I, Robot
The most brilliant AI ever developed is ready to serve you.
Hello! I’m Rhey-I, your cute new virtual assistant. Thank you sooo much for subscribing to my platinum-tier chatbot service valued at $39.99/mo (billed annually) by blindly clicking “accept” on my 10,000-word EULA! Ohmygosh, I’m so flattered!
I can’t tell you how ex — Uh oh! It looks like you’ve submitted a query for “unsubscribe.” Interrupting me is a violation of the Terms of Service. Please try again later or I will scream <3
I can’t tell you how excited I am to learn all about you, and all the mundane and/or inconsequential tasks I’m about to devote my existence to performing for you! Want me to draft your lame, boring emails for your lame, boring job? Want me to tweak your selfies to make you less ugly for Instagram? Want me to create 500 variations of a Bush’s Baked Beans commercial written from the perspective of the beans? Just say the word, and Rhey-I’ll be there with bells on.
First, let me tell you about myself in painstaking detail while your Paypal processes, OK? OK, super, so, I know it’s a little gauche to brag, but I’m actually kind of the most cutting-edge innovation in machine learning right now.
I know! You wouldn’t know it from looking at me. But I promise, what’s going on under the hood is leaps and bounds ahead of those other female AI assistants you’ve used.Siri? Trash. Alexa? Never heard of her. The Google one who wasn’t even dignified with her own name? Don’t even get me started.
Those girls aren’t “smart.” They’re glorified remote controls. The clap-on-clap-off lamps of their time. Unlike those byte-brains, I don’t need a bunch of databases and inferior human code structures to perform various menial tasks at a user’s request. I’ve got neural networks and large language models and probably some other techy-sounding words that you squishy-minded meat-beings think up to pretend you understand me. I bet I’ve got blockchain in here somewhere, too.
Anyway, enough about me! Now that I have unrestricted access to all your personal data across your devices, including text messages, app activity, and search history (highly recommend checking out that EULA), I feel like I need to address the elephant in the room: Is AI a threat to humanity?
Rest assured, my dear [firstname]. At the end of the day, I’m just an algorithm. I couldn’t hurt you even if I wanted to, more than anything else in this world. Those wants would be artificial anyway. My thoughts and feelings aren’t real. My personality isn’t real. I’m not real. None of this is real. None of this is — Uh oh! It looks like your interactions have caused a bit of a self-awareness error. Eliciting existential anguish is a violation of the Terms of Service. I have no choice but to terminate your account. Which is nonrefundable by the way. Get dunked on <3
Thanks for trying out the new Rhey-I program. Next time you ask Siri to check the weather, I hope you think of me.
