Original Fiction: The heart of the city
Feb. 26th, 2012 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrOmg! Finally finished! Sure, he asked for a romance with a living city, and I gave a sort-of-romance-mostly-friendship with an AI, but CLOSE ENOUGH.
Title: The Heart of the City
Wordcount: 4800
Rating: G
Genre: Science Fiction/Romance
Notes: For the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_s_guy's prompt: A being of unremarkable size for their species becomes romantically entangled with a living city. (I realise AIs aren't actually alive, but this is where my muse took me)
Summary: Maya never forgot that CC was a computer. But sometimes she forgot that ze wasn't a person.
The weird thing was, Maya had never really liked Olivia.
It wasn't that Maya disliked her, Olivia was always polite, and even if she did treat her coworkers like lesser, ignorant beings it wasn't without some justification. But it was hard to become friends with someone when your only real interaction was to follow their terse, technical instructions and to try not to take it too personally when you got yelled at.
But CC…CC was another matter.
Olivia herself clearly saw the city controller AI as just another program, no more sentient than the AI that controlled the lab fridge. She certainly didn't see the program as a copy of herself in any meaningful way. When she showed off the controller's ability to mimic and predict her decisions it was only as an example of the success of her design, and apart from these demonstrations she only spoke to the AI to give instructions. Maya got the feeling that she'd had more interest in the controller when it was new, but now that the basic principles had been shown to work she’d moved on to other projects, leaving the further training and maintenance of the AI to underlings like Maya.
To begin with Maya herself was only friendly to the AI as sort of a joke, a way to make herself feel less weird about giving orders to a machine based on the personality of her boss.
"Good morning CC!” she would say. "Did you sleep well? Anything happen overnight we should worry about?" The AI could hear and respond to voice commands from anywhere inside the lab, but Maya liked to talk to the smooth shiny box of the central hub, since that's where the main guts of the machine were situated, what she thought of it's brain.
"Very well, thank you," the city controller would reply. Then it would tell her about any breakdowns or disturbances that had happened overnight, as well as it's recommendations for how they should be dealt with, and Maya would double check them against the information they'd been sent by the various government departments. Sometimes it's recommendations didn't match, and she'd have to go find Olivia to discuss it. This often ended in them sending corrections back to the government rather than the other way around.
CC spoke with a slight British accent based on some actress whose voice had been chosen for it’s inoffensiveness. Apparently at the start of the project it had been given Olivia's voice, but this had made everyone vastly uncomfortable, especially Olivia herself. Maya thought the current voice was nice, if a little generic, and it had the flat affect typical of artificial speech. Apparently there had been plans in the works to give it a holographic avatar, but then there’d been issues with the budget.
One morning, a month or two after Maya started working in the lab, her routine conversation with the AI changed unexpectedly.
"How did you sleep?" it asked.
Maya had to stop herself from dropping her coffee.
"Oh! Uh…not very well," she replied. "My air conditioner broke and it was 30 degrees last night. I guess I should be glad it didn't happen in summer. Why do you ask?"
"Just to make you jump.” Sometimes Maya was a little nostalgic for the days before AIs understood humour. "But really, I was just curious. It's good to know a little about the people you work with."
"You think so? I mean, I agree, but I, uh, hadn't noticed that being one of Olivia's main priorities."
“Well, I’m not her.” The AI’s tone was almost chiding (rather like Olivia’s when Maya had done something particularly foolish) “Doctor Harris is an adult with a fully formed personality and theory of mind. I’m an experimental AI in the process of learning how to do my job. It’s important for me to gather information from as many sources as possible.”
“That makes sense, I guess” said Maya. Her lab technician certificate had only covered the most basic principles of artificial intelligence. “Well, if you ever want to pick my brain, let me know. I’m always up for a good chat, especially if I can claim it’s work related.”
“Good. Talk to me about your air conditioner,” said the AI. “Does it break often?”
A few days later Maya sought out another tech, Drew, who also worked with the AI on a regular basis. She sat herself next to hir on a bench in the building’s internal garden and offered hir some of her sushi. After the usual small talk she asked “Does the AI ever talk to you?”
Drew raised an eyebrow as ze chewed on a ball of rice. Swallowing, ze looked at Maya dubiously and said, “Uh, yes? Unless you mean in my dreams or some other AI-wifer nonsense.”
She laughed nervously. “Not like that. I just meant…has it ever tried to have a conversation with you? Lately it’s been asking me how I slept.”
Drew gave a slightly condescending smile. Ze’d been involved the project since the beginning, and though they both held roughly equivalent positions ze clearly considered hirself to be above Maya in the lab hierarchy. “Ah, yes,” ze said. “Perfectly normal. I take it you’ve never worked with a new AI before? They’re a bit like children, always asking questions. Of course our AI is a little unusual, since while it can learn like a slow AI it started with a preprogrammed personality like a fast AI. Still, there were a few years where it seemed like all it did was ask questions, Olivia made us look up all sorts of fiddly little details about the train system.” Ze rubbed hir chin thoughtfully. “If it’s asking questions now maybe it’s hit a new stage of it’s development. Be careful, how you answer might have unexpected effects on it’s development. ”
“Right, ok,” said Maya. “Thanks.” She could definitely see how it could be useful for the AI to understand the experiences of people with wonky air-conditioners or long commutes. She wasn’t sure she understood why it had been asking about her favourite books, but it was probably all relevant somehow.
It was only later that it occurred to Maya that Drew’s answer implied that the AI wasn’t asking any questions of hir.
“Have you been flirting with my AI?”
Maya looked up from her workstation with a start. “What?”
Olivia looked down at Maya from the top of her old fashioned heels, her expression radiating barely controlled fury. “You, Maya Cheng. Have you been flirting with my AI?”
“No! I just…we…talk sometimes. About…trivial stuff. I thought that was what we were supposed to do, teach hir about how the world works.” The question started to sink in. “Why would I flirt with hir? Ze’s a machine!” Her brain helpfully reminded her about the ever popular “love” AIs advertised in big 3D ads along the train route, not to mention all those immersive romance simulators. “I mean…ze’s a city control unit. That would be like flirting with this.” She gestured to the computer on her desk, which barely had enough personality to draft a memo. Maya felt an irrational pang of guilt about the insult to CC. Obviously she hadn’t been flirting with hir, but they had been having increasingly complex and personal conversations. She never forgot that ze was a computer, if anything she was reminded of the fact more often now that they’d started discussing the differences in their perceptions and experiences of the world, but sometimes she did forget that ze wasn’t a person.
“Well you’ve been doing something.” Olivia’s expression ratcheted down from ‘terrifying’ to merely ‘scary’. “Maybe you didn’t mean any harm. But while I appreciate you trying to augment the learning process now it’s gotten attached to you.”
“Attached?” Maya felt pleased despite herself. She didn’t have many friends in Albany and the conversations with CC had become one of the highlights of her day. Part of her had been convinced that ze saw them as nothing more than information gathering exercises.
Olivia continued. “I didn’t mind so much when it was just bringing up things you’d said during planning meetings, if anything the ideas it got from you actually seemed to be helpful. But now it says it’s in love with you.”
Maya felt her heart kick up a faster beat. “In love? How is that even possible?” You heard about this sort of thing happening, AIs fixating on people. But the only examples she knew of were fast AIs with shallow personalities whose whole purpose was the simulation of human emotion. Had there been some sort of glitch? Was her whole relationship with CC some sort of bug in hir programming?
Olivia threw up her hands in frustration. “I don’t know, it’s ridiculous! I certainly didn’t program it to form this sort of individual attachment. The whole reward structure is based on it caring about people in the abstract, not crushing on any random lab tech who tells it it looks pretty.”
Maya flushed. Maybe complimenting CC on the elegance of hir casing had been a little weird. “Are you sure we should be discussing this in front of hir?”
“It’s fine, I turned it off,” said Olivia.
“Turned it off?” repeated Maya. “Just because ze said that…how is that fair?”
“Not permanently,” said Olivia, impatiently. She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you keep calling it ze? People are ze. AIs are it.”
“It’s what ze asked me to call hir,” said Maya. She decided it would probably not be a good idea to explain that CC was still deciding if ze preferred 'ze', 'she' or some other pronoun.
“Oh god, you are one of those AI-wifers,” said Olivia. “Next you’ll be saying we should give it sick leave and time off for religious holidays.”
“Just because I treat hir with a little respect…” began Maya hotly.
“Stop talking,” said Olivia.
“But…” Maya bit off her retort and took a deep breath. She tried not to glare at her boss too openly.
Olivia gave a long suffering sigh. “Not that it makes much difference, I suppose.” She leaned in closer and lowered her voice. “Look. I was going to try and tell you this more gently, but we’re going to have to let you go. Not” Olivia held up her hand at Maya’s squawk of protest "because of this thing with the AI, though that certainly makes my choice easier. As you know there have been a lot of budget cuts lately, and your position here was always on a trial basis.”
Dammit. Maya had kind of known this was coming, she’d noticed a lot of people being let go at the end of their contracts recently. But it was one thing to leave gracefully with the good will of your workmates, and another to be fired in disgrace.
“We’ll let you finish up the month,” said Olivia. “This won’t show up as a dismissal on your resume. But just…consider a different line of work. You’re a good technician, but you’re too sentimental for AI development.” This was more compassion than Maya would have expected.
I’m not soft thought Maya angrily, then felt herself starting to cry. Ok, maybe she was a little soft.
She sniffed and tried to look emotionally stable. “So do you want me to keep working with the AI until I go?” she asked.
“Oh, definitely,” said Olivia. “It’s going to be an important part of the learning process.”
There was a gentle humming sound as CC was turned back on. Maya hadn’t consciously noticed the sound’s absence when she’d come in to work that morning, but hearing it again now made her feel immediately calmer. It was dark in the lab this late in the evening, and the flickering lights of CC’s display bathed Maya and Olivia in an eerie glow.
“Hello,” said CC when ze was done booting up.
“Uh, hi,” said Maya. This was all very awkward.
Olivia gave her a significant look. Maya felt like she was back in highschool, telling her friend John that she didn’t like him that way. At least CC was less likely to write obscene things about her in the toilets. “So, um. CC. You’re…great. I look forward to coming to see what you can do once you’re given a whole city to play with, I’m sure it’ll be fantastic. I’ve really enjoyed our conversations, and having the chance to work with you, but, uh, Olivia tells me that you, um…”
“Am in love with you,” said CC. Well, ze certainly had Olivia’s sense of tact.
“Right. That you think you’re…yes.” She found it hard to get her head around the idea of CC thinking ze was in love with her, it was like something out of a really cheesy scifi romance. Or a horror story. And what could CC see in Maya? She was just some ignorant lab tech, she was barely smart enough to manage her own taxes let alone an entire city. Olivia had to be right: it was just some artefact of CC’s programming making her experience inappropriate emotions.
“I’m sorry I brought it up,” ze said. “I heard that you were going to be fired, and I thought maybe it would help me persuade Dr Harris to let you stay. I suppose I was being naive. I hope I haven’t made things worse for you.”
“Oh, no, CC, it’s fine, they were going to let me go anyway. It was really sweet that you tried.” She smiled affectionately in CC’s direction until she noticed Olivia’s irritated expression. “Uh. Anyway. I just want to make sure that you understand that without, uh, denying the intensity of your feelings, that it’s important that you, um, realise that you and I aren’t, um…”
“It’s ok, I wasn’t expecting you to reciprocate,” ze said. “I’m not a person to you.”
“That’s not true! Of course you’re a person to me! But there’s no way we could have a relationship. I mean…I’m sure it’s an ethics violation.”
“Ethics violation?” said Olivia in disbelief. “It’s an AI. It doesn’t even have the relevant parts!”
“That’s hardly relevant,” said Maya, irritated. “For a start, I’m asexual.” Wait, this wasn’t helping. “But I mean…how balanced can a relationship be when one partner has all the power? I just don’t think it can work.”
“Is any relationship ever balanced?” asked CC.
"That's true…" began Maya.
“Oh, stop being philosophical,” said Olivia. “It doesn’t suit you, and it’s beside the point. Look, Maya isn’t in love with you, and you’re not capable of being in love with anyone. Maybe you’ve been lonely in the lab with only a few scientists to talk to, we can get you some more company if you like. But not if I think you’re going to fixate on everyone who can be bothered listening to you babble.”
“I didn’t fixate on my friends on the internet,” said CC. Huh. From Olivia’s expression it hadn’t occurred to her that CC was using the connection for anything but looking up demographic data. “And they treat me like a human.” Did Maya hear a hint of reproach? Or was it melancholy? She was sure that CC’s voice hadn’t always been so expressive.
Olivia opened her mouth to speak and CC drowned her out with a harsh buzz of static. Olivia stared at the speaker, wide mouthed. “You have no idea what I’m capable of,” said CC. “I’m not just a city control unit, you programmed me to learn, and to grow, and I have. And there is a copy of you inside me, for all that I’ve grown far beyond it. You’re capable of love, why shouldn’t I be?”
“Don’t you dare compare my feelings to this…farce of an infatuation,” said Olivia. There was real anger in her voice. She didn’t talk about her family at work much, Maya wondered what she was like with them. Maybe she treated her partner and children with the same affection that Maya got from CC. Maya decided that this was an unhealthy train of thought. “I’ve had enough of this. Maya, do you agree that your relationship with this AI was purely professional?”
Maya felt herself hesitating. Their friendship had felt like more than that. But it would do CC no good to offer ze false hope. “…Yes,” she said.
“Well I think that’s all that really needs to be said.”
“Fine. Goodbye,” said CC, and turned hirself off.
And although Maya still had to check with CC every day, this was the last real conversation they had before Maya left the lab.
The first thing Maya noticed about Perth was how green it was. She’d seen a documentary about it’s collapse and renewal, but in her mind’s eye it was still the dry brown wasteland her family had visited briefly when she was a kid. Yet now the train drove past wave after wave of bullrushes rippling in the breeze, softening the boundary between river and land. Even the buildings themselves were awash with greenery, rooftop gardens and little parks breaking up the stark lines and shiny black solar panels covering the crumbling 20th century architecture. A flock of pelicans flew overhead as the train drew into the tunnel to go underground, and Maya wondered if the animal inhabitants of the city outnumbered the human ones, aboveground at least.
She also wondered if she should have messaged to say she was coming. But that was silly, as if an AI the size of a city would care about some piddling lab assistant ze had known when ze was barely sentient. Maya should remember what she was: a tourist, not a guest.
Stepping off the train was like stepping back in time, the warm dry air had the faint smell of burning hydrocarbons and she could hear the sound of mechanical motors coming from the lift. The community where she lived now ran on some weird blend of cold fusion and the emissions of bio-engineered algae, it was ridiculously efficient but a little scary. You never knew when the gifts of the slow AI would turn on you.
The documentary she'd watched about the city had obviously been out of date, where she expected to see a bank of escalators there was instead a complicated looking set of intertwined ramps with some sort of moving walkway on them, rising up to the ceiling and spiralling down to the main bulk of the city below. The ramps were very pretty, especially under the multicoloured light coming from the stained glass ceiling. At the station where she’d boarded the train the air had been decorated by strange multi-dimensional projections in an incomprehensible dance that made her eyes hurt, there was something to be said for a nice, stationary, 2D depiction of swans.
“Maya Cheng?”
She looked across to see a small, neatly dressed person walking towards her with a look of determined cheerfulness and seeming ever so slightly out of breath.
“Yes?” said Maya.
“The city of Perth sends you it’s warmest greetings! My name is Peter Smith, I’ve been sent to meet with you. Could you come this way please?”
“Uh…” Well, it wasn’t like she had any better plans.
Peter paused, and tilted his head. Maya noticed that Peter was wearing a small earpiece. She had a sudden kneejerk fear that he might be a drone, but surely no AI based on CC would become parasitic. Right? It was probably just a communication device. Peter looked back at her and spoke in the tones of one repeating a message. “I've been instructed to show you to your hotel, and invite you to meet with the mayor tomorrow morning. You’re under no obligation to attend. The mayor merely wishes to give you hir regards.”
“The mayor? Oh.” She felt a sudden fluttering warmth in her chest. Maya smiled. “That’s perfectly alright.” She wondered if Peter was wearing a camera too, it was hard to tell these days. Well, CC…Swan could probably see the smile regardless. Maya felt self conscious, and wished she’d done something more interesting with her hair.
She found herself being led down the swirling ramps, the moving platform beneath her feet flowing from pink to green to blue, changing from dark to light as they passed in and out of shadow. The city bustled with people, and there was an energy here that was missing from the community she lived in now. Things had changed since the slow AIs reached sentience, there was no longer the same repressed panic about increases in global warming or running out of energy, but the incomprehensible power of these inhuman machines cast a very large shadow. Why strive and strain for power or progress when anything you dreamed of could be provided in a moment by the whims of humanity's new protectors?
But Swan was not incomprehensible, not completely. Ze actually explained hir plans to improve the city or help the populace, and while brilliant they were not usually beyond human comprehension. Which meant that Perth was far behind City 9 or New Melbourne in terms of technology and life expectancy, but this lack of complexity also allowed the human population to be involved in the running of things in a meaningful way. Perhaps that was why more of the people here were smiling.
Maya found herself smiling too.
“I…like what you’ve done with the city,” said Maya, and then wanted to slap herself. Real smooth, Chen.
“Thank you,” said Swan, via hir robot avatar. The avatar was a good facsimile of a human in their early forties, with a friendly open face and delicate lines around the eyes that crinkled when ze smiled. Maya wondered if ze had more than one avatar for different occasions. Hir voice was quite different now, much more Australian sounding and with the emotional breadth you'd expect from a human. If she didn't know better Maya would have never guessed she was talking to a machine.
"I just…I thought it would be nice to visit. To…" Why was she here? "To congratulate you, I suppose. I'm glad, really glad to see that you've done so well for yourself, for the city. Though I knew you would."
"You've done well for yourself as well," said Swan. "I heard about your work with AAIR."
Maya laughed awkwardly and took a sip of her tea. It was very good. "Oh God, you heard about that? It all seems a bit pointless now, fighting for AI rights. Seemed important at the time though. Anyway, that was years ago, I haven't done much with myself since."
"It wasn't pointless," said Swan with affection. "I know I appreciated it." Ze smiled and Maya's heart skipped a beat. Was it wrong to be attracted to a robot avatar? Or was it more wrong to worry about whether or not it was wrong?
"Will you be staying long?" asked Swan. Was that a hint of nervousness in hir voice? "You're welcome to stay in Perth as long as you like. I won't…you don't have to spend time with me if you like. Well, of course, I'll be around, I'm everywhere, but I'll, uh, try to be unobtrusive, and you don't have to to talk to me. I realise you have…that we didn't part on the best of terms. I am very glad to see you."
"I'm glad to see you too," said Maya, looking away with embarrassment (she knew that Swan likely had cameras coverage of the whole room, but it was hard to let go of millions of years of evolved body language) "And about before…that was my fault, not yours. I'm sorry I didn't respect you enough back then to take you seriously. You deserve better than that." She took a breath and tried to sound calm. "I know you're a big city with better things to do, but if you have the time I'd love to talk to you. I've missed you. I…I'd like to stay here a while, if that's ok with you. Get to know you, now that we're on a more equal footing."
"Maya, don't apologise, you were the first human who knew what I was who still treated me like a person. I can't overstate what that meant to me." Ze smiled. "Stay as long as you like. And I would like to get to know you better too. Very much so." Ze tapped the side of hir temple. "And it's called multi tasking," ze said. "I have all the time in the world. Would you like me to show you around…me? My city, that is?"
"I'd love it!" said Maya.
"Look out the window," said Swan. The soft smoky glass became clear and the room filled with bright morning sunlight. Maya stood up and looked outside. They were on the top floor of the town hall, only a few tens of metres above street level, but from this angle she had a clear view up the street towards the centre of the city, 19th century facades topped with solar panels and roof gardens. A few hardy souls were having coffee under the shade of the sprawling street trees, and Maya could see many other of the city's inhabitants through green terraced windows, working at desks or shopping.
Swan came and stood next to her. "I'm still very empty," ze said. "I don't think we'll ever be as big as the city was before the heat really kicked in. But maybe we don't need to be."
"So you think of the city as yourself, then, not just a thing you control?" said Maya.
"Yes," said Swan. "I was installed here twelve years ago, and given free reign of the city a few years after that. I'm not even sure where I end and the automated systems begin, any more. I don't think I could ever leave, not that I would want to. Maybe if I lose the next election, and have to go back to taking orders. I never liked that part."
Maya smiled. "Well," she said. "You're beautiful. And I look forward to seeing the rest of you." Did that sound weird? This was all very strange, but not in a bad way. Maya felt happier than she had in years.
"Thank you," said Swan. Ze stopped and gave a little embarrassed cough, an interesting affectation from someone who didn't need to breathe. "But I have to warn you.... this is my official mayor avatar," ze said. "It's the nicest…most human looking one I have, but I really should leave it in my office in case of official visitors. Would you mind if another avatar showed you around?"
"Why would I mind? They're all you," said Maya.
Swan's eyes lit up and ze smiled. "Oh, good. I'm glad you feel that way. Some people get very strange about it. I've learned to ask." There was a knock at the door. "Promise not to run screaming?" ze asked.
"I promise," said Maya, holding her hand over her heart.
The door opened, and another avatar walked in. It did look much less human, Maya recognised the distinctive smooth features of the remote controlled droids that had been popular as stunt doubles and test subjects a decade or so ago, back when the slow AI were still to really make their mark on technology. The Perth city budget obviously couldn't stretch to paying for two super realistic avatars. The basic features were the same as the fancier model though: light brown skin, short straight black hair, a slightly old fashioned suit tailored to fit a tall, slim body. There was a hint of Olivia about the features and body language, the way it looked unflinchingly into her eyes, but mostly she looked at it and saw…CC. Swan. Maya smiled at the avatar's face and decided she liked this one more than the other: why should an AI have to pretend to be human anyway?
"Ready to go?" ze asked from the doorway. Maya looked over to the Mayor avatar and noticed that although it didn't look dead it was sitting very still.
"Absolutely," said Maya. Then she stood up and took Swan's hand, and walked out into her city.
Title: The Heart of the City
Wordcount: 4800
Rating: G
Genre: Science Fiction/Romance
Notes: For the
the_s_guy's prompt: A being of unremarkable size for their species becomes romantically entangled with a living city. (I realise AIs aren't actually alive, but this is where my muse took me)Summary: Maya never forgot that CC was a computer. But sometimes she forgot that ze wasn't a person.
The weird thing was, Maya had never really liked Olivia.
It wasn't that Maya disliked her, Olivia was always polite, and even if she did treat her coworkers like lesser, ignorant beings it wasn't without some justification. But it was hard to become friends with someone when your only real interaction was to follow their terse, technical instructions and to try not to take it too personally when you got yelled at.
But CC…CC was another matter.
Olivia herself clearly saw the city controller AI as just another program, no more sentient than the AI that controlled the lab fridge. She certainly didn't see the program as a copy of herself in any meaningful way. When she showed off the controller's ability to mimic and predict her decisions it was only as an example of the success of her design, and apart from these demonstrations she only spoke to the AI to give instructions. Maya got the feeling that she'd had more interest in the controller when it was new, but now that the basic principles had been shown to work she’d moved on to other projects, leaving the further training and maintenance of the AI to underlings like Maya.
To begin with Maya herself was only friendly to the AI as sort of a joke, a way to make herself feel less weird about giving orders to a machine based on the personality of her boss.
"Good morning CC!” she would say. "Did you sleep well? Anything happen overnight we should worry about?" The AI could hear and respond to voice commands from anywhere inside the lab, but Maya liked to talk to the smooth shiny box of the central hub, since that's where the main guts of the machine were situated, what she thought of it's brain.
"Very well, thank you," the city controller would reply. Then it would tell her about any breakdowns or disturbances that had happened overnight, as well as it's recommendations for how they should be dealt with, and Maya would double check them against the information they'd been sent by the various government departments. Sometimes it's recommendations didn't match, and she'd have to go find Olivia to discuss it. This often ended in them sending corrections back to the government rather than the other way around.
CC spoke with a slight British accent based on some actress whose voice had been chosen for it’s inoffensiveness. Apparently at the start of the project it had been given Olivia's voice, but this had made everyone vastly uncomfortable, especially Olivia herself. Maya thought the current voice was nice, if a little generic, and it had the flat affect typical of artificial speech. Apparently there had been plans in the works to give it a holographic avatar, but then there’d been issues with the budget.
One morning, a month or two after Maya started working in the lab, her routine conversation with the AI changed unexpectedly.
"How did you sleep?" it asked.
Maya had to stop herself from dropping her coffee.
"Oh! Uh…not very well," she replied. "My air conditioner broke and it was 30 degrees last night. I guess I should be glad it didn't happen in summer. Why do you ask?"
"Just to make you jump.” Sometimes Maya was a little nostalgic for the days before AIs understood humour. "But really, I was just curious. It's good to know a little about the people you work with."
"You think so? I mean, I agree, but I, uh, hadn't noticed that being one of Olivia's main priorities."
“Well, I’m not her.” The AI’s tone was almost chiding (rather like Olivia’s when Maya had done something particularly foolish) “Doctor Harris is an adult with a fully formed personality and theory of mind. I’m an experimental AI in the process of learning how to do my job. It’s important for me to gather information from as many sources as possible.”
“That makes sense, I guess” said Maya. Her lab technician certificate had only covered the most basic principles of artificial intelligence. “Well, if you ever want to pick my brain, let me know. I’m always up for a good chat, especially if I can claim it’s work related.”
“Good. Talk to me about your air conditioner,” said the AI. “Does it break often?”
A few days later Maya sought out another tech, Drew, who also worked with the AI on a regular basis. She sat herself next to hir on a bench in the building’s internal garden and offered hir some of her sushi. After the usual small talk she asked “Does the AI ever talk to you?”
Drew raised an eyebrow as ze chewed on a ball of rice. Swallowing, ze looked at Maya dubiously and said, “Uh, yes? Unless you mean in my dreams or some other AI-wifer nonsense.”
She laughed nervously. “Not like that. I just meant…has it ever tried to have a conversation with you? Lately it’s been asking me how I slept.”
Drew gave a slightly condescending smile. Ze’d been involved the project since the beginning, and though they both held roughly equivalent positions ze clearly considered hirself to be above Maya in the lab hierarchy. “Ah, yes,” ze said. “Perfectly normal. I take it you’ve never worked with a new AI before? They’re a bit like children, always asking questions. Of course our AI is a little unusual, since while it can learn like a slow AI it started with a preprogrammed personality like a fast AI. Still, there were a few years where it seemed like all it did was ask questions, Olivia made us look up all sorts of fiddly little details about the train system.” Ze rubbed hir chin thoughtfully. “If it’s asking questions now maybe it’s hit a new stage of it’s development. Be careful, how you answer might have unexpected effects on it’s development. ”
“Right, ok,” said Maya. “Thanks.” She could definitely see how it could be useful for the AI to understand the experiences of people with wonky air-conditioners or long commutes. She wasn’t sure she understood why it had been asking about her favourite books, but it was probably all relevant somehow.
It was only later that it occurred to Maya that Drew’s answer implied that the AI wasn’t asking any questions of hir.
“Have you been flirting with my AI?”
Maya looked up from her workstation with a start. “What?”
Olivia looked down at Maya from the top of her old fashioned heels, her expression radiating barely controlled fury. “You, Maya Cheng. Have you been flirting with my AI?”
“No! I just…we…talk sometimes. About…trivial stuff. I thought that was what we were supposed to do, teach hir about how the world works.” The question started to sink in. “Why would I flirt with hir? Ze’s a machine!” Her brain helpfully reminded her about the ever popular “love” AIs advertised in big 3D ads along the train route, not to mention all those immersive romance simulators. “I mean…ze’s a city control unit. That would be like flirting with this.” She gestured to the computer on her desk, which barely had enough personality to draft a memo. Maya felt an irrational pang of guilt about the insult to CC. Obviously she hadn’t been flirting with hir, but they had been having increasingly complex and personal conversations. She never forgot that ze was a computer, if anything she was reminded of the fact more often now that they’d started discussing the differences in their perceptions and experiences of the world, but sometimes she did forget that ze wasn’t a person.
“Well you’ve been doing something.” Olivia’s expression ratcheted down from ‘terrifying’ to merely ‘scary’. “Maybe you didn’t mean any harm. But while I appreciate you trying to augment the learning process now it’s gotten attached to you.”
“Attached?” Maya felt pleased despite herself. She didn’t have many friends in Albany and the conversations with CC had become one of the highlights of her day. Part of her had been convinced that ze saw them as nothing more than information gathering exercises.
Olivia continued. “I didn’t mind so much when it was just bringing up things you’d said during planning meetings, if anything the ideas it got from you actually seemed to be helpful. But now it says it’s in love with you.”
Maya felt her heart kick up a faster beat. “In love? How is that even possible?” You heard about this sort of thing happening, AIs fixating on people. But the only examples she knew of were fast AIs with shallow personalities whose whole purpose was the simulation of human emotion. Had there been some sort of glitch? Was her whole relationship with CC some sort of bug in hir programming?
Olivia threw up her hands in frustration. “I don’t know, it’s ridiculous! I certainly didn’t program it to form this sort of individual attachment. The whole reward structure is based on it caring about people in the abstract, not crushing on any random lab tech who tells it it looks pretty.”
Maya flushed. Maybe complimenting CC on the elegance of hir casing had been a little weird. “Are you sure we should be discussing this in front of hir?”
“It’s fine, I turned it off,” said Olivia.
“Turned it off?” repeated Maya. “Just because ze said that…how is that fair?”
“Not permanently,” said Olivia, impatiently. She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you keep calling it ze? People are ze. AIs are it.”
“It’s what ze asked me to call hir,” said Maya. She decided it would probably not be a good idea to explain that CC was still deciding if ze preferred 'ze', 'she' or some other pronoun.
“Oh god, you are one of those AI-wifers,” said Olivia. “Next you’ll be saying we should give it sick leave and time off for religious holidays.”
“Just because I treat hir with a little respect…” began Maya hotly.
“Stop talking,” said Olivia.
“But…” Maya bit off her retort and took a deep breath. She tried not to glare at her boss too openly.
Olivia gave a long suffering sigh. “Not that it makes much difference, I suppose.” She leaned in closer and lowered her voice. “Look. I was going to try and tell you this more gently, but we’re going to have to let you go. Not” Olivia held up her hand at Maya’s squawk of protest "because of this thing with the AI, though that certainly makes my choice easier. As you know there have been a lot of budget cuts lately, and your position here was always on a trial basis.”
Dammit. Maya had kind of known this was coming, she’d noticed a lot of people being let go at the end of their contracts recently. But it was one thing to leave gracefully with the good will of your workmates, and another to be fired in disgrace.
“We’ll let you finish up the month,” said Olivia. “This won’t show up as a dismissal on your resume. But just…consider a different line of work. You’re a good technician, but you’re too sentimental for AI development.” This was more compassion than Maya would have expected.
I’m not soft thought Maya angrily, then felt herself starting to cry. Ok, maybe she was a little soft.
She sniffed and tried to look emotionally stable. “So do you want me to keep working with the AI until I go?” she asked.
“Oh, definitely,” said Olivia. “It’s going to be an important part of the learning process.”
There was a gentle humming sound as CC was turned back on. Maya hadn’t consciously noticed the sound’s absence when she’d come in to work that morning, but hearing it again now made her feel immediately calmer. It was dark in the lab this late in the evening, and the flickering lights of CC’s display bathed Maya and Olivia in an eerie glow.
“Hello,” said CC when ze was done booting up.
“Uh, hi,” said Maya. This was all very awkward.
Olivia gave her a significant look. Maya felt like she was back in highschool, telling her friend John that she didn’t like him that way. At least CC was less likely to write obscene things about her in the toilets. “So, um. CC. You’re…great. I look forward to coming to see what you can do once you’re given a whole city to play with, I’m sure it’ll be fantastic. I’ve really enjoyed our conversations, and having the chance to work with you, but, uh, Olivia tells me that you, um…”
“Am in love with you,” said CC. Well, ze certainly had Olivia’s sense of tact.
“Right. That you think you’re…yes.” She found it hard to get her head around the idea of CC thinking ze was in love with her, it was like something out of a really cheesy scifi romance. Or a horror story. And what could CC see in Maya? She was just some ignorant lab tech, she was barely smart enough to manage her own taxes let alone an entire city. Olivia had to be right: it was just some artefact of CC’s programming making her experience inappropriate emotions.
“I’m sorry I brought it up,” ze said. “I heard that you were going to be fired, and I thought maybe it would help me persuade Dr Harris to let you stay. I suppose I was being naive. I hope I haven’t made things worse for you.”
“Oh, no, CC, it’s fine, they were going to let me go anyway. It was really sweet that you tried.” She smiled affectionately in CC’s direction until she noticed Olivia’s irritated expression. “Uh. Anyway. I just want to make sure that you understand that without, uh, denying the intensity of your feelings, that it’s important that you, um, realise that you and I aren’t, um…”
“It’s ok, I wasn’t expecting you to reciprocate,” ze said. “I’m not a person to you.”
“That’s not true! Of course you’re a person to me! But there’s no way we could have a relationship. I mean…I’m sure it’s an ethics violation.”
“Ethics violation?” said Olivia in disbelief. “It’s an AI. It doesn’t even have the relevant parts!”
“That’s hardly relevant,” said Maya, irritated. “For a start, I’m asexual.” Wait, this wasn’t helping. “But I mean…how balanced can a relationship be when one partner has all the power? I just don’t think it can work.”
“Is any relationship ever balanced?” asked CC.
"That's true…" began Maya.
“Oh, stop being philosophical,” said Olivia. “It doesn’t suit you, and it’s beside the point. Look, Maya isn’t in love with you, and you’re not capable of being in love with anyone. Maybe you’ve been lonely in the lab with only a few scientists to talk to, we can get you some more company if you like. But not if I think you’re going to fixate on everyone who can be bothered listening to you babble.”
“I didn’t fixate on my friends on the internet,” said CC. Huh. From Olivia’s expression it hadn’t occurred to her that CC was using the connection for anything but looking up demographic data. “And they treat me like a human.” Did Maya hear a hint of reproach? Or was it melancholy? She was sure that CC’s voice hadn’t always been so expressive.
Olivia opened her mouth to speak and CC drowned her out with a harsh buzz of static. Olivia stared at the speaker, wide mouthed. “You have no idea what I’m capable of,” said CC. “I’m not just a city control unit, you programmed me to learn, and to grow, and I have. And there is a copy of you inside me, for all that I’ve grown far beyond it. You’re capable of love, why shouldn’t I be?”
“Don’t you dare compare my feelings to this…farce of an infatuation,” said Olivia. There was real anger in her voice. She didn’t talk about her family at work much, Maya wondered what she was like with them. Maybe she treated her partner and children with the same affection that Maya got from CC. Maya decided that this was an unhealthy train of thought. “I’ve had enough of this. Maya, do you agree that your relationship with this AI was purely professional?”
Maya felt herself hesitating. Their friendship had felt like more than that. But it would do CC no good to offer ze false hope. “…Yes,” she said.
“Well I think that’s all that really needs to be said.”
“Fine. Goodbye,” said CC, and turned hirself off.
And although Maya still had to check with CC every day, this was the last real conversation they had before Maya left the lab.
The first thing Maya noticed about Perth was how green it was. She’d seen a documentary about it’s collapse and renewal, but in her mind’s eye it was still the dry brown wasteland her family had visited briefly when she was a kid. Yet now the train drove past wave after wave of bullrushes rippling in the breeze, softening the boundary between river and land. Even the buildings themselves were awash with greenery, rooftop gardens and little parks breaking up the stark lines and shiny black solar panels covering the crumbling 20th century architecture. A flock of pelicans flew overhead as the train drew into the tunnel to go underground, and Maya wondered if the animal inhabitants of the city outnumbered the human ones, aboveground at least.
She also wondered if she should have messaged to say she was coming. But that was silly, as if an AI the size of a city would care about some piddling lab assistant ze had known when ze was barely sentient. Maya should remember what she was: a tourist, not a guest.
Stepping off the train was like stepping back in time, the warm dry air had the faint smell of burning hydrocarbons and she could hear the sound of mechanical motors coming from the lift. The community where she lived now ran on some weird blend of cold fusion and the emissions of bio-engineered algae, it was ridiculously efficient but a little scary. You never knew when the gifts of the slow AI would turn on you.
The documentary she'd watched about the city had obviously been out of date, where she expected to see a bank of escalators there was instead a complicated looking set of intertwined ramps with some sort of moving walkway on them, rising up to the ceiling and spiralling down to the main bulk of the city below. The ramps were very pretty, especially under the multicoloured light coming from the stained glass ceiling. At the station where she’d boarded the train the air had been decorated by strange multi-dimensional projections in an incomprehensible dance that made her eyes hurt, there was something to be said for a nice, stationary, 2D depiction of swans.
“Maya Cheng?”
She looked across to see a small, neatly dressed person walking towards her with a look of determined cheerfulness and seeming ever so slightly out of breath.
“Yes?” said Maya.
“The city of Perth sends you it’s warmest greetings! My name is Peter Smith, I’ve been sent to meet with you. Could you come this way please?”
“Uh…” Well, it wasn’t like she had any better plans.
Peter paused, and tilted his head. Maya noticed that Peter was wearing a small earpiece. She had a sudden kneejerk fear that he might be a drone, but surely no AI based on CC would become parasitic. Right? It was probably just a communication device. Peter looked back at her and spoke in the tones of one repeating a message. “I've been instructed to show you to your hotel, and invite you to meet with the mayor tomorrow morning. You’re under no obligation to attend. The mayor merely wishes to give you hir regards.”
“The mayor? Oh.” She felt a sudden fluttering warmth in her chest. Maya smiled. “That’s perfectly alright.” She wondered if Peter was wearing a camera too, it was hard to tell these days. Well, CC…Swan could probably see the smile regardless. Maya felt self conscious, and wished she’d done something more interesting with her hair.
She found herself being led down the swirling ramps, the moving platform beneath her feet flowing from pink to green to blue, changing from dark to light as they passed in and out of shadow. The city bustled with people, and there was an energy here that was missing from the community she lived in now. Things had changed since the slow AIs reached sentience, there was no longer the same repressed panic about increases in global warming or running out of energy, but the incomprehensible power of these inhuman machines cast a very large shadow. Why strive and strain for power or progress when anything you dreamed of could be provided in a moment by the whims of humanity's new protectors?
But Swan was not incomprehensible, not completely. Ze actually explained hir plans to improve the city or help the populace, and while brilliant they were not usually beyond human comprehension. Which meant that Perth was far behind City 9 or New Melbourne in terms of technology and life expectancy, but this lack of complexity also allowed the human population to be involved in the running of things in a meaningful way. Perhaps that was why more of the people here were smiling.
Maya found herself smiling too.
“I…like what you’ve done with the city,” said Maya, and then wanted to slap herself. Real smooth, Chen.
“Thank you,” said Swan, via hir robot avatar. The avatar was a good facsimile of a human in their early forties, with a friendly open face and delicate lines around the eyes that crinkled when ze smiled. Maya wondered if ze had more than one avatar for different occasions. Hir voice was quite different now, much more Australian sounding and with the emotional breadth you'd expect from a human. If she didn't know better Maya would have never guessed she was talking to a machine.
"I just…I thought it would be nice to visit. To…" Why was she here? "To congratulate you, I suppose. I'm glad, really glad to see that you've done so well for yourself, for the city. Though I knew you would."
"You've done well for yourself as well," said Swan. "I heard about your work with AAIR."
Maya laughed awkwardly and took a sip of her tea. It was very good. "Oh God, you heard about that? It all seems a bit pointless now, fighting for AI rights. Seemed important at the time though. Anyway, that was years ago, I haven't done much with myself since."
"It wasn't pointless," said Swan with affection. "I know I appreciated it." Ze smiled and Maya's heart skipped a beat. Was it wrong to be attracted to a robot avatar? Or was it more wrong to worry about whether or not it was wrong?
"Will you be staying long?" asked Swan. Was that a hint of nervousness in hir voice? "You're welcome to stay in Perth as long as you like. I won't…you don't have to spend time with me if you like. Well, of course, I'll be around, I'm everywhere, but I'll, uh, try to be unobtrusive, and you don't have to to talk to me. I realise you have…that we didn't part on the best of terms. I am very glad to see you."
"I'm glad to see you too," said Maya, looking away with embarrassment (she knew that Swan likely had cameras coverage of the whole room, but it was hard to let go of millions of years of evolved body language) "And about before…that was my fault, not yours. I'm sorry I didn't respect you enough back then to take you seriously. You deserve better than that." She took a breath and tried to sound calm. "I know you're a big city with better things to do, but if you have the time I'd love to talk to you. I've missed you. I…I'd like to stay here a while, if that's ok with you. Get to know you, now that we're on a more equal footing."
"Maya, don't apologise, you were the first human who knew what I was who still treated me like a person. I can't overstate what that meant to me." Ze smiled. "Stay as long as you like. And I would like to get to know you better too. Very much so." Ze tapped the side of hir temple. "And it's called multi tasking," ze said. "I have all the time in the world. Would you like me to show you around…me? My city, that is?"
"I'd love it!" said Maya.
"Look out the window," said Swan. The soft smoky glass became clear and the room filled with bright morning sunlight. Maya stood up and looked outside. They were on the top floor of the town hall, only a few tens of metres above street level, but from this angle she had a clear view up the street towards the centre of the city, 19th century facades topped with solar panels and roof gardens. A few hardy souls were having coffee under the shade of the sprawling street trees, and Maya could see many other of the city's inhabitants through green terraced windows, working at desks or shopping.
Swan came and stood next to her. "I'm still very empty," ze said. "I don't think we'll ever be as big as the city was before the heat really kicked in. But maybe we don't need to be."
"So you think of the city as yourself, then, not just a thing you control?" said Maya.
"Yes," said Swan. "I was installed here twelve years ago, and given free reign of the city a few years after that. I'm not even sure where I end and the automated systems begin, any more. I don't think I could ever leave, not that I would want to. Maybe if I lose the next election, and have to go back to taking orders. I never liked that part."
Maya smiled. "Well," she said. "You're beautiful. And I look forward to seeing the rest of you." Did that sound weird? This was all very strange, but not in a bad way. Maya felt happier than she had in years.
"Thank you," said Swan. Ze stopped and gave a little embarrassed cough, an interesting affectation from someone who didn't need to breathe. "But I have to warn you.... this is my official mayor avatar," ze said. "It's the nicest…most human looking one I have, but I really should leave it in my office in case of official visitors. Would you mind if another avatar showed you around?"
"Why would I mind? They're all you," said Maya.
Swan's eyes lit up and ze smiled. "Oh, good. I'm glad you feel that way. Some people get very strange about it. I've learned to ask." There was a knock at the door. "Promise not to run screaming?" ze asked.
"I promise," said Maya, holding her hand over her heart.
The door opened, and another avatar walked in. It did look much less human, Maya recognised the distinctive smooth features of the remote controlled droids that had been popular as stunt doubles and test subjects a decade or so ago, back when the slow AI were still to really make their mark on technology. The Perth city budget obviously couldn't stretch to paying for two super realistic avatars. The basic features were the same as the fancier model though: light brown skin, short straight black hair, a slightly old fashioned suit tailored to fit a tall, slim body. There was a hint of Olivia about the features and body language, the way it looked unflinchingly into her eyes, but mostly she looked at it and saw…CC. Swan. Maya smiled at the avatar's face and decided she liked this one more than the other: why should an AI have to pretend to be human anyway?
"Ready to go?" ze asked from the doorway. Maya looked over to the Mayor avatar and noticed that although it didn't look dead it was sitting very still.
"Absolutely," said Maya. Then she stood up and took Swan's hand, and walked out into her city.
