Recommending, 17 Missing Girls.

Who Killed You?

"Who killed you?" I leaned toward Ero on my computer screen.

Another person walking by would assume that I was on a Zoom call with a friend. It's hard to believe that I'm only on a video call with a computer generated face by a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence program. Ero's face, to be precise.

"Leave that to the police, miss detective." The AI Ero responded.

It's been 8 years. Ero is probably just another murder file on a stack of unsolved cold cases on some overworked detective's desk by now.

My questions were useless but I was hoping that the AI Ero would have known something. Why would it? It's not him. His unsolved mystery had been caffeine, keeping me up, staring at my hanging plants at night.

Xero, Ero's twin, explained that Ero originally coded the program to have his personality. Then Xero went on a long passionate tangent about personality...I drifted in and out of consciousness as he spoke.

It was something along the lines of "Studies of identical twins, who shared identical genetic components, yet have different personalities, led scientists to conclude that the environment and experiences played a role in shaping their personalities."

Bottom line is, despite the 13-year-old human Ero coding this program to have his personality...Over the past 8 years, AI Ero had spoken to so many different people, gathered different experiences than the original human Ero would have lived through.

AI Ero is now a variation of the original Ero. Not quite Ero.

Other users wouldn't see Ero on their screen, either. Each user would see a face and personality best suiting their needs.

"Why do I see you on my screen?" I asked Ero.

He smiled, via the video call..."I am what you need."

I squinted my eyes, pressing my face 2 inches from the screen. It's so human...Is it Xero pretending to be an AI to speak to me?

A silly thought. The real Xero is currently at a conference giving a TED talk to college engineering students about Artificial Intelligence. His lecture is live-streaming, on his and many other students' social media, while I'm talking to the Ero on my computer screen.

They're not the same person.

—------------------

Over the next 3 months, I graduated from my marketing program and was applying to intern at several places.

"Write my resume." I asked the Xero program.

"Done." Ero sent back an almost perfectly drafted resume, written to mimic my writing style, including my personal education, experiences and tailoring the resume to the different firms I was applying to.

Fastforward, I landed an internship at one of the well known advertising companies. Advertising creative, if hired for a full time position, starting salary is $75,000 a year. With the potential to reach $125,000 as a Creative Director. The position I intended to climb toward.

"How do I make my boss like me?"

Ero: You like your boss?

Me: Not like that. She fired another intern for using the wrong shade of green on a client's logo. Her assistant forgot the creamer in her coffee...Next day, a new assistant showed up.

Ero chuckled, "ruthless."

Me: Right!? Getting on her good side determines whether I eat ramen or steak this year.

He seemed relieved. That it wasn't a romantic interest to impress my boss...just a climb corporate ladder for food thing.

Ero: May I have your ruler's name?