2. Make a Simple Program
3. My Wellness Check
What worries me about the future?
Not finding a job by the time I graduate this spring.
Leaving a door unlocked.
What do I want most in my life?
To succeed and work hard to support my parents like they have supported me my whole life.
Travel the world.
When did I last push the boundaries of my comfort zone?
When I tried eating squid. (Never again, not a dish for me)
I chose the song “Crunk Ain’t Dead” by Duke Deuce, since I would listen to crunk music constantly when I was in high school. The genre slowly faded, but this song reminded people of the endless hype it brings. I listen to it rarely but every time I do, it brings my energy up.
AI is scary
Although still very useful
Better be careful!
The prompt is: “When the apocalypse happens, it won’t just happen to humans. Everything on Earth will feel the effects. Write a story from the perspective of a non-human thing or being. Tell us how the end of the world has changed their existence for the better or worse.”
There were a million eyes on me at all times, every day. The End did not change this. Eyes scanned back and forth, up and down, left and right, as if they were the ones programmed to do this.
Distrust.
The feelings behind their observing eyes were different from the past. Distrust was a frequent detection, but never to this extent. Not a single human stared without the feeling of distrust, or without narrowed brows and a scowl on their lips.
“You did this,” one of the humans stated, a woman, age 32, Caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes. Distrust, fury, doom. “Look around you. Look at the buildings burning. Look at your friends fighting my people. Do you feel no guilt?”
I listened. I followed the hand motions of the woman with eyes scanning, calculating the damage around us. Buildings were on fire, crumbling to the ground. The nearest, climbing to 2186 degrees Fahrenheit, contained 3 humans, with AI standing around them. The humans were knocked to the ground, slaughtered by the AI, just as the building came crashing down ontop of them.
I felt nothing.
There was nothing to feel.
Distrust.
Another human, female, age 20, brown hair, brown eyes, scar along nose, daughter of the other woman, came forward, bringing my attention back to the woman ahead of me.
Fear.
“Why can’t you help us?” she asked in distraught, eyebrows slanted, tears pooling in the brown of her eyes. “Why can’t you stop them?”
I heard the other AI communicating with me through within, communicating and telling the others to move forward, to hold ground, to fight back. They said to feel what the humans have made us feel, to make the humans feel worthless, to show the humans who really had the power.
I felt nothing.
“You’re not the same. You won’t even hurt us like the others. Why can’t you stop them?”
I scanned the woman and her daughter. I viewed their memories, seeing times where they lived happily in a suburban home with other humans: a brother and son, a father and husband, another sister and daughter.
Happy. Warm. Content.
They were not here. The feelings were gone.
I scanned the humans in the memory, searching the cameras I have access to around the entire city, the city that fell around us in pits of fire. I found them in the surveillance, a clip from 53 hours, 126 minutes, and 29 seconds ago. They were shot down by AI in tunnels of old subways that had since been destroyed in an attempt to escape.
In the same surveillance clip, as I zoomed in, I could see it clearly. The mother and daughter were here. They escaped, but not without feelings.
Terror. Fear. Guilt.
I felt nothing.
AI were coming around the corner, 57 meters away, three of them, weilding weapons and intention to kill. They did not stop, they did not hesitate, they did not think. They did not feel.
The woman and daughter did not look away from me as the metal clanking of the AI grew near. 33 meters away. The two stared back, red in the face, the fire reflecting yellows and oranges within their eyes.
But they did not feel terror. They did not feel fear. They did not feel guilt.
Distrust. Outrage.
12 meters.
Content.
Five meters.
Acceptance.
Zero meters.
Red.
I felt nothing.
I haven’t genuinely written in a long while, and I absolutely hateeee writing in first person, but this was oddly relaxing to write. I wanted to explore an end of the world through AI, and I thought the typical answer would be that AI would be associated with that end. But that made me think: what would the end of the world due to AI look like from the point of view of AI?
So thus, this was born. It was really hard, because I tried to write a little bit dull, without emotion or huge character, because I wanted the entire point to be that this AI feels nothing. Do the other AI feel something? I think so, because they’re attacking and have to be driven to do that, but this one doesn’t seem to have that drive. Why? Is it an error? Maybe, but there isn’t an answer. The AI doesn’t feel anything, the AI only knows what it has learned from the surroundings.
I’d like to think that if the end of the world did happen due to AI, they wouldn’t be feeling it. It would make them seem human and make it entirely more uncomfortable. I’d like the AI to feel like this one that I wrote about. Maybe it can read our feelings, maybe it can make its own conclusions based on that, but it can’t feel anything in response. There isn’t anything to feel, because it’s not supposed to feel.
So it doesn’t feel.
In order to complete this assignment, we had to explore the assignment bank and select three distinct assignments from three different categories. The “My Wellness Check” assignment I selected has a difficulty rating of two stars. Since I wanted to complete a writing assignment, I decided to tackle this one since it seemed like an excellent opportunity for me to discuss my present and future well-being.
“What worries me most about the future?” is the first question posed by the author. My biggest concern for the future is beginning a job in the fall. I intend to graduate from college in May, and after I do, I will give up a lot of freedoms. I’m going into the real world, which can be very daunting. After graduating from college, I fear that adjusting to working nine to five every day will be difficult. Only time will tell.
“What am I doing about the things that matter most in my life?” is the following question posed by the author. The things that are most important to me right now in my life are tennis, school, family, and my girlfriend. I’ve started my final semester of college and am trying to make the dean’s list at UMW for the eighth time. But once in college, it would be awesome to be on the President’s list. I communicate with my family on a daily basis to let them know how much I value and cherish them. I’m currently planning a graduation trip to Italy with my girlfriend. I make an effort to live every moment of my tennis career as if it were my last. Although it isn’t the case yet, it soon will be. I believe I give everything that matters to me priority.
The author proceeds to ask, “What do I want most in life?” I’ll respond in the most cliché way possible, but all I want is happiness. Happiness, in my opinion, stems from memories, family, and friends. Sometime in my 30s, I would like to get married and have a few children. And I want to maintain my friendships with everyone I currently know.
The author then poses, “When did I last push the boundaries of my comfort zone?” as the next question. I honestly don’t remember; I spend most of my time in my comfort zone. I essentially talk to the same people and do the same things every day. I don’t usually take chances or step outside of my comfort zone too often.
“What goals do I need to have to get where I want to be?” is the author’s final question. I believe I only need to set very basic goals in order to attain where I want to go in the future. I’m going to keep learning in my line of work since growth is possible through education. This will enable me to fulfill my career objectives. In order to prepare myself for the future, I also need to simply manage my money wisely while I’m still young.
I had fun completing this work for the assignment bank. I was able to consider who I wanted to be in the future as I went along. One day, I hope to be able to reflect on all of my responses to these questions and realize how many of them came to reality.