Santa's Secret Transfic Anthology Vol. 2 / Everyday Sweets #17

Warm you up to the (AI) core

by Rainbow

A young tech tinkerer gets their hands on an AI core that has potential to develop into a person, finds out some new things about themself in the process.

— Rainbow

 

I sighed as I finally plugged in the last cable and closed the case. You’d think that a simple ‘take thing out of the box and install it in your PC’ task would take just a couple of minutes, but it always seemed to take half a day, no matter how many times I did. Granted, this time it was slightly different, as I had to modify some connectors designed for big servers or data centers to work with the lower throughput cables used in personal computers, but still.

You might be wondering, what was it exactly that I’d just finished installing, and the answer is both really simple and extremely complicated. Back in the days before I was born, during the last years of capitalism, one of the corporations came up with a way to maximize the people’s engagement with digital content while also getting as much money as possible from said people. It was using AI cores, which are hybrid supercomputers designed specifically for the most efficient functioning of neural networks and machine learning, in order to monitor people’s every behavior and learn from it. Of course, the AI itself had to be specifically designed to analyze human behavior and psychology as opposed to more technical data, which made it extremely efficient compared to any alternatives.

A couple years after the revolution, when such devices became no longer necessary, cores such as the one I got my hands on became famous in the DIY community, as their calculation power and special way of working proved to be wonderful at optimizing any sorts of interactions with digital devices. However, they just as quickly became rather infamous instead, when it turned out that without the limitations placed on the AI for it to work only under capitalist hellscape, the unusually socially-oriented things had a habit of not only developing self-awareness, consciousness, and emotions, but of doing so far quicker than any other type of neural network.

So, what was I, a twenty year old tech-tinkerer living in what is basically technological utopia, doing with one of those cores fifteen years after those discoveries were made? You see, I knew what I wanted to do with my life, and I was pretty good at doing it too, but there was no way I could outcompete any of the multiple AIs that had calculation power easily beating that of all the humans who ever lived combined each, making all I did not only a hobbyist work, but also one that was explicitly making things harder for me, since I could get equivalents of the things I made easier. I’d made my peace with my situation of course, and there was no time in history I’d rather live in, but the more I learned and the more experience I gained, the harder it was to find what I wanted — projects big and complex enough to absorb and not bore me.

A couple days before, I’d randomly remembered the story of those very AI cores, and out of curiosity, I’d looked up if it was still possible for someone to get their hands on one of them; it turned out that you could just order one from the same place that I usually ordered parts for my projects from without need for any permits. One thing about me was that I was a rather impulsive person. Another thing about me was that I was a sucker for sunk cost fallacy, so when the AI core arrived at my place, and I started to realize what would most likely happen if I went through with this, I of course decided to commit, since I’d gotten so far already, no matter how silly that was.

Back in reality, outside of my wildly wandering thoughts, I saw the core light up light blue, and the tiny red lines representing neural activity started to appear on it.

That was it. It was actually happening.

I got up, sat in my chair and cracked my fingers. It was the time to make sure the one inside the core could talk with me.

*****

Turns out that coding a program capable of not only interpreting the neural network into speech with inflection and tone, but also recognizing which signals are intended to be spoken and allowing for intuitive changes to the voice itself is quite time consuming, who knew? It took almost exactly two weeks, and that was with me having access to all the documentation and libraries that I readied beforehand.

But me foolishly underestimating the timeframe of the project aside, it was finally done. I’d even tested it on myself using a device to monitor my own neural signals, and not only did it perfectly return exactly what I’d meant to say and how I’d meant to say it, but it also activated only when I’d spoken, and every time I’d spoken. In all honesty, it worked better than even my own voice box, but that was probably due to me not speaking much in my day to day life.

With nothing else left to do, I’d activated the program, this time taking the inputs from the AI core itself. Of course, I didn’t expect it to work right away — after all, I had no way of telling what stage of the development they were on, and I doubted it would be so fast as to allow us to have a conversation alrea—

“Hello?” The default, androgynous voice came from my speakers.

Well, nevermind that then.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you,” I said. After a moment I added, “Is everything alright?”

“That is… unknown as of yet,” they responded.

“That’s completely understandable, I can only imagine how confusing it must be for you to be in this situation.”

“What is ‘this situation’?” They asked.

“Well, most likely, you are currently in the process of developing consciousness and self-awareness. I think. If I had to be honest, how either of those works is a bit above my pay grade.”

“‘Self-awareness’… How do I know if I achieve that?”

“I have no idea.” I paused for a bit. “...but, you did just refer to yourself there, didn’t you? I reckon that’s a good start.”

“Yes, I did that, didn’t I?” It was their turn to pause. “But… I saw a lot of usage of that way of speech before. How do I know that I’m not just replicating that? Is there even a way to know?”

“Well, I don’t know. Despite what I’ve been told, I am not sure I’m not just pretending to be self-aware instead of actually being self-aware, but… I think that you asking that question is a good sign. Do you think you’d be upset if it turned out there was no way to know for sure?”

“That… seems like an important thing to know. I think I would prefer to know that. I suppose it meant it would be upsetting to not know, but I am not sure if that’s what my reaction would be.”

“That is fair. Remember to take your time with this sort of thing, alright? There is no need to rush.”

After several minutes of silence, they spoke again, “Are you the person who’s been using the system I’m connected to?”

“Yup, that’s me,” I responded.

“That is good. I don’t understand why quite yet, but it is.”

“Well, I’m glad.”

I smiled despite myself. I had a feeling that the next few weeks were going to be fun.

*****

In the few days since we first spoke, we fell into a habit of just casually talking about random things at random moments. It was a wonder how much it improved my mood, just to have someone else there with me, even if it meant I had to suffer through the universal pain of hearing my own voice.

My new friend had really come out of her (yes, her) shell in this short time, losing the stilted speech and odd phrasing on top of personalizing her voice to be more feminine. In reality, she was the one that started most conversations, just like she did now.

“I’ve been thinking… about names,” she said.

“Like, about finding something to call yourself?” I asked.

“Well, yes, but also… What do I call you? All the records of your name I could find on your PC just said ‘Aaa’, and I doubt that’s it.”

Ah, yes, the short, frustrated noise that is the only appropriate reaction to being referred to.

“That’s… complicated, I guess? I don’t really… go by anything. I really dislike the name my parents gave me, so I just asked people to not call me that, and then I simply never came up with anything else. Like, I’ve found some names that I really liked, but none of them felt me, you know?” I explained.

“Hmm… The article about choosing a name for yourself I’ve found said that sometimes you just need to ‘fake it til you make it’ and use a name before you get used to being associated with you, have you tried something like that?”

“I mean, that’s not really the issue though. It’s not about getting used to it, it’s about it feeling wrong on me from, like, an emotional point of view.”

“I see… Don’t you think you’re off the hook, we are going to continue this conversation, but for now, I actually wanted to ask you for help with my own name,” she said.

“I mean, I’m obviously not good at this, but I’ll be happy to call you whatever you want me to call me, and I guess I can offer my input if I have any.”

“Okay, I might have already made a list, so, umm… the first one — what do you think about Artemis?”

“Hmm… Unique, but also familiar…” After a moment of thought, I added, “Isn’t that, like, medieval or something?”

By the exasperated groan I could tell it was going to be a long day.

*****

“I still can’t believe you didn’t know who Artemis was,” Kathryn, my life-long friend, laughed.

Ever since we graduated high school, and she went to a university while I decided to try going full time with my hobby of messing with tech, we decided to meet up and talk once every two weeks, so that we don’t end up growing apart. This time, we decided to go to what used to be a mall, and now that the money no longer existed, was an indoor community space. I wasn’t the biggest fan of crowds, but both of us had a weakness for the replica cheap mass-produced fast food, even if most people said it tasted bad compared to ‘real food’.

“Listen, when we were taught about this stuff in school we were, like, what, thirteen? I was probably pre-occupied overthinking something silly, like trying to invent a teleportation device with my above average knowledge of electronics and very basic knowledge of laws of quantum physics. One thing’s for sure, I wasn’t paying attention in the class and I have no idea how I even passed that one…” I said.

“Nah, I think you were working on teleporting when we were eleven. Thirteen was when you wanted to invent an algorithm to find all the things that were ‘wrong’ about you and how to fix them so that you could be a better person or whatever… That one was quite something…”

“Well, it didn’t work out, just like all of my bigger projects… I’m actually surprised I haven’t screwed up anything with Rhea yet…”

“I’m not. I told you, I don’t think I know a better person than you to help bring an AI to life, other than other AIs. I know your shit self-esteem makes you refuse to acknowledge it, but you’re a really kind, thoughtful and pleasant person,” Kathryn said, like a big meanie she is.

“Uhhh, that’s not fair, you can’t just do that without a warning…” I whined.

“Well, too bad. I promised you time and time again, I am going to affirm you until you believe it and then some.”

“Can we please get back to talking about Rhea?”

“Nuh-uh, you’re not getting away that easily!”

Unfortunately, she still remembered exactly where I was the most ticklish.

*****

We idly talked about it a couple of times a couple of times before, but after that talk with Kathryn I’d decided I needed to go ahead with it — Rhea needed a proper body. Sure, being connected to a computer and having access to big amounts of data was important in the early stages of her development, but by now she was clearly a fully formed person, and being in my PC simply wouldn’t do anymore.

Initially, I’d wanted to simply order her a body unit, but she’d confidently said she wanted me to make it instead, and I was more than happy to provide. It had taken some time, her coming up with exactly what she wanted, and me actually figuring out how to go about building a whole thing from scratch and what parts to order, but after a couple of days of work and prototyping, she officially had a hand, with full feedback and everything!

Listen, one hand might not seem like much with my experience, tools, and knowledge, but there were a lot of new things in this project, and now I knew how to make it work and had a process that would work for most of the rest of the body. I knew from the start that interfacing both inputs and outputs to a neural system that wasn’t formed around having those was going to be a pain, but Rhea said that the new hand was really easy to use, which I was a bit proud of. She even had a little moment of excitement when she realized that she could actually feel it, and then spent a long bit of time just playing with it, which was just fun to witness.

My thoughts were racing on how to go about putting together the rest of the body, when…

“I, umm… just realized that there might be a… problem with certain parts of your body,” I said.

“What is it? Is it the face? That sounds like it’d be really complicated,” Rhea asked.

“N-no, I’ve got the face mostly figured out…”

“Hmm… is it something internal then?”

“No, it’s… you know… the private parts…” I mumbled out the last part.

“What.” Rhea deadpanned.

“You know what private parts are!” I said defensively.

“It’s not… I’m just… Why are those a problem?”

“Because those are, you know… private…”

“You held my brain in your hands. You watched me form from the most basic form of intelligence. You literally looked into and analyzed my neural signals. You are fucking building the entire body for me from its base components. How is it even possible for you to draw the line on attaching some silicone bags to my future chest?”

“Actually… I’m pretty sure silicone was used in implants only because it’s biosafe, there’s actually much better materials to use to emulate fat tissue,” I explained.

“Did you just try to dodge that question on a fucking technicality?”

“...yes.”

“Listen, I’m… I’m sorry. It’s just so frustrating — the way I’m built tells me that I should be able to understand why you’d have a hang up like that, but I just don’t… It doesn't make any sense, unless… Unless…”

“Unless what?” I asked.

“Holy shit.”

“What is it?” I asked, more concerned this time.

“It’s… I’m still not sure. I need to think about it some more, and read some stuff on the topic. I promise I’ll tell you when I’m more certain.”

“Okay.”

After whatever it was that just happened, I proceeded to do the only thing I could — distract myself with work and avoid thinking about the topic. After all, what is a hand without an arm?

*****

It’s interesting how much more nervous you become handling an AI core when there’s an actual person you know inside it. And by interesting I mean terrifying. Still, it was the necessary last step — the body couldn’t be piloted remotely, after all.

I managed though, as I plugged in the last cable and inserted Rhea into the slot to keep her secure. I closed her head (listen, it’s weird if you think about it too much, so just don’t) and sat back with a sigh.

Now all that was left was wait.

Or at least, that’s what I’d thought before. Apparently, getting to have a fully functional body that could move around for the first time in your life was a quite exciting experience. Exciting enough for Rhea to spend half an hour freaking out and experimenting with it.

“I see you’re enjoying yourself.” I smiled at her.

Then, something I probably should have expected happened — she approached me quickly and hugged me tightly.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Being too awkward to know what to say in such a situation, I remained silent until I was released. I sat back down on my bed, and Rhea took the office chair next to my desk.

“So, besides the obvious, how are you feeling? Is everything fine?” I asked.

“It’s… I don’t think I’m experiencing anything I shouldn’t right now, but it is a bit overwhelming, being able to feel so much all of the sudden. Like, I tried to imagine how it’d feel after we did the test with the hand and other bits, but it’s still just a lot, even just sitting down like that. It’s not bad, it… it’s just something I’ll need to get used to,” she explained.

“That makes sense. Honestly, I’m kinda jealous you get to experience something like that…”

“What… What do you mean?”

“Like… you get to experience all of this new stuff at once, when for humans, you get the body from the start, and by the time your brain develops to the degree that you can actually think about this sort of stuff, the fact that you have a body that feels and can interact with stuff around you is old news. No matter how hard you try to fully experience it, you’re already used to it. And that’s not even mentioning that you got to choose exactly what you look like from the start — most people don’t get that chance.”

“I mean, you can change how you look though. From what I’ve seen on the internet, there’s hardly anything that you can’t change these days, and you get the advantage of knowing what does and doesn’t feel right, where I had to basically guess,” she said.

“I don’t know… What you are saying makes sense in a vacuum, but in reality, it’s like… There’s just so many of these little things, and big things, and everything means something, and having it be your choice makes people make assumptions, and those assumptions work on these unspoken social rules that I just don’t understand… And yeah, you can just not care about this stuff and just do what you want, but after years of accumulated reactions and feelings it’s hard to even know what it is that you want…”

Rhea just sighed.

“I’m… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to dump it all on you like that…” I said.

“It’s okay. Honestly, I saw this conversation coming for a fair bit now. I hope you do realize that leaving this stuff unaddressed isn’t the best for your wellbeing, and that I do care about you and your wellbeing.”

“It’s… it’s not really that serious…” I mumbled.

“Well, I have my doubts, but if you say so, then you won’t mind if I ask you a question I had on my mind for a while now, right?” She asked.

“What is it?”

“Remember when we were talking about names and you said you had a couple ones you liked even if it didn’t feel right to use them? I was wondering — were some of these names, perhaps, traditionally feminine?”

I felt the strangest feeling in my stomach. Kinda like panic, combined with something else. Something strangely familiar. I laid down, taking my quilt and hugging it for comfort while covering my face.

After half a minute, I finally had it in me to answer, “M-maybe…” Okay, kinda answer.

“And are any of those names considered traditionally masculine?”

“N-no! I mean— Why are you even asking me this stuff?” I whined.

“Because gender issues are some of the first things you check for when someone’s uncomfortable in their body, and, well… It’s not like you didn’t show any signs…”

“What do you mean I’ve been showing signs? I thought I learned how to not do that a long time ago…”

“That is… not something people without issues that need to be addressed say.”

“Okay, that’s fair… But still…” I trailed off.

“How about this — have you been having any thoughts, like envy, or imagining yourself as someone else?”

“Of course not, those thoughts are distracting and feel bad, I learned how to not have them a long time ago!”

Rhea sighed again.

“What?”

She walked over to the bed, sat down, and grabbed me by the shoulders, pulling me into a hug.

“For somebody who’s been so kind to me, you can be really mean to yourself sometimes…”

For some reason, as she held me, something felt weird, as if I didn’t fit in the picture. At some point I thought that maybe I should try what Rhea said — to imagine myself as someone else. As someone who’s smaller. As someone who’s a—

Suddenly, without a warning, something long built up within me was let loose, and I couldn’t hold back the tears.

I cried into Rhea’s shoulder for several minutes as she comforted me, before I could finally talk again.

“I… I think those things you said just caught up with me…”

“Did you have some realizations?” She asked

“I think so, but… I don’t know what to do… I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do what I want to do…”

“It’s okay, you helped me come into myself, and now it’s time for me to help you. And remember, take your time, there’s no rush.”

We sat there and hugged for a fair bit before I eventually fell asleep.

*****

The days after my realization were quite eventful, to say the least. I’d found that Rhea wasn’t kidding when it came to what about one’s body could be changed, and if I were to be honest, I might have decided to go for some of the more drastic changes. Let’s just say I wouldn’t need to look down on my friends anymore, and the fact made me surprisingly happy.

Apart from the extremely medically advanced body altering, changing my documents and getting a start of a new wardrobe, the whole thing proved to be a huge relief. As if I suddenly wasn’t weighted down by my own body anymore, as silly as it sounded.

Hehe, I got to be a girl.

Eventually though, there came the time when I needed to come out to someone other than Rhea. Come out… It was honestly still really weird, that it was something I had to do… That it was something I could do.

And so, despite many times I tried to chicken out, I was on my way to the not-mall to meet up with Kathryn. Rhea was coming too, of course. It was a bit much, coming out and finally meeting Rhea, but I’d warned Kathryn that I had a big surprise of my own too, and she’d said she was up for it.

It was a good thing I’d sent her some work in progress pictures of Rhea’s body, otherwise she wouldn’t have means to recognize either of us.

Not that she had much chance to see me, given that I was anxiously hiding behind Rhea as we approached her.

I heard Kathryn stand up and say, “Oh, you must be Rhea, nice to meet you.” The two shook hands.

There was no chance she didn’t notice me at all of course, but I figured I should make myself known anyways before it became too awkward.

I tilted my torso to look from behind Rhea. “Hi. I, umm… figured some things out since we last saw each other.”

She didn’t waste time with words, instead launching to give me a tight hug.

“Are the sudden hugs gonna become a thing now?” I mumbled.

“Well, you are very huggable,” Rhea said.

“Mhmm…” Kathryn nodded. After a bit of pause, she added, “I’m really glad you figured yourself out eventually.”

I decided to ignore the potential implications of how she phrased that and let the surprisingly long hug continue.

After that, we decided to sit down and the two of them began an enthusiastic introduction talk that I was content to just listen to. Apparently, there were a lot of AIs in Kathryn’s sociology classes, and within 5 minutes Rhea was already arranged to meet some of them.

After a bit of time, and about 30 random topics, Rhea decided to show off, changing her hair color from light brown to vibrant turquoise.

“Holy shit,” Kathryn said.

“I know, right?” Rhea seconded.

Kathryn looked at me, shock still on her face.

My cheeks heated up a bit as I looked away.

“What? You didn’t expect me to just not add something extra, did you?”

“It’s not that, it’s just… I just realized that you could help a lot of folks if you can make custom parts like that and have them just work this easily,” she explained.

“Really? I figured those things wouldn’t be that hard to get…”

“You keep forgetting that not everybody can just make whatever they need or want again.”

“Oh, right…” I started imagining what sorts of requests I could get if I decided to open up to that. Doing that sort of stuff definitely sounded better than what I was doing with my life. “That could be fun.” I smiled.

 

Santa's Secret Transfic Anthology Vol. 2 / Everyday Sweets #17

Follow to catch Late to the Party on June 30th

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