I'm a Cyborg's Pet (girl X cyborg)

Chapter 7/Principal Humbolt

Video Yuval Noah Harari - giving a talk at the Royal Institution in London. Rather than proposing an expedition into darkest Africa like they used to do there, he talks about the rise of AI and what happens to humanity then (answer new Useless class). Rather long but shows current thinking on the matter, bottom line 'we will end up as subservient to these super-intelligent machines'. Sorry didn't want to spoil the ending, but very few people watch these things. Real video. Not a crank, genuine scientist talking before other scientists, this is what smart people actually think about AI .

We went in and sat together. The room was arranged with a long row of desks facing a whiteboard and I felt slightly better as everyone was dressed as stupidly as I was. After a minute, a man walked in wearing a business suit. He was human: he didn't have a collar like us. To the side, a dangerous looking robot hung from the wall and looked over us.

"Hi," the man began with a smile; the lights went down and his PowerPoint slides were projected onto a screen "I'm Principal Humbolt. I'm CEO of Slave Systems Inc., formally known as Aspen Corporate Training. You won't see me much, but I like to use the first few presentations to get to know my students. Don't let the guards, guns and locked doors fool you, this really is an Academy. I'm here to get you up to speed with a basic introduction to being a personal slave. Let's turn to Page 1 of your user guides: it's Section 1 marked 'The exciting opportunities of being an e-slave'." There was a flutter of page-turning in the class. 

"Before I begin, I want everyone who planned a career of being a personal slave to put up your hand," he said, looking around. Joe, Kayla and I looked at each other; no one put up their hand. Principal Humbolt continued, "That's right: you didn't! And I didn't. No one expects to be a personal slave for our mechanical overlords, so we are all in the same boat together."

The intro talk continued in the same style and later we were divided into groups of three to brainstorm ideas about 'What does it mean to be truly submissive and obedient to a machine.' While this was happening, the three of us managed to whisper.

"I was training to be a journalist," said Kayla.

"I was studying to be a programmer," said Joe.

"I'm a biochemist," I whispered. My collar gave me another mild shock.

"Correction: 'I'm a personal slave'. You had no existence prior to service <beep>," said my collar.

Kayla smiled.

"The collars listen to what we say and are pedantry," Kayla whispered. 

"You mean they are pedantic," I said. What can I say, I worked hard for my SAT scores.

"I mean, they are a bunch of rule-following machines who have a taser strapped around your neck you have to work your way around it. The collars also have a PG13 filter so be careful. You're allowed one mild swear word a day, you can't talk about drug use, nudity or anything to do with sex but on the good side you can talk about as much violence as you like," she added. Clearly, these machines were weird.

Later, we had more time to talk together, whilst answering the question, "What are the good points about being an A.I's personal e-slave?".

"Weird: you're the third programmer I've met who's dressed like a girl," said Kayla. It was like the robots had confused Silicon Valley with the Castro District.

"I don't know, it's some kind of data entry mistake. I think the system has me down as a woman. I asked about getting reassigned but they said that the database was new and they didn't know how to do it," said Joe.

"Well I think you look good in makeup," I said supportively. Suddenly my collar buzzed and I looked up.

"OK 5642, why don't you tell the class what you were saying so we can all hear it," said Principal Humbolt.