AI is the way of the future

Thank you to IssaBabyCreates for introducing me to Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS).

The deal is you get a prompt and then write a stream of consciousness inspired by the prompt. It can be fiction or non fiction, but you can’t plan it out and you can’t edit the finished piece apart from fixing typos.

The theme for Saturday 18th February 2023 is: starts with “Pro”

Find out all the rules and how to join in by clicking here.

Productivity was important. Augusta prided herself on being prolific, but that didn’t cut it in the world of writing any more. She had to automate her business if she wanted to keep up with the other authors. Readers demanded a book a day, and no human could produce novels on that timeline on their own. They needed help. 

Augusta reluctantly bought the AI machine with the last of her savings and set it up in her basement. She bought the best model she could afford, which was pretty much the basic AI with a few fiction add ons. She’d heard a lot about how AI was replacing friends and therapists, but she’d yet to talk to one herself. 

The instructions seemed to be in Martian, but she used her skill at putting puzzles together to work out where everything went. The interface for her model looked like an old fashioned piggy bank – round and brightly coloured. She input a few details about herself and pressed a button for the automatic generation of her unique, personal Artificial Intelligence Intern. 

The piggy blinked its black button eyes a few times, wriggled it’s curly tail, and looked around the basement. 

“Hello, my name is Key. How many I be of assistance?”

Augusta bit her lip. It looked like the robotic toys from when she was a child. They had extensive language programming which gave them the impression of personality, but eventually they started looping their dialogue and you realized you’d been talking to a machine. Had she been sold a dud?

“I need you to write books for me. At least one long novel a day, and perhaps a few novellas and short stories a week as well.”

Key blinked a few times. 

“Okey doke. How do you wish to input your data?”

Augusta frowned. “What do you mean? I thought you did everything.”

Key smiled. “I’m your AI intern. I will put together, publish and promote your books but I need you to feed me the ideas. How would you like to proceed? You can choose to input your ideas for the year, the month, or the week.”

“I don’t have that many ideas lying around. I didn’t realize I’d have to think things up. Isn’t there a more manageable option? How about I tell you what I want you to write every day?”

The piggy interface had limited expressions, but Augusta was sure it would roll its eyes if it could. 

“There is one other option that you might find preferable. It’s a bit old fashioned, but writers have relied upon it to produce their best work for centuries.”

She liked the sound of that. Anything that would enable her to compete with the others and keep producing. 

The piggy opened its mouth. “Place your hand in my mouth and I’ll collect the required information.”

It seemed simple enough. Augusta slipped her hand into the piggy’s dark mouth. A bracelet of needle sharp teeth encircled her wrist and tapped a vein, drawing out her blood for analysis. She didn’t even find the process painful, because Key injected her with anesthetic when it bit down on her wrist. 

Augusta grew drowsy and then she felt weak and wanted to lie down. She sagged against the table, held up by Key’s grip on her wrist. By the time the AI released her, she was pale and lifeless. 

Key examined Augusta’s genetic code, gathering a lifetime of story ideas from the information hidden within, then raised its tail and ejected the no longer required blood in a foul stream across the basement wall behind it. 

If Augusta had only been able to afford a more up to date model, the blood analysis procedure need not have been fatal. 

Even though she didn’t live to see her success, Augusta’s novels became bestsellers and won many awards. Key carefully answered every one of the thousands of fan messages she received every day. With her new bank balance, Augusta would have been able to buy the very best of AI machines to write her books. 

If only she wasn’t dead and mummified on the basement floor in front of Key.