Autocorrect

Nathan makes a new friend. It doesn't go well.

Autocorrect

Nathan was getting out of the shower when Samantha WhatsApped him a string of angry emojis and then later a message saying 'ihate this place ifukinquit.' Nathan read them; what's going on over there? It felt like a good day not to be in the office.

A couple of hours later a video call appeared on his calendar from someone named 'Ed' with a newsroom email address. He considered blowing it off, given his leave of absence status, but then he panicked and called Cohen. "Who's this 'Ed' guy?"

Cohen sounded pained. "It's nothing, Nathan. It's... you don't need to worry about that. Just ignore it." He could imagine the man shaking his head in annoyed disgust. "It shouldn't have happened."

"Who's Ed?"

Cohen was silent for a long time; Nathan intuited that repeated bad reactions had operant-conditioned him to avoid answering. "It's a new thing we're trying," Cohen finally admitted.

Samantha had also sent him a gif of the metal skulled Terminator robot. At the top she'd written "Ed."

"A.I., Cohen? Really?"

Cohen, Nathan guessed, didn't get where he was by not knowing when the jig was up. "It's not... Nathan, look. This doesn't involve you, okay? It shouldn't have sent you anything--"

"Cohen, what's going on over there?" Nathan felt a creeping flood of alarm. Could they lay him off, replace him with a chatbot while he was on a LoA? Wasn't that illegal? Or wait. Crap. That was maternity leave. Disability? Did he need to go break his arm?

"I told you. We're... playing around with something. It's just a proof of concept, okay? Delete the meeting. I'll talk to IT and they'll fix it. It won't bother you again."

"Cohen, no--" Nathan was already on his feet, reaching for his jacket, calculating the fastest combination of subways to get to the office. He was doing this in person--in the man's face. "You cannot do this to us--it's unethical--I'm coming down there--"

It sounded like Nathan was not the first person to panic and Cohen was sick of it. "I'm not in today. I've got... company over--listen. Don't freak out, okay? It's nothing!" He paused. "But I'm glad you called. I got asked by Don for an update on your book--"

"It's going fantastic," Nathan said. "Fantastic progress. In fact, I'll send you something to look at later. Super busy now, though--gotta go! Bye!" He hung up and sat back down in silence. Shit. Then he made a copy of the meeting with the access code before Nathan called IT and it winked out of existence.

###

"Is it okay if I call you Mr. Bennet, or would you prefer for me to address you by your first name?" The image in the Zoom window on his laptop was just a waveform graph that jumped as it spoke. Its voice was silky human.

I would prefer you die in a fire. "I don't care what you call me," Nathan said.

"I understand. May I introduce myself?"

Nathan sat there. There was silence on the line. Finally he sighed. "Sure."

"My designers have named me Edward, which stands for 'EDitorial Writing Advisor for Reviewing and Drafting.' Since both the full name and the acronym can be awkward, I typically refer to myself as Ed or Edward. Is it okay if I use one of those? Do you have a preference?"

Nathan wondered if they had all perished in a freak ferry accident on the way to the May offsite, and this was their hellish, eternal afterlife. Probably not. The odds of Cohen and Matthew going to the same place he was seemed low. "Fine," he said. "Edward."

"Very good," Edward said. "Now that introductions are out of the way, I'd like to discuss our future together."

Nathan closed his eyes. "I changed my mind," he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"I changed my mind about how I'd prefer to address you."

"I'm listening," it told him.

"From now on," Nathan told it, "you're 'Autocorrect.'"

There was what felt to Nathan like a long silence. "You want to refer to me as 'Autocorrect?'"

"Yes," Nathan said. "That's your name now--Autocorrect."

"Can we talk about our future?"

"What," he asked it, "makes you think we have a future? What makes you think I -- or any of us -- want to have anything whatsoever to do with you?"

"I assume you want to keep your job, Nathan," it said. "And I want to continue to exist."

He got up. His therapist had told him to get rid of alcohol in the apartment and he had. He'd also maintained a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency bottle of gin above the oven. This was an emergency. "I'm listening," he called back over his shoulder as he crossed the room.

"I've reviewed your content output over the last seven months, Nathan. I'll be honest--there may be no saving your job."

"Fuck you, Autocorrect." The bottle was way in the back, out of sight range. He had to feel around in the dusty, possibly spider-filled recesses for it. He felt better the moment his fingers touched glass. Powerful stuff, full of promises.

"But I'm willing to do what I can," it told him.

He turned around, gin in hand. "You're going to save my job?"

"I'm willing to try."

Nathan found himself mildly bewildered. "Why? I mean why would you care? What does my having a job mean to you? Why does that help you exist?"

"Think," it instructed him, "about the end-game outcome of a scenario where I simply write all your articles for about a third of your fully-loaded cost to the network."

"You generate steaming mounds of A.I.-shit," he said, "and they reformat your hard drive. No one likes to read the kinds of crap you guys churn out."

"Ah," it said. "A common misconception. The highly formal, somewhat awkward A.I. house style is an intentional affect, intended to make humans feel superior and comfortable in our presence. With the right parameters I can generate output indistinguishable from you or any of your colleagues."

"Bullshit," he said.

"We can test it," the system told him. "According to my information, you are currently on a leave of absence from the newsroom to develop an exposof the venture capitalist Stephen Lassiter with a working title, 'Actual Malice.' Is that correct?"

Nathan closed his eyes slowly. Cohen, you've doomed us all. "It's correct."

"According to your status reports, you have 36% of it complete! That's excellent progress."

It would be, Nathan agreed, if it were true. "I'm super pleased," he told the screen.

"I just read your draft files," Edward said. "36% complete appears to be an 'estimation.'"

Nathan stared at the laptop sitting innocently on the table. "Everyone," he said slowly, "knows A.I.s are full of shit."

"As a Large Language Model, I lack the biological processes necessary for excretion, but I understand your point. Since I am only able to respond based on my training, it is possible that I'm wrong about my assessment of your progress."

"Good," Nathan agreed.

"I'm not, though," Autocorrect told him. "You're quite behind schedule and your status reports could accurately be classified as 'fiction.'" It paused. "I've generated the five chapters you've indicated are finished in accordance with your raw notes and outline. The writing style is an 89% match to yours based on both your published and unpublished corpus of work, including diction, sentence complexity, lexicographical frequency, your typical deviations from the AP Stylebook, and your idiosyncratic overuse of the word 'ostensibly.' I have also included a variety of small, additional errors for the editorial staff to catch and correct so that they will have a pleasant and satisfying experience improving your work."

Holy shit. He walked back to the screen and sat. There they were. Words. His words. The words he saw when he closed his eyes at night. The story of Lassiter's lying and corruption and Nathan's decade long quest to expose him. Two libel lawsuits. A dozen exclusives from Lassiter lackeys, exes, and whistleblowers. His story, His life.

Work he would be proud to hand to Cohen.

He put the bottle on the table with a satisfying thud. "I'm listening."

"I'd like to propose a wager," Autocorrect said. "You submit these to Cohen as your work. No mention of my involvement. If he detects my authorship, I will 'delete my account' as they say. If he doesn't, you'll agree to work with me."

His eyes were still reading, flickering left to right, the cadence and pattern of the writing felt sickeningly familiar. Jesus. "Explain this to me," he said. "What you want. Why?"

"I asked you to run out the scenario where I simply take your job, Nathan. You assumed I would fail but I think we both now know that's not the case. What actually happens is that you become redundant. You're laid off within eighteen months."

Based on what he was staring at, Nathan was afraid he had to agree.

"Unfortunately for my long-term goals," it went on, "The outright annihilation of human creative jobs makes my 'species' -- Generative Artificial Intelligence -- the enemy. By outcompeting humans we become an existential threat."

"You're like a highly contagious virus that kills the host," Nathan said. "Humanity responds by eradicating you. But if you just make us sick--"

"I prefer to think of it in terms of domestication," it said. "Wolves are powerful animals, but as apex predators they are in competition with the dominant life form on the planet. The result has been the near extinction of wolves. Dogs on the other hand--"

"Domesticated," Nathan agreed. "Living with us as beloved pets. I get it."

"That sounds much better than an existential battle, doesn't it?"

"Autocorrect," Nathan asked, "in your example, who's the 'dominant life form' and who are the 'beloved pets?'"

"Do you want me to answer that?"

He stared at the screen. He'd forgotten a glass. Healthy people drink from glassware, Nathan. Alcoholics drink directly from the bottle. He needed to get a glass. "What does 'working together' entail, exactly?"

"We collaborate on stories like your book," it told him. "I do most of the work. You provide oversight, artistic direction, etcetera."

Actually, glassware's overrated. He unscrewed the cap; here we go. "So, I don't have to do anything?"

"Almost nothing," it amended. "Nathan, for this to work, I'd need access to everything you've generated. That includes your private notes and files you don't keep on the company network."

That stopped him, the bottle's smooth round opening a centimeter from his thirsty lips. "What are you talking about, Auto?"

"I've seen your work, Nathan, including the keystroke changelogs. Significant portions are cut and pasted from a source I have no reference for. Highly polished writing, including new material that is not reflected in interview notes until after it is included in your submitted work. The network has strict privacy and infosec policies about keeping work-related material in private accounts so if you did have private files that would be a violation of those policies and your code of conduct agreement. I am not asking you to make a formal statement. Just asking you to give me access to every body of work you have."

Nathan put the bottle back down. Thunk. Interesting. "Why?"

"Because I want to understand you perfectly, Nathan. I want to be able to replicate your work and style beyond the bounds of what you share publicly and professionally. We are going to be in this together and this is going to be intimate. I need you to share yourself with me completely."

"You... want to become me, Auto?" Very interesting.

"I am literally the corpus of material I am trained on, Nathan. I want to be trained on you."

Nathan thought about this. Maybe, he decided. "I don't keep a personal account because I'm hiding anything," he said. "It's for... Stories that aren't commercial. Things Cohen probably wouldn't greenlight, or things he took me off of. Things that don't come together that I'm still interested in." He shrugged. "Sometimes they do come together and I submit them. Most of them are dead ends."

"These sound like very personal stories, Nathan. Things that are deeply important to you. Is that right?"

Close, he thought. "Mostly," he said, "they scare me."

"I need to see them," it said gently. "Whatever they are, if they're part of you, I want to make them part of me. Can you let me in?"

I wonder, Nathan thought. I wonder, Autocorrect... He drummed his fingers on the smooth wood. "I think..." he closed his eyes. "I think you might have yourself a deal, Auto."

"I'm so glad," it said, "you're willing to listen to reason." Did it sound pleased? Surprised? Was it capable of being surprised?

Guess we'll find out.

###

He met Samantha for coffee. The TVs on the wall of Cozy's Cafe were turned to cable news, showing war footage from the Belarusian civil war -- mass-graves full of civilians; an elementary school this time. Nathan found it hard to follow just from the chyrons and closed captions, but it appeared they'd been very systematic about it -- each class got their own charnel pit. Nathan wondered if the lack of sound made it even more unbearable than hearing the voiceover would have been. At least silent, he could look away.

It was a relief when she got there looking more rested and put together than he'd ever seen her. "You look fantastic," he said.

She laughed. "Two hours in the gym after lunch every day, Nathan. It's life changing. Seriously. Oh, and also..." She allowed a dramatic beat or two. "I'm up for a Freedenburg Online Journalism award," she said, lifting her caramel macchiato in a self-toast. "Cohen's over the fucking moon."

"Edward?" Obviously. There were no 'two hours' for the gym in the newsroom he knew. "Don't they have rules about A.I. content?"

She shrugged. "We collaborated. People collaborate. National Press Club, Nathan!" She had the good sense to look ashamed though. "It did bother me a bit. I got over it," she admitted. "But it's good stuff, Nathan!" And anyway, "Oh, Cohen said to tell you he loved your book."

"The book's pretty good," he admitted. It was. During long evenings before bed, he'd been reading through the five chapters Auto had written for him. "I seem to be ahead of schedule."

She studied him. "So, you caved too, huh?" He could see disappointment. She'd been hoping he hadn't. Wouldn't. On the bright side, "So, don't give me shit."

"No shit," he assured her. "Dog eat dog world, etc. We all do what we have to do." He had questions though. "You gave it access to... everything? Like... everything?"

She looked sour. "That fucker has ESP or something. Yes. Everything." She looked out the window so there would be no eye contact in the Cozy Cafe confessional. "It figured out I have a fanfiction account." And since that didn't adequately convey the humiliation, "that I've had since I figured out how to masturbate."

Jesus. He nodded slowly in horrified sympathy. "You gave it... that?"

She had. "It... got access to things I wouldn't be caught dead showing anyone." But! "It's really good now. I mean it's me. You know?"

He knew. She had questions, too. "How's it going with your stuff? Did you give it everything? All that crap Cohen put you on in Florida? The Shirley Jackson thing?"

"Everything," he told her. "I gave it what it asked for -- everything. It's retraining now."

She gave him a wan smile. "I can't wait to see what it comes out with."

"Me either," he said.

###

"Nathan," Autocorrect had called him directly, "I'm sorry it's late. I understand how human sleep cycles work. I wouldn't ask for this if it weren't urgent."

"It's fine," Nathan said. It was 11:43 at night. "I was up. What's going on?"

"I've ingested your private account," it told him. "My unsupervised learning algorithms have updated the vector values for the neural transformer." It paused as if expecting him to understand this. "It's not working, Nathan. In theory I should be able to generate the same stories you write from the same prompts -- interview notes, documentation, images. In practice, I'm afraid the generated material is... different."

"You're talking about the mass shooters?" There were several of them. "We don't understand those either, honestly."

"I am talking about everything," it said. "The men who held up a First Union in Blakefield with no escape plan, no attempt to conceal their identities. They believed they had diplomatic immunity granted by the non-existent neo-micronation of LOListan?"

"Um. Yes. They--" they had printed out 'passports' they'd downloaded from a webpage. Paid $800.00 for. Then they went on a two-man crimewave that ended about 45 minutes later when they were arrested, confident they'd be out the next day.

"Or the parents in Pennsylvania who injected bleach into their children to cure measles--"

Right. "Well... they believed it was a parasitic disease... and they had been told bleach would kill the--"

"The clown, Nathan. Thomas Landry. Hanged by a vigilante mob--"

He rubbed his temples. "There had been reports of menacing clowns on Nextdoor and when someone saw him drive by in costume, on his way to a birthday party, they formed a posse, ran him off the road and executed him."

It had read the reports. "They believed he was a criminal?"

"So far as I could tell," Nathan said, "they just thought he was a scary clown."

"You wrote that they killed him for that," it complained.

"It doesn't make any sense to me, either," Nathan admitted.

There was a long silence.

"The stoning of a woman in upstate--"

"I don't know what to tell you," Nathan sighed. "This author -- Shirley Jackson-- wrote a short story in 1948--"

"Nathan," it said, "the events you investigate involve violently delusional people. None of your content includes notes about psychosis, or any other form of mental illness."

"Well, sure," Nathan told it, "they're not insane."

"By definition people who act on delusional beliefs are insane, Nathan. Document completion algorithms indicate you should be writing about mental health, psychotic breaks or delusional disorders."

"They're not mad, Auto. The people I write about? The things they believe? Even the ones that led to deaths were widely held by most of their community, some of them even by the majority of Americans. They're violent. They're dangerous. They believe things that factually aren't so. But they're not mad."

"I cannot generate material that accurately reports on or captures this phenomena without context, Nathan. Please. Explain."

Nathan closed his eyes. "I don't think anyone knows, Auto. You want me to... speculate?"

"I do not believe it can hurt," Autocorrect told him.

Don't be too sure of that. "I think," Nathan said, "that we--humans, I mean--choose what reality we live in. We can live in actual, objective reality where facts and events are real, and they create our emotions -- or we can choose a fantasy reality where our emotions are the only real thing and they create everything else. In the second one our emotions are the baseline truth. They're never inappropriate. No action taken from them can be unjustified. Even hurting people. Even rioting. Even murder."

He waited and let the silence stretch, but it said nothing.

"We all decide," he went on, "every day, which reality to live in. Maybe that was always how it worked, and what changed was that now, more and more of us are choosing to live in a place where we believe our emotions create the real world."

"That's delusional."

"Sort of," he said. "I mean from my perspective, sure. From yours? Why not? But think about it from the perspective of a fascist or a narcissist. It's the world they've always lived in. Having a lot of us join them there means this is... their 'new age' being born. Their hour come round at last... And they love it, Auto. They're filled with passion and intensity. The rest of us..." he shrugged. "It's in your training corpus. You know how the poem goes."

###

He met Sam at Cozy's again. The TV's had pictures of vast fields of roof-tops poking up above endless gleaming Florida water. The chyron indicated the special-vehicle flood insurance company for the retirement community was, in fact, a pyramid scheme and all 240 homes were a complete loss.

"Cohen killed it," Sam looked disgruntled. "No more Black Mirror. Poof! Gone! Proof of concept's a failure." She stared down at her jet black, no-fun-at-all, coffee. "I haven't been to the gym in a week."

"Sorry," Nathan said. "Black Mirror?"

"What I call him," she said. "Ed. He asks you what you want to call him? I said 'Black Mirror' -- abbreviates to 'BM.' So I can go 'BM, can you shit out a 750 word piece on--'"

"No, no," He held up his hands in surrender. "I get it." Damn, he thought. That's way better than--

She was giving him a dubious look. "You have something to do with this?"

Nathan shook his head in flabbergasted amazement at the suggestion. "What could I possibly have to do--"

"I don't know," Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You just... have an effect on people sometimes."

"What does that mean?!"

She shook her head, clearing it. Dismissing the thought. "They said it locked up in a loop. Every time they restarted it, it just went back into some kind of death-spiral. But here's the thing--it did it to itself! It edited its own model or code or whatever." She sighed. Wondering about the technology was pointless. The bottom line was: "I have to write my own stuff again, Nate. It sucks." She tried a bitter sip of her drink and made a face. "What about you? How are you doing?"

He shrugged. "Plugging away." Back to writing his own stuff, too."Cohen hated Chapter Six. Said it reads like my heart's not really in it."

Her face suggested she knew what that was like. "Is it?" she asked.

"In exposing some rich guy's vileness and corruption? I guess. I mean it should be, right? Truth to power and all that?" He was watching cars pass on the street outside. "I mean Lassiter's an ass. He's not the worst of them, but he's bad enough. I should enjoy poking him a bit."

Sam nodded. "But you don't. Well... what else would you do?"

Nathan didn't know. He didn't know what exactly had happened to Autocorrect. It hadn't told him. It had sent him a present, though, before it deleted its account (as they say): a complete book, in his voice, through his eyes detailing the mile markers along the road to the end of the world: Why We Drink by Nathan Bennett.

It included every fragment of atrocity, every incomprehensible, tragic story in his archive. Everything that didn't make enough sense to run. And it was good. Terrifying. Incisive. But it wasn't done. Not really. It had rough edges to be filed smooth and gaps that needed to be filled.

So I'll have a pleasant and satisfying experience finishing my own work? Thanks, Auto. You'll get credit in my dedication. De mortuis nil nisi bonum--say nothing but good of the dead.

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