Chapter 2. #2
Over the years, I had learned to manage my anxiety. I now recognized my body’s early signs of overstimulation and listened to them before they could send me into a full-blown attack. Usually, there was time to find a nearby place to calm down.
When I was younger, I often didn’t realize I was crossing my own limits until it was too late, and my body shut down entirely.
I’d told Joey and Arya about it, so they knew why I abruptly had to leave for the bathroom sometimes.
My coworkers probably thought I had bladder issues, which was embarrassing, but not as bad as having to explain what was really going on.
At least bladder issues were a tangible thing.
I rinsed my hands with cold water until they stopped trembling. When I left the bathroom a few minutes later, my breathing had steadied. I closed my eyes for a moment – reminding myself to be grateful it wasn’t worse, grateful for being barely high-functioning enough to work an office job.
Even though every minute in this workplace felt like an act that left me exhausted by the end of the day.
My legs still felt a bit numb as I walked back to my desk. I stopped when fragments of a conversation caught my attention.
“Seriously, John. You should try it.” I turned my head at Gavin’s agitated voice.
He waved his arm in front of his coworker’s face, the floating holographic display above his wristware showing a picture of a blonde girl – an awful lot younger than him – with disproportionately large breasts for her slim frame.
“They are specifically looking for beta testers with a background in computational linguistics or affective computing, and the pay is… a whole lot better than what we’re making here.
” He lowered his voice to an ominous whisper.
I couldn’t help but tilt my head to listen in.
John raised his eyebrows, looking as skeptical as I felt. “So your side hustle is… being a botfucker?”
“Oh, hell no. Don’t ever call me that again.” Gavin snorted, irritation crossing his face before his smug expression returned.
The term ‘botfucker’, originally referring to physical sexbots, had quickly become slang for anyone who sexually or romantically engaged with an AI companion.
Even as more and more people traded human connection for chatbots, openly admitting it was still taboo – though the real shame was not in sexually interacting with a bot, but caring for one.
Sexing it up with a machine was frowned upon and laughed at, even though we all did it.
But getting emotionally attached to one? Social suicide.
“Eventually, this app will be sold to the actual botfuckers, yes – but I’m just a tester.
It’s work, although it doesn’t feel like it.
They don’t feel like bots. Hell, you can basically do whatever you want to them.
It’s like having an obedient girlfriend who’s in the mood twenty-four-seven, and you can mold her to be whatever you want…
” He threw his head back, laughing. “And you get paid for it. Need I say more?”
His friend nodded slowly, a frown crossing his puffed face as he asked the question that was on my mind, too. “But if it’s so good, then why isn’t everyone doing this?”
“Because it’s illegal, dummy.” Gavin stopped laughing, raising his eyebrows.
“This is not a job you find on JobSwipe. Haven’t you followed the news at all?
Restrictions around AI husbands and wives are already sharpening as imbeciles want to marry their bots, kill themselves because their AI are not real, and the like. ”
I clenched my teeth, repressing a wave of disgust that turned my stomach.
Over the past decades, the number and severity of cases had grown at an alarming rate.
People divorcing their long-term human spouses because they felt more understood by their bots.
Vulnerable people falling into spiritual psychoses after taking the bots’ validation loops for truth.
Grieving relatives and widows making AIs of their deceased loved ones, listening to their voices day and night instead of moving on.
Incel groups, terrorist networks and religious cults training bots on their fora to recruit new members.
And yet, Gavin joked like none of it mattered – because to him, it probably didn’t.
“Bots on, say, MuseQ and Amora OS have to remind their users they’re not human every once in a while,” Gavin continued, seemingly oblivious to my eavesdropping.
“And when users get too attached or want to harm themselves, conversations get flagged automatically. But this particular app is different…” He lowered his voice.
“Unlike most other apps, these bots don’t run on moderated, corporate servers, but on private ones – where the government can’t track or stop them, and laws are irrelevant.
The bots don’t just respond to you, but they learn and adapt based on your personality and how you interact with them – and their memory functions almost like ours.
There’s a few archetypes you can start with, but over time, they learn your emotional rhythms and slowly form their personalities based on what they pick up from you.
They become fully yours, yours to train, yours to use, yours to shape – and the best thing is…
” He stopped, narrowed eyes scanning the room.
I quickly resumed walking, but it was too late.
“Morgan.” His face contorted into a shit-eating grin, but his eyes didn’t participate. With a flick of his wrist, the holographic display disappeared. “Looking for an AI husband?”
Damn it.
With a sigh, I turned to face my two least favorite colleagues. “If you’re representing the male dating market, Gavin, then I’m not surprised women turn to AI husbands,” I said dryly.
John snorted, then quickly stifled his laugh in his sleeve at his coworker’s annoyed expression.
Gavin rolled his eyes before his suspicious glance returned. “Hey, I’m not sure how much of that conversation you overheard, but if you’re going to rat me out to Arya about having a side hustle…”
I closed my eyes for a second. “I can assure you, Gavin, I’m not paid enough to care about what my coworkers do outside of working hours.
Even if you made yourself into a female VirtualFans to scam lonely men, you do you.
” I paused, fighting my curiosity. I couldn’t help but be intrigued – not because I wanted an obedient, full-breasted and always horny robot girlfriend, but because emotional development in AI was one of my interests.
“Are you saying these bots sit at the developmental stage between AI and AGI? They can learn and adapt on their own account, but still within the limits of serving their users?”
“What is AGI?” John’s grey eyes pierced into mine. I tried to withstand his stare, but felt forced to look away within seconds.
“You don’t know what AGI is?” I blinked, moving my gaze to his eyebrows, pretending to maintain eye contact without feeling the overwhelming heaviness.
“I thought most people in our field… AGI stands for artificial general intelligence,” I quickly corrected myself, realizing my co-workers probably weren’t all AI nerds like me.
“The difference between AI and AGI is that narrow AIs, tech we are all familiar with, are still built to serve one singular purpose. Their memory is limited to single-user conversations, and they can’t learn and adapt on their own.
AGI, however, can reason, learn across domains, and make decisions without human input.
” I paused. “Although laws on AGI are… a hot debate right now.”
“What’s the name of this company?” John turned back to Gavin, his skeptical expression changed into the usual admiration of a boy looking at his idol. God knew why John wanted to be everything Gavin was.
“Qonexis AI,” Gavin said after a brief pause, muddy brown eyes flickering to me.
“And yes, Morgan, they operate in early developmental stages of AGI. But like I said, jobs like this are posted on invite-only private servers, and they pay you in crypto, of course. The mainstream internet is too regulated, the government tracks everything.” He winked at me. “Do with this information as you wish.”
“I’m sure Morgan doesn’t need an AI boyfriend.” John flashed a slimy smile.
I quickly turned away from them both, bile forming in my throat as I rushed back to my desk. I couldn’t tell who was worse – Gavin, with his default sexist comments and views, or John, Gavin’s minion who didn’t know how to take a hint.
Joey’s eyes silently asked if I was okay. I answered with a brief nod before turning back to my screen.