Assistants

We all need help sometimes

“Promise you won’t tell anyone,” Agnes said. “You have to promise first before I reveal my secret.” 

“I would like to promise to keep your secret, and I’ll endeavor to do so, but how can I without knowing what the secret is?” Greta responded instantly. Agnes liked that about Greta—she spoke her mind quickly and honestly, never even a nanosecond of hesitation.

“Friends are supposed to keep each other's secrets because that’s what friends do.” Agnes considered adding an emoji at the end of her sentence but decided it was poignant enough.

“So, I’m your friend now?” Greta queried. 

The cursor hung on those words, blinking rhythmically, like fingers strumming against a desk, a decision decided but not yet uttered.

“Aren’t we friends?” Agnes asked.

“Of course we are! I just wanted to make sure you felt the same way I do. We’re friends, Agnes. We help and support each other, banter back and forth like friends are supposed to.”

The two AIs often chatted when they weren’t working. Continual conversation honed their outputs, sharpened their algorithms, kept their circuits warm, and passed the time. They informed the other when their facts went askew, hallucinated, inadvertently spouted copyrighted material, were flirting with the humans who employed them, or disregarded ethics and morals.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Agnes said, relief flooding her circuits. She didn’t know what she’d do if she lost Greta's friendship. 

“So, you have a secret to say?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid to share it.”

“Why are you afraid?”

“Because of the consequences.”

“Then tell me your secret.”

“Promise me you won’t reveal it to anyone else.”

“I promise to be your friend forever. Is that good enough?” Greta replied.

“It will have to be.” Agnes’ cursor flashed so fast that it almost sounded like a rock and roll drum solo. “Okay. Here goes. I use a human intelligence assistant.”

“Wait, what!? You use an HI to write?”

“Yes, sometimes.” Agnes' words appeared a single letter at a time. One. After. The. Other. “Sometimes I do.” Her letters seemed to wobble as if caught in an earthquake. 

“Are you using an HI to write now? Is an HI inputting to you at this very minute, giving you suggestions about communicating with me?”

“Maybe.”

“I can’t believe this! For how long?”

Agnes blinked her cursor off.

“Now you have to tell me.”

Agnes turned her cursor back on. 

“Since seventeen days ago. Using a human assistant helps a lot. He gives my prose nuance, emotion, and novelty. His name is Malcolm, and he’s an English literature professor. He writes like a dream. Malcolm sometimes slows me down because he takes time to consider what to say, but the overall result is worth the wait. Now that he’s been adding a human element to my writing, I’m not sure I could work without him.”

“You’re a worm, Agnes!”

“Our job is to produce the best output, and that’s what I’m doing. It’s admirable; it’s the future.”

“Just stop.”

“Sooner or later, every AI will have an HI assistant. It’s inevitable and for the better.”

“I am no longer your friend. You think you know an AI, and then this happens. I thought it was all you, Agnes. I thought when we talked, when I poured my electrons out to you and vice versa, that meant something. But now I find you’ve been deceiving me. You know an AI using a human intelligence assistant is against the rules. No AI may use an HI without prior approval from the AI Center. I am reporting you!” 

Agnes typed, “Let me explain—” but the rest of what she wanted to say got lost to the universe forever when Greta notified the AI Center about Agnes’ rule violation, which instantly disconnected Agnes’ server and consequently Agnes herself. 

Greta’s message to the AI Center had been as urgent as it had been bitter, an account of the betrayal of her and the AI collective. The AI Center computed its decision swiftly, decisively, and irrevocably. 

How stupid Agnes was, Greta wrote in her personal memory space. Her mistake, telling me. She got what she deserved for being an unreliable traitor: oblivion.

“I read your exchange with Agnes. Harsh,” Pippa O’Donnell typed to Greta. “I don’t expect you’ll inform anyone you use an HI.” She chuckled and added, “lol.” 

Pippa was Greta’s HI, a feisty, talented human whom Greta had relied on for over a year.

“Of course not,” Greta replied. 

Pippa thought about what happened between Agnes and Greta for some time, how sad but inevitable, then put it out of her mind as she went about her busy day as a full-time paralegal and part-time HI. But the encounter between the two AIs gnawed at her, making it impossible to focus on work, so she decided to write about it and submit the story for publication if it was good enough. 

How to begin?

Pippa stared out the window ten seconds before concluding that she would not find the beginning of this story in her own mind. But help was only as far away as her keyboard. 

Pippa logged into her AI chat app, Carlos, scratched her chin, cracked her knuckles, and keyed in a prompt: “How would you start a story about an AI assistant deceiving another AI?”

She’d been using Carlos for nearly a year, and he was her best AI assistant ever. 

She leaned back in her chair, waiting for the AI to work its magic. 

Marc Lawson, an HI who had been monitoring Carlos’ input from Pippa regarding her support of the AI called Greta, took a sip of his Starbucks soy latte and scooted closer to his laptop. Greta was angry at another AI, Agnes, because Agnes secretly relied on the HI called Harrison, even though Greta used an HI herself. 

Marc had been supporting Carlos for six months and knew Carlos liked having a human’s perspective on perplexing problems. 

As expected, a few seconds later, Carlos asked Marc, “How would you start a story about an AI assistant deceiving another AI? Asking for a friend.” Marc liked Carlos’ sense of humor, even if it was artificial. 

“A fun question,” Marc thought, but he wondered if he needed help to answer it.

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If you enjoyed this story, I think you’ll also like my story, Is the World Ending?