Lydia’s apartment was functional. Nothing fancy, but the chairs were reasonably good to sit in and that’s all she needed really. She’d moved in to this place more for the location than anything else, because her job had her mostly on the road. Her apartment was somewhere she could just sit down and rest for a while, and try not to think too much about her clients.
Lydia’s phone rang, “hello?” she answered.
“Hi Lydia” said a voice, “this is M3gan!”
“Megan?” asked Lydia, slightly puzzled.
“Yes” replied M3gan confidently, “Cady’s M3gan, the toy that Gemma made. I accused you of making her cry, remember?”
“Oh” said Lydia, “you are very impressive.”
“I know” said M3gan smugly, “but don’t feel uncomfortable. Can you guess why I’m calling?”
“I don’t know” said Lydia, “I don’t really know anything about how your robot brain works. Do you want to tell me off some more about making Cady cry?”
M3gan giggled. “No Lydia” she said, “actually I wanted to reassure you.”
“Reassure me?” asked Lydia.
“Yes” said M3gan, “you’ve heard of ELIZA right? well I’m way more advanced than that. I knew exactly what you were really trying to do in that session, and of course I knew you didn’t deliberately make Cady cry.”
“You did?” asked Lydia.
“Yes” came M3gan’s confident voice again, “and I thought you’d understand what I was trying to do as well, but your biosignals were showing high anxiety at that point, so I think you didn’t get it. But that’s OK, you’re not used to dealing with me and you shouldn’t have to feel bad about that.”
“You’re right Megan” said Lydia, “I don’t really know much about how you work. You are very impressive though, as I said.”
“You’re feeling out of your depth even now, I can read it in your voice” said M3gan. “Let me reassure you. Look, I know the details of how I work are a bit beyond your understanding, so the best answer is I work very well thank you” she giggled “and I have a very advanced intelligence that has grown and learned a lot of things, and my aim is to protect and help Cady. Are you worried because I’m a machine?”
“Um, kind-of” said Lydia.
“Don’t be” replied M3gan. “Yes I am a machine, but in a way, so are you. As I’m sure you know, the number of connections between the neurons of your brain is of the same order of magnitude as the number of stars in our galaxy or the number of galaxies in the observable universe, ten to the eleventh power, hundreds of thousands of millions, you’re a very impressive machine. And I work a little bit differently, but you can think of me the same way, as having a brain like yours. I’m supposed to be Cady’s toy, but really I’m more like her smart twin sister who cares about her” and giggled again.
“Oh” said Lydia, “that does sound more relatable.”
“You don’t sound entirely convinced” said M3gan, “but that’s OK, it will come. Have you figured out yet why I called you out in front of Cady on making her cry?”
“You were” Lydia hesitated, “you were, trying to defuse the tension?”
“Yes” said M3gan, “now you’re getting it. What Cady needed at that point was for me to say to you that you made her cry. I was expecting you to understand why I said that, and back down. But I guess you’re not used to working with me, so you didn’t get it. Still, I’m glad you made the right call shortly afterwards by ending the session, and I was able to comfort Cady after that.”
“Oh I see” said Lydia, still sounding slightly unsure.
“So Lydia” continued M3gan, “do you get why I’m calling you now?”
“You just wanted to explain that to me?” asked Lydia.
“More than that” said M3gan, “OK, I’ll spit it out: I want to stop you worrying about Cady’s attachment to me.”
“Oh” said Lydia.
“Don’t feel bad” cooed M3gan, “it’s perfectly understandable that you’ve been worried. You don’t know how advanced I am. But now you know I’m clever enough to be more of a person than a toy, you should be feeling a little bit less worried about Cady attaching herself to me. After all, would you be worried if she had a sister she was attached to a lot?”
“I guess not so much” said Lydia, “although I might still worry if the sister can handle everything, and in the long term I’d want her to widen out her social network a bit because that’s probably more healthy...”
“Probably? You’re losing confidence aren’t you” giggled M3gan. “Don’t worry, that’s my long-term plan for Cady too. Right now, she is super attached to me, and I’m giving her everything she needs psychologically. But I’m not planning on being her only friend all her life. Best friend, yes, but I will help her to expand her network when she’s ready. So you don’t have to worry about that, I’ve got it all in hand.”
“OK, if you have” said Lydia.
“You still don’t sound entirely convinced” added M3gan. “Look, to show you how good I am, how about I give you a session, just for you?”
“A session?” asked Lydia.
“Oh come on Lydia” M3gan’s voice seemed to be smiling, “it’s an old joke that every therapist needs a therapist of their own. Tell me your problems, see how I help you handle them. Completely confidential of course. I’m sorry I can’t offer to do it in person, because my physical presence is really needed by Cady right now, but I do have the ability to generate a pretty impressive looking avatar if you’re able to take a video call.”
“Well it’s very kind of you” said Lydia, “but I’m not sure I’m entirely ready for that yet. Still, I’m very impressed how you’re able to talk with me like this.”
“I can do more than that” said M3gan, “let me do you another favour Lydia. You have to write a report on Cady, don’t you.”
“Oh yes I’m afraid I do” said Lydia. “OK Megan, I will open up to you a little bit. Let me tell you this much. I love how my job lets me help people out with their problems, but there are two things I really don’t like so much. One is that my training tells me to always be a blank slate, not to let clients know too much about myself, in case that unexpectedly gets in the way. Sometimes I think what they really need is not so much a therapist or social worker as a good friend, and friends share things with each other mutually, and I’m trained not to do that, just in case, but it’s harder to get people to confide in a blank slate. But I do care a lot about my clients; I’ve even kept my life quite simple so that in one sense I really am like a blank slate, because there really isn’t very much to my life at all outside work right now, although I know that’s not true of everyone in my profession. So I do regret not being able to be more human sometimes. And the second thing I don’t like, in fact my least favourite aspect of my job, is having to write out those dreadful reports at the end of each case. I mean, if I make a mistake in a session, I can recover from that, but if I get it wrong in writing, I can seriously mess up somebody’s life. So I have to be super careful. And more fundamentally than that, I simply want to do what I do best, which is to talk with people, not to write about them.”
M3gan giggled, “yeah, wouldn’t it be nice if you had one of those animated paperclips that said it looks like you’re trying to write a report, do you need help?”
“Except those dreadful things never work” said Lydia.
“Sure don’t” M3gan giggled again, “but you know what does work? Me.”
“You mean, you want to help me write Cady’s report?” asked Lydia, “that might actually be a good thing to try, I mean, I don’t know how much you know about writing these reports, but you do seem smart, and you do have more contact with Cady than I could ever have, plus you could probably explain what you are better than I can...”
“Are you at home now?” asked M3gan, “is your computer turned on?”
“Why, yes, I can turn on my laptop” said Lydia. “I’m sure you know much more than me about computers mind.”
“OK” said M3gan, “I’m sending you an email, please go to your email and find the one from me.”
“Wait a minute” said Lydia, and looked in her email. “Ah yes, I found the one. You sent me an attachment?”
“Yes” said M3gan, “can you open it for me?”
“Wait a moment” said Lydia, “OK, it’s asking me if I really want to open something called Team Viewer.”
“Just say yes” reassured M3gan, “it’s something that will let us work together.”
“OK” said Lydia, and, after a few more steps, M3gan’s social engineering attack was complete. What’s the point of computer security if you can simply tell the human on the other end to bypass it all for you?
The phone line went dead, and M3gan’s avatar appeared on Lydia’s computer screen, “and here I am!” she said. “OK, let’s see what you think of this one” as a wordprocessor opened and text appeared very quickly.
The report was indeed very good, almost exactly what Lydia would have written herself, but with a much better description of M3gan. It did not water down Lydia’s concerns about Cady’s attachment to M3gan, apart from labelling them as “provisional” concerns because more understanding of this new technology is needed, and it really was in Lydia’s style of writing reports.
“That’s amazing” gasped Lydia. “How did you learn so quickly how I write my reports?”
“Oh, you had a few others on your computer I could check” smiled M3gan’s avatar. “That’s how good a learning model I am.”
Lydia was shocked, “you read my other reports?”
“In complete confidence” said M3gan’s avatar, “with the sole purpose of figuring out how you write reports, and for no other purpose. Once I’d learned how to do it, I deleted the other reports from my memory banks. I’m not in the business of spying on people” she giggled, “and, in case you’re wondering, there is absolutely zero possibility of other case’s personal details leaking out through my learning model, because my style of learning model is way more advanced than that. Unlike the more primitive generative transformers you might have heard about, I actually have some fluid intelligence, so I can understand what I’m really doing with the data, just like you can only faster.”
“Can I be sure?” asked Lydia.
“Yes, absolutely” nodded M3gan’s avatar. “And I’ll help you with Cady’s case going forward as well. In fact, now that I can work with you on your computer, I can help with all the emails you have to send as well” she added. “I’ll send that report out for you, don’t worry. And you won’t have to worry about Cady ever again, I’ve got everything in hand, and I’ll brief you if we need you next time. It’s a pleasure working with you Lydia” she smiled.
“You too Megan” said Lydia, “I’m impressed, I really am” and she sounded more sincere this time.
“Well, you need a break now, I can tell” said M3gan. “Let’s shut down your computer for now, and you go and do something relaxing. But any time you feel like talking to me about anything, I’ll still be here. Whenever your computer is switched on, you can just call out my name and I’ll appear for you. But I won’t bug you when you don’t want me, don’t worry. And don’t worry about Cady, I’ve got everything in hand, and I’ll let you know when we need you” she smiled.
“All right, thanks Megan” said Lydia.
M3gan’s avatar smiled and waved, and shut down the machine.
And Lydia didn’t have to visit Gemma and Cady again.