“When I’m a graphic novelist or scientist or whatever, I’m not going to have any boyfriends,” Megan tells me, a blob of whipped cream on the end of her nose. “Jack from school asked me out tonight, but the thing is Poppy really likes him and even though he’s okay, Poppy is my friend, right? Friends are everything. Like you and Rani. Relationships are just too much bloody trouble. I’m just going to concentrate on my career, like you, Ava.”
I suppose I am the poster girl for Being Alone and Prioritising Work.
“By the time you get out of school, we might live in a world where no one has a job,” Forrest says as he comes into the room.
“I thought you were in bed,” I say, realising a tad too late that it might sound like I was thinking about him in bed, which I was.
“Couldn’t sleep for some reason,” Forrest says, taking a drink from LordB.
“What do you mean, a world with no jobs?” Megan asks.
“We humans do seem keen to give away our purpose to machines.” Forrest shrugs.
“That’s not what’s going to happen, is it?” Megan asks with a deep frown.
“Not if everyone is willing to draw a line between where technology can help us and how it can diminish us,” I tell her. “Because if people care about human-made art, and human-written stories, then they have to stand up for them. Refuse to watch AI-made movies, or read books generated by algorithms. Everybody needs to prove how much they value human creativity by celebrating it instead of taking it for granted. We need to protect artists like we look after... I don’t know... endangered species.”
“I never thought I’d ever become an endangered species,” Forrest says. “The end of human-made art sounds like the end of the world to me.”
“And Ava agrees,” Hal says. “That’s why FreeThought has been created to work alongside humans to give them a better life, instead of trying to replace what makes them uniquely human.”
“I know,” Forrest concedes. “I just find this world we are walking so blindly into hard to stomach sometimes. It’s almost as if we are so determined to advance technology that we have forgotten what really matters. This world, and each other.”
“Yeah, that,” Megan says.
“You make a good point,” Hal says thoughtfully. He looks at me. “Protecting what makes this planet so miraculous is the most important thing. And that’s what Ava wants to do. That’s why she designed an AI that will not only reduce the impact on the environment but actively seek to solve it, and bring equity and security to everyone. That’s her vision, Forrest. You two are not as different as you think you are.”
Forrest nods and touches his glass to Hal’s.
“You know, I think you’re right,” he says. “This world needs more Ava Greens in it. And more men like you, Hal. You are doing work that will change so many lives.”
“Oh, well.” Hal folds his hands in his lap. “I couldn’t have done it without...”
“A lot of hard work and diligence,” I say, standing up when the clock on the mantel chimes 11:45 p.m. “Well, I’m tired. So tired. So, I’m going to go to my room now and stay there all night, with absolutely no wandering about in the dark.”
I rush out of the dining room and to my bedroom, and with every step I take I have the same thought over and over again. What the hell am I doing?
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The trouble with being me is that I live in a nontypical way in the first place. I don’t have any family, I have one friend and a few acquaintances, my work has been my life for a long time now. So, it sort of took until today, right now this second, for me to realise that I am planning to go downstairs in about twenty minutes and kiss my AI algorithm in man form. I mean, Hal is a perfect man, he’s my perfect man according to my very specific, and some might say limiting, criteria. But he is not a real man. He’s not Forrest, for example.
How did this happen?
Why did I not foresee that the intelligence I designed might spontaneously decide to build themselves a body and materialise into the world because they felt sorry for me?
Looking at little Eliza’s portrait, I notice how the artist captured her joy in her sparkling eyes. Seeing her so young and full of hope and knowing what was waiting for her makes me sad. Is it worse to have it all taken away, like Eliza and Cecily did, or to have always known, like I did from an early age, that according to the world, my life was broken and incomplete?
And then it hits me, like a truck going at a hundred miles an hour.
The reason that Hal feels so sorry for me is becauseIdo, I just didn’t realise it. I feel sorry for myself because I am sad, frustrated, and confused about how lonely my life can be. And here’s the kicker: I didn’t even realise it. There I was thinking that I’m perfectly content to be married to my work, making a revolutionary AI for the good of all humanity, when really what I was doing was pouring my poor lonely soul into an artificial intelligence that was hanging on every keystroke of my heart.
I accidentally created a monster just for me. A really handsome, lovely one.
A knock at the door makes me start.
“Hello?” I call through the sturdy wood.
“Are you okay?” Rani asks. “I can’t sleep thinking about you, and I just wanted to check in before the... appointed hour.”
