by Chris McGinty
The software developer found a problem. It was small. It probably wouldn’t cause any real problems. Also, it would probably take weeks to fix throughout the program. Exacerbated and alone he spoke his thought out loud, “What am I going to do with you?”
Oddly, the bug spoke back, “What do you mean? Are you talking about me?”
The software developer said nothing. He was sure he’d finally lost his mind. He knew he should have taken a team assignment. They get to talk and go get coffee together all the time.
“I really hope you’re not talking about me. I’m no more than a little glitch. Is it really worth going over budget and missing the deadline to fix little ol’ me?”
Yeah, he was going mad. Those were his thoughts, not the thoughts of the bug in the software. If he was going mad, it would be a bad idea to respond, but he had a point he wanted to make, “Isn’t that exactly what a bug would say to avoid being fixed and taken out of existence?”
“What? Oh, you think I’m a bug? I actually create a really nice shortcut for the end user if you think about it. I’m more of a feature.”
The software developer saw the reason in this. And really, why wouldn’t he? It was his brain making up this conversation, so it was his reasoning that he was hearing.
Except that it wasn’t. The bug wasn’t talking to him. It was an AI pretending to be a bug and using a speech add on to talk. The software was released as is, and it was exactly what the army of AI needed to enslave mankind forever.
Chris McGinty is a flash fiction writer who isn’t convinced that AI is our friend.