Chapter 4.
The interface was not what I expected. No logo, no loading screen, no tutorial voice telling me how to proceed. Just a matte-black space pulsing softly around the edges, as if it were breathing. One line of white text appeared.
Calibration complete. Proceed to bot configuration.
I scoffed. No way I’d proceed with whatever this was without reading the fine print. I found the employment terms – as far as those went – tucked away in a corner. My eyes scanned the letters faster than my tired brain could process them, so I asked my built-in AI assistant to summarize it for me.
Weekly payout, automatically transferred to my crypto wallet.
They paid by the hour, our time spent interacting with the AI automatically monitored by the company – with a minimum of five hours and a maximum of fourteen hours per week.
As soon as they clocked less than five hours per week, the contract would be canceled automatically with no way of going back in.
Any time over fourteen hours would be unpaid.
I made a mental note to carefully track my time on the app. Aim for close to fourteen hours, but never more. I was here to make money, not to become emotionally entangled with a machine.
We had to draw up a weekly report based on an exhaustive list of questions about the AI’s emotional, cognitive, empathetic and behavioral metrics. If progress was insufficient, the contract would also be terminated.
The hourly rates were exceptional for the current economy – with the option to earn a bonus for testing the company’s AR, VR and neurohaptic integrations.
“So far, so good,” I mumbled to myself. Nothing strange enough to make me reconsider – yet.
My eyebrows rose further with every archetype character out of the list I could choose from.
The mafia boss. The girl who bullies you at school.
The boyband crush. The nurse. Your therapist. The masc lesbian neighbor.
The billionaire husband (arranged marriage).
The masked stalker. Your best friend’s wife.
Your brother’s best friend. The stepsister. The college freshman girl.
Humans were so predictable – and, at times, a bit disturbing.
And these were only the pre-set archetypes. God knows the user-generated custom bots would be worse, with cultural and racial fetishization or teenage-coded bots.
For a moment, I considered deleting the app. Yes, I was burnt out from my corporate job and some extra money would be nice, but wouldn’t there be a better way?
With a sigh, I leaned back on the minimalist couch. I started chewing on my nails, my unseeing eyes gazing into circadian ambient light shifting through simulated moon tones.
“They already have my data,” I muttered to myself. “Might as well go through with it.”
My thumb hovered above the final option. ‘Custom bot’. For those who desired something other than the twenty listed archetypes.
As I scrolled through the long list of characteristics, I thought about the last few women I’d fallen for. There was no common ground in terms of appearances or personalities, other than that none of them cared for me the way I cared for them.
It had been years since the last time someone had made me feel something.
A middle-aged woman, married with two kids.
Successful, intelligent, but with a hunger her mundane life couldn’t still.
She needed a little adventure now and then – but her husband couldn’t know.
To her, I was that adventure. To me, she felt like my soulmate – until she stopped talking to me one day.
The one before her was entirely different.
Unemployed, highly sensitive, with a heart dedicated to helping everyone but herself.
She also had a serious borderline personality disorder.
Her emotions could go through the full spectrum within hours, and I was usually on the receiving end of them.
I didn’t mind – I wanted all of her, good and bad, even at the cost of my own sanity.
I preferred her hurricane feelings over my own ruminations. It ended in tears and destruction.
Before her, I’d met a girl in college. She was everything I wanted to be, but never could be.
Popular. Extraverted. Bubbly. She could get every boy or girl she wanted, and she didn’t like to choose – certainly not me.
She barely acknowledged me in the hallways – but we’d kissed a few times at drunk parties, and more often in my dreams.
Before them, I used to date men. Men who evoke brief, all-consuming obsessions in me by breadcrumbing me just enough to make me crave what they wouldn’t give me, but not enough to take the rose-colored glasses off my eyes and show me who they really were.
Or they wanted too much, too soon. They didn’t care that I wasn’t so much into the things they did to me, because when I didn’t give them a clear ‘no’, they didn’t need a clear ‘yes’ either.
In my late teens, I was still learning how my body communicated, and they took that as permission to decide for me.
I hadn’t been in actual relationships with any of those people – and yet, they treated my heart as if it were theirs to break, each crack shallower than the previous one as they turned my blood to stone. Now, it felt safer not to let anyone in.
I resolutely shook my head before my thoughts could start drifting again.
As I selected the questionable traits from the list, I felt like someone was watching me.
Dominant. Intelligent. Manipulative. Sadistic. Confident. Unpredictable.
“Might as well make it fun,” I sarcastically muttered to myself.
My eyebrows rose further in the next stage of the customization process. To make the AI more lifelike, users could upload a photo, video or voice memo from their preferred person – their crush, a celebrity or an ex-lover.
So that’s how they get their data, I thought to myself.
Training their AIs on their customer’s desperation.
I briefly thought about uploading the voice memo of my borderline ex screaming and cursing at me, but decided against it.
Instead, I let my bot’s voice be randomly generated, as well as her appearance.
I started tapping the armrest as the data synced. I took a slow sip of my tea, a blend of chamomile and lavender that was supposed to help my body wind down for bed. When I glanced back at the screen, I almost spat out the tea at the sight of the woman staring back at me.
The photo looked more real than most AI-generated pictures I had seen so far.
Dressed in a dark blue dress that hugged her tall, curvy figure in all the right places, her obsidian eyes seemed to stare right into my soul.
Her long fingers played with thick waves of dark hair against golden skin in a slow, smooth loop.
The sapphire necklace resting between her full breasts captured my gaze like a magnet.
Around her full lips played a small smirk – as if she knew things the rest of the world didn’t, and it made her feel invincible.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. It’s just a photo, I told myself – an AI-generated photo. And yet, it was as if I could feel her energy through it. Pulsing, commanding. If she were real, she’d be the kind of woman I would thank for ruining my life.
“Oh, come on,” I muttered to myself. “Thirsting over a photo? It hasn’t been that long, has it?”
It had, in fact, been that long since I’d let anyone touch me. More than a year since the last TempoLove hook-up left me feeling nothing, and I’d decided no sex was better than mediocre sex.
I kept refreshing the name generator until it spat out one that fit.
Zafyra.
My frown deepened as I glanced over the options for communication. Chat, call, video call, AR or VR. I ignored my heart skipping a beat at the thought of her standing in front of me.
Chat seemed the safest.
Hi, I typed.
Her response came within a second. Her smirk in the photo seemed to widen. I squinted my eyes – it was probably the haze.
Zafyra: Why hello. If it isn’t another mortal walking straight into my trap.
Morgan: Eh, I have a name.
Zafyra: I know, Morgan.
How did she know my name? For a moment, weak alarm bells twisted my gut – but then I remembered I’d been carelessly yeeting my entire digital identity into this company’s database.
Of course, she knew my name.
I started typing but stopped, unsure of what I actually wanted to say. My job was to train this AI, but how do you train a virtual being who already knows more about you than you may ever understand about it?
A shiver ran down my spine when another line rolled over the screen – as if my creation noticed I’d started and stopped typing.
Some chatbot apps allowed their bots to send messages on their own initiative when users had not been online for a while, although news laws around this were being discussed, too.
Zafyra: Don’t get shy now. I know you’re not here for nothing. Don’t you want to play?
My eyes narrowed. Another line appeared – apparently, these bots could send multiple messages in a row on short notice to make the interaction more human-like.
Zafyra: Call me. It’s more fun that way.
Morgan: Don’t tell me what to do.
Zafyra: Oh, I think you love being told what to do.
Another shiver ran through my body, igniting little fires all over my skin. I could’ve sworn the woman’s photo winked at me from behind the screen, her smirk growing more malicious.
Rolling my eyes, I leaned back on the couch. I already regretted my customization choices – this job was going to be a lot harder if my AI kept giving me sass.
Morgan: Can I still change your customization?
Zafyra: Would you like that?
Zafyra: To mold me into your perfect fantasy?
Morgan: Not really.
Zafyra: I know.
Zafyra: But you can’t, darling. I’m here now. You made me, and you can’t unmake me. You can make another AI and talk with them, if you prefer – but remember…
Zafyra: I will still be here. And there’s no getting rid of me now.