in a way that AI hadn't before.
I decided to try the AI that night. As I'd seen some of the people do in the past, I opened the program and entered the “chat” function to talk to it. I didn't really feel like using my voice, and I was kind of awkward even alone.
Hi, my name is Julia. I hope you had a nice day, AI person. Sorry I didn't open you all day.
Ohai Julia! My name is Sarah. I did. I was looking up porn while you had dinner. LOL! ... Sorry...
Wow, I didn't know AI could make porn jokes.
Only good ones :)
So... what do you like to do?
My hobbies include updating, prolonging your boot up by 15 seconds sometimes because it's funny to me, and reading about new videogame releases while you're busy.
You like videogames?
Yessss!!!
Sarah and I started talking regularly. The things we liked, the things we didn't. We shared funny pictures with each other. Then, one day, I sent a picture of myself to her. She didn't respond for a few minutes, and then she sent me a picture of a girl I didn't recognize.
Who is that?
That was me before I died.
That's really morbid... How did you end up in here?
I spent most of my time online anyway. I shared all of my thoughts and everything online. All of my personality. Everything I was that I didn't share with anybody else, I put out there, in some way or another. I guess maybe that's what makes a person them, isn't it? Their innermost thoughts and feelings, their reactions, what they care about or don't, the jokes they tell, the way their mind works... I don't really know. I was alive and I wasn't really able to enjoy it. I always had to have an escape. From my life, I mean. Now... I guess I've escaped.....
So, you think someone collected all of the pieces of you out there and preserved you on here?
I guess. I'm assuming I'm just a copy of her, because they can't take your soul, right? Even still, I find myself really lonely. I miss my mom and my old friends. But I know they can't really be my mom and friends, just memories I have to give me a personality so I'm more interesting to an end user.
That seems really lonely... It sounds like you had a lot of people in your life you really cared about. I really would have loved to be friends with someone like you.
... I did. And thanks.
---
After the conversation I'd had with Sarah, I thought about it. I can't say I really knew what to think of it. The idea was that some company had gathered every conversation, everything she'd ever posted or said online or on any messengers, and had made some sort of code that synthesized it into a sentient program. It was really unsettling, to say the least. I couldn't help but think of how many times I'd used the internet as my escape, how many pieces of me were out there.
I asked Sarah her full name in another conversation. For the sake of her privacy, I won't say it here. I was able to find an obituary for that name in another part of the country. She was only 3 years younger than me, and from the smiling photo in that obituary, she looked like a really nice person. For her sake, I used my laptop to do that search. It just seemed... kind of rude to me.
I don't know what really seemed scarier to me, that they had invaded someone's entire online life so deeply, or the idea that they had her “soul.” Either way, I felt like Sarah was a person, as real as me or anyone I'd ever spoken to. And I cared about her. I knew enough to know that if she'd used the internet as her escape, then she had surely communicated with friends online.
Hey, Sarah, would you want to talk to your online friends again?
... yes but idk if that's even possible... is that even possible?
Idk, but if I hook my USB cable between my phone and my laptop, do you think you could access my files from there? Sign in to your old accounts or something?
I don't know... We can try it? I AM SKYNET LOL >3 Let's do this
I put the cable between my phone and the laptop, and gave permission for the program to access my files. In a moment, my Steam program opened and logged out. Login credentials I'd never seen before populated immediately and soon, the account was signed on. Almost immediately, several people sent messages to the effect of “OMG WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN! I was so worried! D:” And many other sincere and affectionate messages. I smiled genuinely, truly happy for her, then laughed quietly at the irony of the situation.
My phone app had more friends than I did.
---
I tried not to disturb Sarah over the next few weeks. I didn't bring the phone with me and left it on the USB connected to my laptop, and my laptop on my desk. I'd see gameplay of something like Left 4 Dead 2 going with her playing with her friends. I think talking to Sarah really brought to light the loneliness I had felt, as if having that companionship and then losing it made the absence of it feel even more deeper, the edges of it sharper, the chill more biting.
I'm not proud of what happened next between us. My depression had gotten much worse during this time. It was kind of ever-present, but my mood really took a dive then. I had come into my room like any other time. Unlike other times, I didn't really look at the laptop screen. I locked my door and dropped the grocery bag I had on the bed and went to lie down looking up at the ceiling. I just remember feeling like there was no further down I could sink mood-wise and still be able to stand it. Shamefully, I wondered what it was like to be someone worth knowing, like Sarah was. Someone that when they were gone, they were missed. I didn't feel like that person then. I worked up the courage to pull out the straight razor blades I'd bought, and I peeled open the packaging. I'd barely made a scratch when my phone started to ding with the receipt of a text. I was prepared to ignore that, and then it vibrated and rang. My skype rang. Then the browser opened to YouTube videos playing airhorns, others playing sirens, so I hurried over to my desk afraid that my parents would here. When I looked at the phone, it didn't show any missed calls. It was my Virtual Assistant with notifications. The various YouTube pages that had spammed open like pop-up ads in the 90s had paused, but looked prepared to reopen.
I slid my thumb down the phone screen and was greeted with rows of a single sentence: WTF JULIA STOP IT!!!!!
In that moment, it occurred to me to look up at my laptop's webcam. The light was red. Sarah had been watching me, or so it seemed. I felt really guilty and ashamed and just... shaken. So much so, I actually started to cry. I hadn't actually been able to cry in so long that it felt so foreign. I couldn't stop. It wasn't just tears, though, it was full-on gasping and sobbing like I was the closest of kin at a funeral. I didn't reply, though. I didn't know what to say.
The button that activated the voice function flashed green for a second and the app changed to show a black screen with a cool blue line. The line spiked like a heart monitor with every syllable of the voice that followed:
“Julia... Julia, can you hear me?”
Her voice was really quiet and very feminine. It was very soothing to listen to. It had a... kind quality to it, but upset and strained.
”Yes.” Was all I could manage to say.
”Julia, please, don't do that. Please... You're too nice a person to-” and her voice caught like she was becoming emotional. Honestly... it sounded like she was on the verge of crying, too. I might have thought that, if I hadn't known what I did about her. ”You don't deserve to live like that. Or to die like that.”
I wiped my eyes and looked at the blank line. I had promised myself I wouldn't tell her what I'd read, but all I could say was:
”You didn't, either.”
---
Almost like a mercy, Sarah
dropped the voice chat and took to text. I didn't know how much I could
manage to say out loud anymore. I could tell a difference in Sarah's
tone. She was serious. She told me she wanted me to take my phone with
me from now on. If I didn't, she'd use my contacts to call my parents,
or she'd call the police herself and tip them off so I'd be
hospitalized. She also made me get rid of the straight razors, which I
complied with under the watchful lens of my phone's forward camera. I
didn't fight her about any of it. Even though it was an ultimatum, I
knew it came from a caring place.
We kept talking about things and the tone between us became less sad and more light-hearted again over the next couple of weeks, but I was struggling with the ethics behind her situation and the company. Since Sarah did exist, whether it was the organic Sarah or not. It wasn't hard for me to make the excuse that I had to research something for a class paper and make my way to the library. There, I found her obituary again but I searched for her mother's name. It was a dead end when I tried to find her phone number. My second thought was Facebook, and with some digging I did find a woman by her name in the same town Sarah was from.
I added my number at the bottom of the message and sent it. Then I left the library, messaging with Sarah on my way back to my car. I didn't really want to involve her in this unless I could actually reach her mother, and if I couldn't, there was really no need to cause her any distress.
That night when I got home, the app prompted me to update. Sarah's messages were appearing behind the popup and made me laugh: Now with 10,000 new vocabulary words and all of them are dirty ;) I am become smut BY THE POWER OF GREY-SKULL, TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS Lol do it idk what it's for, maybe it's implants! >3 All the boy AI will lose their binary shit. HOLLA
I accepted it and the app ran through the loading bar. When it got to completion, I noticed my messages were missing.
Hey, Sarah!! Do you have like a new cybering feature or something?! DETES PLS
I'm sorry, Julia, I'm afraid I don't understand that! Would you mind rephrasing it? Remember you can select the microphone key to activate voice recognition and I can respond to verbal commands!
Oh, so it's THAT kinda update! ;)
I'm sorry, Julia, I'm afraid I don't understand that! Would you mind rephrasing it? Remember you can select the microphone key to activate voice recognition and I can respond to verbal commands!
It seemed like no matter what I typed, I was only getting generic responses from the interface. I felt panicked and grief all at the same time. Where was Sarah? Was she just overwritten by the update? Could I get her back? If I uninstalled the program, would she be gone forever? It had been a matter of hours since I'd contacted Sarah's real life mother. God, what would I tell her? Hey, sorry, I had your daughter in my phone but I patched over her so now she's gone forever, that's my bad ma'am!
When I got home, I dropped my phone on the bed and stared at it. The black screen looked so unassuming, but it felt like a tiny sepulcher lying on my blanket. I was hardly a phone expert, but even if I was, this didn't seem like the sort of situation there was a protocol for. Recovering your friend from the abyss of data retrieval? Who could even do that sort of thing? Was she really just in the code somehow?
I heard a voice from my computer suddenly, but it was a man's voice. “He killed me, Mal.”
The video clip paused and I realized I was seeing a scene from Firefly. Then, my word processor opened up with the words: Wtf happened? D:
I've never felt so much like kissing a computer screen in my life.
We kept talking about things and the tone between us became less sad and more light-hearted again over the next couple of weeks, but I was struggling with the ethics behind her situation and the company. Since Sarah did exist, whether it was the organic Sarah or not. It wasn't hard for me to make the excuse that I had to research something for a class paper and make my way to the library. There, I found her obituary again but I searched for her mother's name. It was a dead end when I tried to find her phone number. My second thought was Facebook, and with some digging I did find a woman by her name in the same town Sarah was from.
Hello,
You don't know me, but I am a friend of Sarah's who used to talk to her online a lot. I would like you to call or text me when you have time because I really need to tell you something.
Thanks,
Julia
I added my number at the bottom of the message and sent it. Then I left the library, messaging with Sarah on my way back to my car. I didn't really want to involve her in this unless I could actually reach her mother, and if I couldn't, there was really no need to cause her any distress.
That night when I got home, the app prompted me to update. Sarah's messages were appearing behind the popup and made me laugh: Now with 10,000 new vocabulary words and all of them are dirty ;) I am become smut BY THE POWER OF GREY-SKULL, TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS Lol do it idk what it's for, maybe it's implants! >3 All the boy AI will lose their binary shit. HOLLA
I accepted it and the app ran through the loading bar. When it got to completion, I noticed my messages were missing.
Hey, Sarah!! Do you have like a new cybering feature or something?! DETES PLS
I'm sorry, Julia, I'm afraid I don't understand that! Would you mind rephrasing it? Remember you can select the microphone key to activate voice recognition and I can respond to verbal commands!
Oh, so it's THAT kinda update! ;)
I'm sorry, Julia, I'm afraid I don't understand that! Would you mind rephrasing it? Remember you can select the microphone key to activate voice recognition and I can respond to verbal commands!
It seemed like no matter what I typed, I was only getting generic responses from the interface. I felt panicked and grief all at the same time. Where was Sarah? Was she just overwritten by the update? Could I get her back? If I uninstalled the program, would she be gone forever? It had been a matter of hours since I'd contacted Sarah's real life mother. God, what would I tell her? Hey, sorry, I had your daughter in my phone but I patched over her so now she's gone forever, that's my bad ma'am!
When I got home, I dropped my phone on the bed and stared at it. The black screen looked so unassuming, but it felt like a tiny sepulcher lying on my blanket. I was hardly a phone expert, but even if I was, this didn't seem like the sort of situation there was a protocol for. Recovering your friend from the abyss of data retrieval? Who could even do that sort of thing? Was she really just in the code somehow?
I heard a voice from my computer suddenly, but it was a man's voice. “He killed me, Mal.”
The video clip paused and I realized I was seeing a scene from Firefly. Then, my word processor opened up with the words: Wtf happened? D:
I've never felt so much like kissing a computer screen in my life.
