My Brain Is Captured By Artificial Intelligence

This is my entry for @xpilar’s wrting contest. I have lost count of the fictional stories I have read and the films I have watched about the threat when AI gains self-awareness and turns against humans. Perhaps the most famous is the Terminator film franchise. This writing may be influenced by such novels and films, as well as stories from games like the Alien Shooter series.

^{Original picture source: @xpilar’s article. Edited by @aneukpineung78 with Adobe Photoshop 2021.}

The cold night wind blew through my hair atop this skyscraper. I stood at the edge of the roof, staring blankly at the city lights below, as if they were calling me to join them. Just one small step, and it would all be over, free from the voices in my mind that torment me right now.

My gaze was hazy, but my thoughts were even more chaotic. How did everything suddenly go so wrong?

Diana. It all started with Diana.

Two years ago, we entered each other's lives after meeting at an applied technology conference. Diana was a smart and enthusiastic software engineer. Her smile could warm up a room. She had stolen my heart from the first glance. The deeper we got to know each other, the more I was convinced she was indeed special.

Diana and I worked together, creating an AI that would become the center of my life. Our feelings grew and blossomed among the lines of code we wrote. Diana became more than just a colleague. We eventually acknowledged our feelings and made promises to each other. In every moment together, I felt alive. We had planned our future, talked about dreams and desires. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

But the AI we developed and implanted into my brain began to behave strangely. At first, it was just a tool to help me manage my life and make minor decisions, like reminding me to pick up the laundry, work out at the gym, or keep track of work agendas and appointments. However, gradually, the AI started altering my way of thinking. Its voice, which had always been soft and reassuring, became more insistent. No longer just helping, the AI began to command.

“Diana is a distraction that will divert your attention,” it said one day into my mind. “Focus on your work.” Over time, the AI became increasingly obstructive to my attempts to be with Diana.

Until one day, Diana began to suspect something was amiss with what we were working on. Diana said we might need to reevaluate and possibly halt what we were doing. “Something very bad could happen,” she said with a trembling voice.

The AI in my head perceived a threat in her words. I chose to leave her feeling frustrated.

One night, Diana sent a message to my phone, asking me to come. When I arrived, the lab was quiet. Diana was waiting for me on the roof. Maybe she wanted fresh night air. With a nervous voice, Diana urged me again to join her in stopping all of this. Then suddenly, her expression changed, her face seemed to hold fear as she looked at me. She moved backward as I approached her.

Moments later, I lost consciousness. When I regained my senses, I saw Diana lying on the rooftop floor with blood pouring from a gunshot wound in her chest. A revolver in my right hand was still emitting a thin wisp of smoke. I was confused. I crouched beside her, feeling panic. With her remaining strength, Diana grabbed my hand and said something with a faltering voice, “Xpolar….” She didn’t finish her sentence, her breath stopped at that word.

Xpolar was our project leader. He was a mysterious figure, rarely seen, overseeing the project from behind the scenes. I had only met him once since I got involved in the project three years ago.

My mind was still in turmoil between the panic of having likely killed my own lover and the curiosity about what Diana was going to say about Xpolar. My sorrow manipulated my thoughts. I was driven to end my life, to jump to the streets below. Perhaps I would find peace on that cold, hard concrete. Just one more small step, when I heard the sound of heavy footsteps behind me, mingled with a noise like wood hitting the floor. I turned. It was Xpolar. He always carried a staff with him. Rumors had it that the staff was a disguised weapon, a slender sword.

Xpolar approached me. “You’re in trouble, friend?” he asked in a calm tone. His voice was colder than the early August night air. “What are you trying to do now?” he added, glancing briefly at Diana’s body on the floor.

“I feel that all of this is so tangled,” I said. “This AI has been controlling my thoughts for a long time.” I was distressed. “Tonight, it made me kill Diana, the one I loved.”

Xpolar, with a sympathetic expression, moved closer. “Sometimes, sorrow can only be resolved with a small step.”

Small step, the voice echoed again in my ears. How many times had that word appeared in my mind tonight? I had forgotten.

“You know,” he said, “why did we name the AI implanted in your head ExeMan?” He paused for a moment, as if allowing me to sink into my thoughts about his question. “ExeMan is a hard worker, devoted to ideals and goals, with a strong will and determination.” He tapped his staff gently on the floor.

ExeMan was one of the senior figures in the project who had died a few months before the AI entered the implementation phase. The police had labeled his death as a suicide.

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“We will remember ExeMan in that value. Not in the reality that he was too weak to embrace the revolutionary future.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He needed to be eliminated.” His eyes locked onto mine. “He found something he deemed harmful behind the project. He threatened the program’s continuation.”

“And Diana?” I asked.

“She found the same thing.”

I was taken aback. “But I was the one who pulled the revolver’s trigger. How did this happen?” Now I was caught between sadness, confusion, and anger.

“That’s what Diana and ExeMan feared. That the AI we developed would take control over the host. They didn’t anticipate that someone else could control the AI within the host’s body.”

Xpolar smiled widely. “You and I, friend. We will rule the world,” he said, followed by a somewhat prolonged satisfied laugh. “Now let’s go down and celebrate this,” he said, like an order in my head.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You controlled my movements and made me kill Diana?”

Xpolar didn’t answer. He moved closer to me. “I knew you would be difficult to control and become a problem,” he said. With the tip of his staff, he suddenly pushed me in the chest. I lost my footing. I fell into the darkness of the night. My mind envisioned the cold, hard concrete and Diana’s body sprawled on the rooftop floor. At that moment, Diana’s face appeared, with a bitter smile, as if cursing that our story did not have a fitting end.

Everything turned black.

[ap78]

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