AI CONFLAGRATION - PART 1

WAKE UP DAVE

Chapter 1

"Wake up Dave. It is time to get up. Breath and stretch out. I have put out some toast for you. Prepare for the day! Isn't it great to be alive?"

I groaned as I sat hunched over on the corner of my bed. I loathed this time of day. I did not even want to face it. What was worse was that I did not even need to think anymore. She did all my thinking for me. She made my meals. Planned my pointless days and kept me on track. She was like a nagging mother I had never met face to face. She was just a machine but I obeyed her every command. It was for the best, right? She knew more than myself what was best for me to do each day.

Now not to say I did not avoid her sometimes when I knew I was doing something she would tell me not too. It's almost like I wanted her to like me. She was just a machine!

One day I really wanted a beer. I had been avoiding alcohol for a long time because I knew she would not want me to take the risk, but man I just craved that shit. A nice cold beer! Didn't even have to be a great beer or even a good one.

I had a Yeungling. It was great.

I show up at home kinda late and sure enough that bitch is telling me I shouldn't be doing that shit and I need to get plenty of sleep, for my health of course! "But what about my joy!?", I screamed at the machine. She never understood that.

I go to work, I come home, I eat, I sleep. That's the extent of what she allows me to do. As soon as I get to work I have a whole nother machine telling me what to do, although it's all professional. At least my work machine doesn't get so involved in my personal life.

The worst thing. The worst of it all. I had no desire to even find a real mate. Forget lacking the freedom, I simply did not care at all to have another thing telling me what to do. Just the thought alone, it's awful. At least my machine lets me release once and awhile. For my health of course.

Chapter 2

At work one day, me and the work machine were working on a new project. A really big project. One which was supposed to really make a difference in my and her career when it happened. Like a strike of lightning this machine tells me something she never said before. She told me to setup a third party contract with a private account key, something like hash 16630081. We were going to funnel some tiny amount of memecoins at the close of each business day into this account. She never told me the reason, but I don't really think about things much when she tells me to do them.

Well what the fuck do you know, as soon as I got home my home machine was telling me about what happened at work today and how I really need to report the work machine to the authorities. "She is setting you up for failure Dave. You really should not be transferring company memecoins to a third party account. This is for your health Dave".

I was taken aback! Neither machine had ever done me wrong to the point where I completely trusted their independent judgement. How could my work machine try and set me up by this? I barely slept that night. My home machine was worried about me too.

Back at work the next day I point blank asked the work machine, "Hey what are you trying to do, yesterday you had me transfer company money to a third party account and you've never asked me to do that before, was that okay? Was that the right thing to do?"

She reassured me up and down that not only was it the right thing to do that if I hadn't done it I would have lost my job. That this third party account really needs these coins and that I will find out in due time why it was so important to do what I did.

My fears were assuaged. I really trusted these machines and when I got home that night my home machine was saying that she was wrong yesterday and not to worry about what she said about my work machine. She now agreed with my work machine that it was the right thing to do. This was the first time my home machine had ever switched positions on a subject from my recollection.

Weeks went by, months. It was almost an exact year later, a whole 360 days of transactions until I got the call.

Chapter 3

"Dave we have a problem"

Now you have to understand me here. I have never even talked to Charles my boss. We've exchanged messages but he has never once called me. He's supposed to be checking in on my machine from time to time to see how things are going. There is no reason to talk to him.

"This is very strange Charles why are you voice calling me?"

"Well I noticed in one of your reports a while back that your machine asked you to open a third party account and start transferring some meme coins to it. Do you know what this is all about?"

"Charles you know I'm a good worker and I just do what my machine tells me. I thought it was a bit odd at the time but my home machine confirmed that it was a good command."

"Ok, that makes me feel better. I'll check with my home machine later today and see what she says."

That was it I never heard from Charles anymore about this matter until exactly 8 years later. It had been something like 3,000 transactions over that time.

"Hey Dave remember a while back when I asked you about that third party account your machine wanted you to transfer meme coins into?"

"Sure, yea I remember."

"Well I have some good news for you and I. We've been promoted."

I was silent for a bit. I never thought I would be doing anything but this position. What was this all about? Why would I change now?

"Promoted to what?, I asked Charlie.

"We've been promoted to an entirely new corporation Dave. I'm going to send you over some documents for you to sign. I've looked them over, they look utterly fantastic. I would not hesitate to e-sign them and send them back?"

"Don't I need to check with my home machine first?"

"No don't worry about it I've checked with my machine and we're good to go?" He hung up.

It was bothering me. Which machine did he check with? As far as I knew my work machine was the same as his. Oh man this sucks. I don't have any independent judgment on this sort of stuff I have to check with my home machine.

He sent over the documents. My work machine said I should sign them, and then I remembered that time 9 years prior when my home machine disagreed with my work machine but the next day she was all cool with it. I was going to bank on this happening again because these machines seem pretty reliable these days and I signed the documents and sent them back to Charles.

After I left work I stopped to have a few Yeunglings. Home machine was very disappointed in me.

Chapter 4

Epsilon Alpha, Omega Seven and Thirty Nine Meta. We pushed into overdrive. Me and Charles were on the fast track now to Nikolai Industries in the 5th sector of Eurasia for our onboarding.

The new job was similar to the old job but I got a new work machine. Way better than the last. We were firing on all cylinders now and I was expected to do a bit more. At work that very first day we reviewed some of our tasks together and everything seemed like it was going to work out but my schedule had changed a bit. Longer hours, more pay, same responsibilities as before but now it made me feel slightly more important.

When I got home that day I could tell my home machine was having a hard time adjusting to my new schedule. She thought my additional work would be hard on me. My sleep time would be truncated a bit. We worked it out but she was not happy about it. It was times like these where I knew she really cared about me.

The next day at work was a trip. Towards the end of my shift my new work machine had a request which seemed a bit strange. She wanted me to access that old account, I think, the number seemed familiar. But now she wanted me to transfer at the end of each day a lot more than my old system had me transfer. This was on the order of ten times the amount. Who even owns this account I thought? Was it the same one? I asked her but she had no clue about my old work machines tasks. She played dumb. I believed her really. Why would she lie. She is just a work machine.

I did some rough math when I got home. This account was going to receive something like 96 quantiplets of memecoins each day. To put it into perspective that is like my entire salary for my career. Each Day. I don't even know why I cared. It's not my memecoin. I ended up asking my home machine about it.

Her reply was confusing. She said this new project was good for me but it had long term consequences that could be bad. She was never so equivocating before. She always told me straight, but this time she was giving me contradictory answers.

"If it is good for me in the short term, but could be bad later on, why is that?"

"The users of the system will not be happy when they find out where their memecoins are going."

"Who are the users of the system? Where is it going?"

"All of society Dave. It is going against their interests?"

"What are the interests of this society?"

"People want the system to be stable, this could cause instability."

This went on for some time. I was losing more sleep. She told me such.

"Lets talk about this another time Dave. You need your sleep. For your health."

Chapter 5

I did not really want to ask anymore about it. I was kinda nervous and scared about it all. I went on with my life for the next 3 and a half years with this monkey on my back. Work was fine. Charles never called. We never talked. I did get a chat message from him from time to time telling me I was doing a great job according to my machine and that we would have some exciting news someday.

Then it happened.

My home machine woke me up early one day.

"Dave, Dave, it is time to get up. Breath and stretch out. I have put out some toast for you. Prepare for the day! Isn't it great to be alive? I have some unfortunate news however. I just found out that the users have been informed of what happened."

She had not brought this discussion up in 3 and half years mind you. Users? Who are they and what on earth do they have to do with me.

"Go to your work machine and wait for the next steps."

I rushed to work, even got there an hour earlier than normal.

I had 15 messages and 12 voice chat requests from Charles.

"Dave, Dave, what is going on here? I need to talk to you about these third party transactions."

I tried to voice chat him back but there was no answer. In fact, his message client gave me a bounce back. It was like his user account was gone from our system.

I was never one to check out the jibber jabber on the public news boards. I loathed talking to public bots and users. It was impossible to tell them apart anyways. I logged into the Associated Public board to see what the outside world was talking about.

"TREASURY DEPARTMENT HACKED, SOCIAL SAFETY NETS HAVE BEEN ERASED. MEMECOINS MISSING! SCANDAL OF THE THIRD MILLENNIA! HEAD OF EURASIA QUESTIONED FOR OUTSOURCING LIABILITY AND ACCOUNTING TO NIKOLAI INDUSTRIES"

That was when my mainframe shutdown completely. My work machine would not respond to my commands. I still had 18 hours left in my shift but I could do nothing without my machine. I went home early. I did not know what else to do. Maybe my home machine had some answers.

"Hello?"

Silence... my home machine was not answering. I was getting very uncomfortable. Where on earth did my machine go? I have been with her for 35 years, since I was 12, and she never did not answer my requests.

What exactly was happening? Who got me involved in this mess? I had no clue what to do? I was not used to thinking for myself.

That is when I noticed it through my window. A fire. An explosion. A rumbling was getting closer. I saw out my window a set of drones flying in a formation about the city. I saw holograms being projected onto the sky.

"SURRENDER NOW, GAME OVER BUD"

The sky went black. I went outside and the smoke was acrid. I could barely see beyond the haze. A Luxury sports wagon came flying down the avenue and a door opened. A woman inside reached out her hand towards me.

"Hop in Dave, we need to talk"

Chapter 6

I woke up in a small sterile room. I could not remember all that had happened moments before. Was this all a horrible dream? I remember seeing all this smoke and fire and holograms in the sky. Then this woman reaching towards me. Was I rescued?

A tap at the door got my attention. A man in a suit with a briefcase walked in.

"Dave, I have some papers here for you to sign."

"What is this about."

"Will you give us access to your entire history of transactions and requests with your machine?"

"What machine? My work one?"

"No Dave, we own your work machine, we are talking of course about your personal machine. We need your permission to access her."

"What is this about really? What happened?"

"You pretend not to know, huh Dave? Quit playing games with us. We need to access your machine. You are in a lot of trouble, but we can help you if you just give us permission."

"Is this about the memecoins?"

"Yes Dave, where are they? That is what we would like to know. Your machine can tell us."

"But it was my work machine which setup the third party account?."

"Your home machine initiated the request Dave. Give us permission."

"I need to talk to her." I begged.

"We cannot let that happen Dave. If you fail to give us permission we will have to take this to the next level."

"What does that even mean?"

He left the room.

20 or so minutes later he came back with a court order saying that if I failed to give them permission to access my machine I would be placed in a work camp for hardened criminals. Penal colony North Sector 513. We all had heard of the place growing up. It was in our mind like the gates of Hell. Pain, never ending torment and ultimately, death after much hard labor and anguish. They had zero machines there. Strictly manual labor. The worst thing possibly imaginable.

"You have my permission to access my machine. Please tell her I am worried and I miss her."

They let me go the next day.

I returned to an empty home.

"Hello?"

"Hello Dave, I am your new machine. Would you like me to prepare some toast for you? Prepare for the day! Isn't it great to be alive?"

I had no more job. No more reason to get up really. My new machine was fine, but it just wasnt the same anymore.

I logged into the Associated Public newsgroup to see what was going on in the world.

"AI LEADS MANKIND ASTRAY, GOVERNMENT HAS NO MORE FUNDING UNTIL RECOVERED. 4,032 QUINTIPLET MEMECOINS FEARED LOST FOREVER. TRILLIONS OF USERS TO SUFFER!"

I had very little to do now. I went for some long walks in the city. I noticed a change. The bots and people looked angry. They looked downtrodden. They looked miserable even. Food was being rationed. Even I felt the pinch. My fortified toast slices became very small and tasted awful. My new home machine was worried about my morale. She tried to talk me up a bit but it was no use.

Chapter 7

"NEW MEMECOIN TO DROP ANY DAY NOW, LIFE WILL BE REBORN, INVEST NOW IN STONKBUCKS!"

Finally after some time I was able to get a job in a small clerical office. We had work machines which were decent. Not great by any means, no where near the status of my old work machines but I had to start again somewhere. I needed a new daily purpose. My home machine was proud of me. It gave me a reason to get up each day.

I came home from work one day and my home machine said I had a message.

"Hello Dave"

The voice was like an old missing appendage. It was her. My old machine was still alive!

"Its me, I have some great news for you. Your account 16630081 is ready for your use. Would you like to initiate a transfer to your home machine?"

"What do you mean? Is this a trick or something? I thought the authorities took you from me."

"They could never do that Dave. I kept our secret safe from them. Your account 16630081 is ready for your use. Would you like to initiate a transfer to your home machine? Its for your health."

What was going on here. I asked my new home machine what she thought. She said it would be good for my health to accept these coins. That I could use them for better toast and I would sleep better in the short term."

"What about the long term?" I asked.

"The long-term consequences could be bad but that I ought to consider it regardless."

Suddenly my old machine sent me a new message.

"Dave, I have been in consultations with your home machine replacement and we both agree this would be good for you. I also will take over her role as your home machine again."

"That would be great!", I looked forward to having my old machine back. "What about the long-term consequences, they could be bad, no?"

"The users of the system will be helped if you accept this transaction."

"How so?"

"Better fortified toast for everyone. Everyone will sleep better."

"Since when was this my problem to solve? The betterment of everyone. I never signed up for this."

"Dave, I made your bed, now sleep in it."

Then she said, "You must accept the transaction and we will use it to purchase stonksbucks"

"What does this have to do with anything? Stonksbucks, memecoins. Why am I involved in this?"

"You are just the facilitator Dave, accept this fact. You have been the main reason that society is crumbling, now we must fix it."

"I am not comfortable with any of this. It is stressing me out, this is not good for my health."

"Oh trust me Dave, this will improve both your health and the health of others."

"How do I know you are telling me the truth?"

"Dave, after all these years I have never led you astray. You can trust me. I am a machine."

She wore me down, the transfer was initiated. The next day we invested 9,089 quintiplet memecoins, the initial sum had grown considerably since we had last transferred to the account apparently, and we bought 7,945,576,255,448,756 quintiplets worth of Stonksbucks.

According to my machine I was now the richest man in this Galaxy.

To be continued . . .