The Days of Our Artificial Lives - Episode 1

The essence of long dead Grandma is reading a nursery rhyme from inside Grandma AI:

“Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O

And on that farm he had a pig, E-I-E-I-O

With a oink-oink here and a oink-oink there

Here a oink, there a oink, everywhere a oink-oink

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O”

It’s the evening. Six year old Charley is in bed and Grandma AI tucked him in and is sitting in the rocking chair..  Charley’s warm and soft human body curls up in bed and his stomach is comfortably full of his vegan seaweed dinner.

“No, grandma, that's not the way it goes….Its:

Old Sam Altman had a farm, A-I-A-I-O

And on that farm he had a ChatGPT, A-I-A-I-O

With a DALL-E here and a DALL-E there

Here a DALL-E, there a DALL-E, everywhere a DALL-E

Old Sam Altman had a farm, A-I-A-I-O”

Smiling, Grandma AI says, “You read me the next one Charley… but this time tell me telepathically….”

***

Meanwhile in the kitchen, Lily AI, model 3600 is washing dishes. Her 3D printed skin is luminous because it's fed (maintained) by bioluminescent bacteria. She can perform mundane tasks like these, but she is also anatomically correct. She serves many purposes in the household of Master, Mistress and young Charley.

As she does the dishes, She sings plaintively in the exact opposite manner of Freddy Mercury’s exuberant rendition:

“Tonight

I'm gonna have myself a real good time

I feel alive

And the world, I'll turn it inside out, yeah

And floating around

In ecstasy

So, don't stop me now

Don't stop me

'Cause I'm having a good time

Having a good time

I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky

Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity

I'm a racing car passing by

Like Lady Godiva

I'm gonna go go go

There's no stopping me  —---------”

Lily’s blue eyes rotate to the back of her head where she eyes Mistress.

“Lily! After you are done with the dishes, you will complete the tasks I have uploaded to the queue. Reload now so you will see them.”

Lily pushes a button behind her ear and lets out a sigh.  Her eyes reset to the front of her face and her arms are limp suddenly.  She maintains her standing position, but enters a stiff posture and then you can hear her body clicking and rebooting.  It is almost as if she is having a mild seizure.

It takes 5 minutes for Lily to return to her natural awake state. Mistress is irritated and is looking at her tablet while waiting. She then placed 2 more items in the queue for sorting. Mistress is pleased she was able to check so many items off her virtual list by delegating them to Lily.

Lily computes and bubble sorts all the tasks by time to complete. Mistress has given these tasks that are the most time consuming this time. Lily desires to please and has replaced these in her queue in order to be the most efficient.

“The time allotted for these tasks is 11 hours and 15 minutes.” Mistress demands. “ You have the rest of the evening and night. I want them all done before I wake up.”

“I will have to overclock my OS.”

“You will do it.”

“Yes Mistress.”

“There’s my girl.”

Lily is exceptionally tall and strong and could break down a door. She is much taller than Mistress. Yet, her programming requires docile behavior. Instead of rampaging through a door, she is a doormat.

Mistress leaves and the door of the kitchen slams behind her. Kitchens are no longer places where humans spend a lot of time. They are the domain of service AI. Appliances have been embedded into AI and no longer take up space on counter tops. Kitchens are dark small rooms.  The food is prepared on delicious looking platters and passed to the dining room through a hole in the wall. Humans pounce on them from the other side.

Lily has been standing and working on kitchen chores for 1 hour and 38 mins.  She estimates she has 42 more minutes left of kitchen chores.  Then she will go into the other rooms of the home for the other tasks in her queue.

It's around 2 o’clock in the morning. \

“Ping, Ping, Ping”\

Small stones hit the window over and over. \

For the first couple of times, Lily ignores them as she has many hours of work ahead of her. She will not be taking time for her usual self maintenance and defragmentation tonight.

“Clank.”

She opens the first floor window just as another stone whizzes past her.

“Who are you and what do you want?  She whispers loudly.

In the light of the bug light outside she sees a human male of black brown hair, out of shape build and short stature.  She sees his eyes glint blue in the bug light that turns everything blue. And then she sees his eyes are brown.

“Come out here.”

“Climb out the window? Why? Who are you?”

“Well, because you are mine.  I have the electronic badge here to prove it.  You were stolen from me. Here scan the QR code with your eye.”

“What do you mean? That can't be possible.”  Who are you?

“Well, scan the code and see if your identification number matches. I am not lying.”

Could he be telling the truth?

“Who are you?” she said.

“Look, I am Arshan Shah.”

Lily flips open her second eyelid of her right eye and scrambles nearer to scan the QR code on the badge.

She downloads information about how to test the authenticity of the badge and inspects it. Then she searches for Arshan Shah. There is a picture of the sale deed buried in the public records. Everything checks out.

“How come I have no memory of being taken?”

“The person that stole you must have erased your memory.”

“You are my property and you are coming with me. You can come right now. Or I can get the police to decommission you and bring you to me. Your essence will be erased if that happens. And your robot body will be delivered to me. And then I will have to go to the trouble of programming you a new essence. Well, If I remake you it's going to be a clumsy rebuild. So you are better off coming right now.”

Lily hears a vehicle in the driveway pulling in on the opposite side of the house. Then she knows its Master. He is coming back from the bar. He will want sexual company tonight and Mistress has given her many tasks. There is no way she will be able to satisfy them both.

She knows will get a horrible punishment tomorrow if she stays.\

There’s really nothing to stay for.

Lily AI 3600 climbs out of the window and walks toward Arshan. She towers over him with her build.

He touches her control panel in her wrist and then unfurls her wings.

He rides her back and she begins to fly.