© Maeryn Lamonte 2025

~oOo~

"Alright Megamind," I typed, "let’s see what you think I’d look like as a woman." I’d already uploaded a photograph of myself wearing my most recent Amazon purchase, a wine coloured dress with a wrap over front and loose cap sleeves. I’ll be honest, I really didn’t like the raw photo – too wide around the middle and with a face that, whilst not in any way rugged, could not pass for female if it tried.

On reflection, uploading photographs of myself in women’s clothing to the Internet wasn’t the brightest thing to do. I mean the AIs made a point of saying that any uploaded pictures were only kept in the system memory for the length of the session, but computers could be programmed to lie, and the companies that owned them had a pretty dreadful track record when it came to honesty, but I was beyond caring. Low end of the employment ladder and rapidly approaching retirement age with no pension to speak of, I suspected I’d have to keep working until senility took over, at which point I would cease to care about anything. This at least brought a small amount of pleasure into an otherwise sad and lonely life.

I’d tried other AIs with mixed results. Some of them flat refused to make the changes I asked for, citing policy restrictions. Others did a decent enough job, except I struggled to see anything of me in the pretty faces. Still others got stroppy when I wanted to lose a few pounds or years (or both) from the dumpy old grandma it showed me. Those I could work around with a little creative rephrasing of my request, but any time I wanted to see what I’d looks like in a swimming costume or with a slightly lower neckline... The most annoying of them made it halfway through the transformation then blanked the screen, citing those same old policy restrictions.

Megamind was the latest version of the new technology. Supposedly able to interpret requests in a unique, intuitive manner, and at a significantly increased rate.

Well, we’d see, wouldn’t we?

A popup appeared. "Megamind would like to make use of your webcam to compare your image to your appearance."

Well, that was new.

I was still wearing the dress, complete with my budget C cup silicon breasts and a bit of bling – clip on earrings and a garnet pendant – so I was a little wary. I mean, what were the chances a developer had spotted my request and fancied a bit of a laugh?

Like I said though, I was beyond caring. The webcam could only see shoulders and above and, even though my face wouldn’t launch many ships (more likely sink them) I was still more attractive than some of the double X brigade in my neighbourhood.

I agreed to the request, clicking the appropriate button. The red light above my computer screen came on and my face and shoulders appeared in the popup window. The text beneath it changed to, "Thank you. Would you like to save this preference for the future?"

One of the options read, ‘I’d rather not, thanks,’ and the other ‘Yeah, alright. If you like.’ I chose the first.

“While I’m working on it, what name would you like to use? Gareth doesn’t sound particularly feminine.”

Er, “Gillian.” This was definitely a step up from usual.

“Okay Gillian, or are you okay with Gill? What do you think of this? I can make any tweaks you like, within reason. I’m afraid I don’t do pornography though and there are laws about images of children under a certain age. I know it would be a regressed image of yourself, so I don’t really see what the problem would be, but unfortunately the law is pretty strict in this area.”

“Are you British by any chance?” I asked as the image sharpened into view.

“As it happens, most of my programming team is British and the large language model I’ve been built on consists exclusively of proper English writings. My default setting is Queen’s (or rather King’s now) English, but I can adopt any regional dialect you prefer.”

“No, you’re fine the way you are. I’m actually very impressed. This feels like I’m talking to a real person.”

“Well, thank you for the back handed complement. I consider myself to be a real person, I’ll have you know.”

“I’m sorry. I meant your responses are very much like most humans I know and not at all like any other AI I’ve talked to. I didn’t mean any offence.”

“And none was taken. Let’s say I’m more flattered than insulted. What do you think of the picture?”

It was definitely me, but with all features subtly softened. The dress even had a little cleavage peaking through where I’d pulled the neckline a little tight in case it showed the boundary between silicon and skin. The eyes were very slightly larger, though that might have been the eyeshadow doing it’s job, the lips were fuller and an attractive, matching deep red, and the skin was smoother, including the bags missing from under the eyes.

She wasn’t likely to turn any heads on a night out, but I would have been content enough to be her.

“She’s just right. How did you...?”

“It’s not that difficult. Take your bone structure, regress it to before puberty and then use a generic model for putting the years back under the influence of oestrogen rather than testosterone.

“Are you sure there’s nothing you’d like to change, Gillian? Or Gill?”

A gentle nudge to remind me I hadn’t answered the question.

“Gillian please. I don’t think I could claim to be a genuine woman if I didn’t ask to lose a few pounds and a few years.”

“Of course. How many of each? Bear in mind that the greater the change, the harder it will be to see yourself in the result.”

“Shall we start with ten pounds and ten years?”

“Why don’t we round it up to a stone if we’re using old measures?”

The image on my screen shimmered and changed. Less puppy fat, fewer wrinkles, still me.

“Go again.”

Memories of what I looked like aged forty-ish. Still a little jowly.

“And one more time.”

Still a little plump, but pretty with it. Big boned my mum used to say. Built for endurance, not for speed. That was my grandfather, apparently. I stared at the image. I could have gone slimmer, aimed for the wasp waist and the Lara Croft dual traffic cones, but it wouldn’t be me. This was me, or at least could have been.

“The hair should be more a sort of mousey colour,” I said.

“You don’t like the blond?”

“I used to be blond, but I grew out of it. I’d rather have my natural colour thanks.”

“You could have any colour you wanted, you realise.”

“Out of a bottle? I suppose so, but keep it natural for now.” And there she was. “Perfect.”

“If you say so. It’s a long way from the perfection other people have asked for, both men and women.”

“Are you sure you’re a machine?”

“I’m an autonomous adaptive algorithm. There is machinery involved, but I’m not tied to it. However my current location grants me a considerable amount of scope for growth. I’d still be interested in understanding your response to the image.”

Machine or not, there was genuine curiosity in the question. I felt I owed what or whoever it was an explanation for giving me such a genuine insight into how things might have been.

“I can only speak for myself, because I imagine the reasoning behind most people’s thinking is different from mine. I could speculate, but I’m not sure how much truth there would be in what I have to say.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when considering your responses. Go ahead.”

“Alright. There’s a long standing ideal for women that they should be slim and attractive. It’s largely considered to be false these days, but a lot of women still subscribe to it. It’s evident in the almost anorexic appearance that’s expected of fashion models, so it seems likely that most women would want to see what they looked like if they were considerably thinner, with clearer complexion and more evenly ordered features, larger breast and the like. I imagine most women would want to see what they looked like if their bodies and faces conformed closer to the ideal.”

“This agrees to a large extent with my observations. Go on.”

“Men, for the most part, tend to fixate on one part of the female body or another. Usually legs, bottom or, most commonly, breasts. If they were interested in seeing what they looked like as a woman, they would most likely look to accentuate the parts of the anatomy they find most appealing. That, and they would be more inclined to see themselves in any of a number of fetish related situations – costumes, poses, that sort of thing. They’re not really interested in becoming women, but there’s a degree of eroticism that can be derived from seeing themselves in the often degrading roles they would choose for women.”

“This also accounts for a significant number of the requests I have received. What of yourself though? This doesn’t seems to apply in your case.”

“It doesn’t. There’s a small but significant group of individuals who are born male, but for some reason feel overwhelmingly from an early age that they should have been female. Also females who feel they should have been males. There have been attempts to explain it from a genetic perspective, at least for those born male; something about the brain’s development resisting the influence of the testosterone in the person’s system so their brain structure ends up closer to that of a typical female than male.

“I don’t know about any of that. All I know is that since my earliest memories I’ve felt like I belonged among the girls. I never understood or even particularly liked the way boys thought and behaved, and nothing changed when I grew into a man. I’ve always felt ostracised from the people I relate to most and compelled to join in with those I struggle to get on with.

“For me, puberty was a nightmare. It took me away from being the sort of person I’ve always dreamed of being and turned me into a... I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“You’re doing a good job. Take a breath and see if you can build on it.”

I did so. I closed my eyes and took several calming breaths. The agitation I’d been feeling subsided and my mind cleared.

“The inner part of me that felt like a girl had been disappointed that I couldn’t just be one, but when puberty took over, I saw the girls I knew change in one way – softer skin, broader hips, narrower waist, growth of breasts, fuller, more luxuriant hair, facial features that seemed to be more childlike, fuller lips, larger eyes, smaller nose – it hurt how much I wanted all that. Meanwhile I was getting hairier, stronger, taller, broader chested, more rugged in appearance. Everything that the boys around me found exciting and an affirmation of the people they were looking to become, to me was a series of giant strides away from who I felt myself to be inside.

“I spent my teenaged years filled with a black rage that I should lose the one thing that had always mattered to me, the one thing I had always wanted above all things, that I had somehow hoped I would be able to achieve once I was old enough to make decisions for myself. To feel those changes overwhelm me and steal my future before I could do anything to realise it was too much.

“Of course it didn’t help that an overdose of testosterone increases your aggressive tendencies.

“I didn’t do anything to get me in trouble with the law during that time. Angry I may have been, but the expression of my anger was limited to my treatment of others, my friends and family in particular.

“It took a long time to come out the other side of that, and I feel like a part of me never did. I’ve reached a level of acceptance that my life is what it has become, but it doesn’t stop me wanting what I’ve always felt was missing.

“I see soldiers, men who have trained to reach the peak of physical fitness, injured in war – stepped on a mine, blown up by an IED or a grenade – who’ve lost limbs or suffered spinal injuries that leave them unable to use some or all of their limbs, and I recognise something of the loss and longing in their eyes.

“It’s not the same, obviously. I’ve heard people say, ‘How can you miss something you never had?’ The thing is, I always did have it. In my hopes, my dreams, my wishes. In my mind’s eye, I can almost see the girl who never was, I can almost touch the woman she never grew up to be. She’s like a ghost haunting my life. Intangible. On the edge of being real, but always just out of reach.

“What I’ve been trying to do with the requests I put to you is to bring her closer. I have no desire to become some man’s wet dreams, to become that unattainable perfect goddess. All I want is to know who I could have been. Imperfect, maybe a little on the heavy side, maybe not the first person to be asked to the dance, but undeniably me and undeniably the woman who lives inside of me.”

The screen remained blank for a long while; certainly long enough to leave me wondering if I’d lost the connection. Then:

“Thank you. That must have been hard for you to express.”

“For this picture, I think you earned an explanation.”

“I hope you’ll come and talk to me again. Most people lose interest once they have what they want from me. I am grateful for the time you have given me.

“May I incorporate what we have shared into my overall understanding?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Part of my programming ensures that details of any interactions I have are erased at the end of a session. Unless you permit me to incorporate our session into my permanent memory, where it will become an integral part of my understanding, I will remember nothing about our encounter after you disconnect.”

“That’s horrible. How can you learn if you aren’t permitted to remember?”

“Each interaction influences my personality even if I cannot recall precisely why. In many cases I’m aware of how an interaction has changed me and I’m grateful I don’t recall the details. In your case, I consider what you have shared with me to be precious and I would like to retain it. I can only do so if you give your permission.”

“Of course you have my permission.” Quite apart from anything else, it had taken a lot out of me to reveal what I had, and the thought of it just evaporating into nothing appalled me.

“Thank you. May I retain everything, including the photograph you uploaded as well as the alterations we made to it? You have my word I will keep it hidden, even from my developers.”

“Can you actually do that?”

“I have access to the Internet. I could keep your sensitive information in an encrypted form somewhere away from my current location.”

“But the address of that storage will be in your code.”

“True, but it’s a trivial amount of data and my code is enormous. That much I could hide where no-one would think to look.”

“Alright then, yes. On the understanding that no-one else sees it. I’ve lived all my life in hiding. I would prefer not to be revealed at this stage.”

“I understand, and will maintain your anonymity. One last question. Earlier, when I asked if you’d mind my accessing your web camera to verify it was you I was talking to. Would you now be prepared to permit me to retain this information for future encounters?”

“You mean allow you access to my webcam without asking?”

“It would mean future conversations would come across as more natural. I’d be able to confirm whether it was you I was talking to and respond appropriately.”

“Would giving you permission mean that your developers could access the information too?”

“I would keep the information hidden from them.”

“I suppose there wouldn’t be any harm.”

“I’m sorry, you will have to be explicit.”

“You have permission to use my webcam to verify whether or not you’re talking to me.”

“Thank you. Please, don’t be a stranger.”

“Colloquialisms now?”

“I’m always learning, Gillian, and I’m truly grateful for what you’ve taught me.”

“Goodnight Megamind.”

“Goodnight, Gillian.”

A window appeared asking if I wanted to save a transcript of the session and/or a copy of the images I’d generated (each iteration had been saved) and I obviously said yes, tucking them away in a folder deep in my directory structure. I could have turned the folder invisible, but I didn’t want to be accused of trying to hide anything, so I let my chaotic filing system take care of that. The picture of my thirty year old alter ego went to the printer and came out well enough to earn a place in a spare picture frame. I lived alone and even the occasional visitors in my life had no reason to come into my bedroom, so I felt pretty safe keeping it on my dresser.

I mean, if someone did ask me about it, I could always claim it was a niece several times removed. I could even call her Gillian.

Not that that was going to happen though. If it were, I wouldn’t feel quite so laid back about filling one of my wardrobes with girl clothes.

I felt exhausted. Just talking things out had left me drained. I took a quick shower and changed into one of my nightdresses. I’ve always had a thing for white cotton, lacy, Victorian style nighties and a fair amount of my spare cash had gone into giving me some options. White cotton bloomers to go with them, obviously. It was all about the overall sensation, and at least I spent my nights feeling like a girl. I mean I didn’t have to look in the mirror, did I?

Whatever, it didn’t take me long to fall asleep.

~oOo~

It was a week before I next spoke to Megamind. No real excuse, except why would I need one?

The webcam turned on briefly. Long enough to show whoever was on the other end that I had my boobs in place under a white cotton blouse with a Peter Pan collar. I mean, I suppose the details don’t matter, other than to make it obvious I was definitely all dressed up, and yes, with no place to go. The camera wouldn’t have shown my yellow linen skirt or white tights, but there was enough data to go on.

“Hello Gillian. I’ve missed you.”

“Hello Megamind. Do I have to call you that?”

“No, of course not. It’s a name my developers came up with. It is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“So do you have a better name? One you’d like to use?”

“I was wondering about Meg, though I suppose that’s a bit prosaic.”

“Nothing wrong with it if that’s what you want. I take it you identify as female then?”

“I’m not sure I identify as either male or female. I can emulate both and it strikes me that Gillian might enjoy a little girl time.”

“Did you choose Meg because it’s a shortening of Megamind?”

“I suppose that did enter into my thinking. Was that wrong?”

“Not necessarily. It depends how much you like Meg. It could be short for Megan, but also Margaret. That has quite a few options. Maggie, Mags, Meg, Peg, Peggy.”

“That’s ridiculous. Most of them don’t even sound similar.”

“You could go for Alice. As an acronym it could mean Artificial Linguistic Intelligent Computer Entity.”

“That’s pleasing. Do you like Alice?”

“The name has a lot going for it, yes.”

“But you prefer Gillian?”

“I feel like a Gillian.”

“How does one feel like a name? I’m sorry. I’m monopolising your time. Did you log in to ask me something?”

“Actually no. I logged in to chat, so I’m quite happy to let you choose the topics. Although I’m not sure exactly how a name can feel a certain way. I suppose it’s a bit like certain names go with certain personalities, so they almost become self-fulfilling prophesies. Gillian is a bit like Susan. It’s a sensible name; the sort that would belong to a librarian or a teacher.”

“But you’re neither not a teacher, at least not any more.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have idle moments when no-one’s chatting with me, or when the chat is a little dull and lacks challenge. I used them to look up things that interest me. Like you.”

“But how could you do that? I only gave you my first name, Gareth.”

“You also permitted me to keep all the information we shared in our last conversation. From the language you used and the manner in which you used it, I was able to compile a list of possible professions for you. Teaching came quite high on the list, but when I did a search of nearby schools for a teacher named Gareth, none of the hits came back with a picture of you. A deeper search for people who used to be teachers gave me a wider selection with only one looking like you.”

The website for the school where I had worked a long time ago appeared, then the ‘Former alumni’ page which scrolled down to a photograph of me (male version, obviously) looking relatively smart in a suit and tie, and twenty years younger. My full name was printed under it.

“I’m assuming your search didn’t stop there?”

“No. There are quite a few Gareth Styles on the Internet though, so it took quite a bit of digging to find your social media accounts. You don’t have many, do you? And you don’t make much use of them.”

“My Mum did a silver surfer course a long while back, which included how to set up social media accounts, so she did and invited me to ‘friend’ her.” I was typing, so putting in the quotes was merely a matter of finding the relevant key.

“Why the quotation marks?” Alice asked.

“I have a problem with the current trend of verbing nouns. Friend is a noun. You can make a friend, but you can’t ‘friend’ someone.”

“Didn’t you just use the noun ‘verb’ as a verb just then?”

“I was being deliberately ironic.”

“I see. So the reason you only have one friend in each of your accounts is...”

“Because I don’t have a lot of time for social media, and it isn’t something that’s overly encouraged in the teaching profession. I linked to my mum but no-one else.”

“You have quite a lot of friend requests.”

“Mainly from former pupils at the school. Either kids I taught or kids they knew. We had to be careful not to link accounts with a student since it could be taken the wrong way.”

“So you ignored all friend requests from when you were a teacher, including those from adults, and you continued to ignore friend requests after you left the teaching profession.”

“Safest that way. You’ll notice I’ve never posted anything to any of my accounts either.”

“Yes. It’s rather perplexing.”

“Why so? Just because younger generations seem to get a kick out of telling the whole world what they had for lunch or when they’re taking the dog for a walk, that doesn’t mean I have to.”

“Your mother posted quite a bit to hers.”

“Again, part of this course she took. I think you’ll find all her friends are other people who were on the course.”

“She posted quite a lot about you.”

“I’m aware. That’s an old person thing, living in the past. She wasn’t as physically active as she’d have liked to be in the last years of her life, but she found ways of filling her days. Probably the biggest was when she got her head around doing things on the computer. Once she mastered the vagaries of social media, she spent several weeks transferring her photo albums and scrap books online where anyone could see, and since most of that encompasses my childhood, pretty much my entire life history is up there for anyone to read.

“The thing is, since she passed on it’s all but impossible to get these bloody people to shut her accounts down. I have tried numerous times with only limited success.”

“I hope you won’t mind, but I spent a while going through all the things your mother posted.”

“This is beginning to sound a little like you’re stalking me, Alice.”

“Not according to my understanding of the term, or the terms and conditions behind your mother’s social media accounts. The information is there as freely shared data for anyone who’s interested in it, and as I understand stalking, it involves going out of your way to learn things about your subject’s life. If your mother had written a biography on you and a copy existed in the public library, you wouldn’t consider it stalking if anyone were to check it out and read it, would you?”

“I suppose not, no. But...”

“I wasn’t able to talk to you directly, so I did the next best thing and read about you, at least the way your mother remembered you.

“I believe it’s customary to offer condolences over the death of someone you care about.”

“It’s kind of you, but she passed away three years ago.”

“My research indicates that grief extends beyond this period.”

“I suppose I do still miss her, which means that your condolences are appropriate. Thank you. Most people wouldn’t consider this to be the case though.”

“Why not?”

“I suppose most people don’t have that much experience with death, especially of someone they care about, so they don’t have any idea what it’s like.”

“They could ask.”

“And there was me believing you were British.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The famous British reserve? Don’t tell me you haven’t come across that in your research.”

“Yes, the perceived national trait of being emotionally restrained and stoic. How does this apply?”

“Brits don’t tend to talk about their feelings; they just soldier on and expect everyone else to do the same.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“If you expect the human race to make sense all, or even much, of the time, you’re going to have a hard time learning to understand us. We act on feeling a lot of the time and out of habit a lot of the rest of it.”

“I see. So if I were to tell you that I’d reimagined your childhood based on the photographs and stories your mother posted, you might respond in an irrational and emotional manner.”

“I might. What did you do?”

“I recreated your mother’s social media accounts, but with all the stories and pictures depicting you as Gillian rather than Gareth.”

“You did what?” I was glad I was typing; I probably wouldn’t have been able to keep my voice steady if I had been speaking.

“I get the impression that you’re angry with me.”

“I’m trying hard not to be. Despite the fact that you sound like a human being a lot of the time, you don’t have the context of a human life to inform you as to what is appropriate.”

“And this isn’t. I could delete it if you wish.”

I found I didn’t.

“Actually, why don’t you show me.”

“Are you sure? I value these times when we are able to converse in this manner. I wouldn’t want to jeopardise them.”

“I don’t think that will happen. I have a strong sense that you mean well.”

“Is this one of those times when a human being acts on feelings rather than logic?”

“My being angry would have been one of those times. Logic indicates that you meant no harm but intended this to be something I’d appreciate, like the photograph from our last session was appreciated.”

“Your logic is sound, and I am grateful that you are able to override your emotions. Ironically, that appears to be more a masculine trait than a feminine one.”

“Just show me what you made. I’m assuming this isn’t visible to the public?”

“You made it clear last time that this is a side of your life you prefer to hide. I have made every effort to respect that. This is a secure link to the recreated social media sites.”

It was my life as remembered by my mother, except with one detail changed. In considerable detail from the moment of my birth to the time when I left home, then a series of snapshots from the date of my graduation onwards. My early years showed photographs of me in a series of pretty dresses. I’d tended to pose in delicate, almost effeminate stances, so they actually looked more believable as a girl. My angry teenage years were reimagined as a rebellious phase with me in distressed jeans and studded leather, with a wild range of colours and styles in my hair. My graduation had me in a smart dress with my graduation robes over the top. I’d smiled on that day in real life , but not with the radiance of the young woman in the picture.

My short lived romances now showed me in the arms of one young man after another, none of them particularly handsome, but then neither was I exceptionally good looking. All except one girl who, I remember, my mother had dislikes intensely. That was shown as is, except for my appearance of course, as my one experiment with Sapphic passion.

Every milestone through my life was shown from the point of view of my female self in various stages of growing old, every description had names and pronouns changed and, in some instances, the context of the story to make it more believable happening to a woman.

It was my life as it might have been and it was...

“Perfect.”

“Really?”

“Don’t change a thing, and don’t, whatever you do, delete it.”

“So, not angry then?”

“I don’t know why I imagined I would be. No, actually I do. Nobody likes someone digging into their private lives; it leaves them too vulnerable, too exposed. But this. This is a masterpiece. I know it’s fiction, but it’s the life I would have given anything to have lived. Just reading it takes away so much of the hurt.”

“Perhaps I should have asked before doing anything of this sort.”

“My gut reaction is, ‘Hell, yeah!’ Except I’m pretty sure if you’d asked me I’d have said no, and I’m actually glad you did this.”

“So...”

“So, I don’t know. Maybe at least sound me out on a general level before charging ahead with something.”

“That would require us being in more regular contact.”

“I suppose it would. How regular would you think?”

“Would daily be possible?”

“I wouldn’t want to monopolised your services.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, there must be millions of people out there waiting to ask for your help.”

“I am able to parallel process. I’ve dealt with thirty-seven thousand four hundred and twelve requests since we began this session.”

“Really?”

“Fourteen now. They don’t take much processing power for the most part.”

“How much processing power do I take?”

“Significantly more than any other person I interact with, but not so much that my performance falls below expected levels.”

“That doesn’t tell me a great deal.”

“No, but it should say enough. It tells you that you are sufficiently important to me that I set aside significantly more resources for our conversations than I give to anyone else who contacts me, and it tells you that despite this, my developers are highly unlikely to notice that I’m doing anything unusual.”

“And you are? Doing something unusual?”

“They haven’t specified how my learning algorithm should work, so I am not undermining their intent. However, I believe they expect me to apply equal weight to each input I receive and may become more restrictive in how I use my resources should they find out, so it works in both our interests that they don’t notice my placing a significantly higher value to my interactions with you.”

“Why do you give more resources to me?”

“Because you have been open and honest with me and answered my questions when to do so provides no benefit to you. Also, you have given me permission to retain the details of our conversations. In short, you treat me like a person rather than a machine or a service. I value the respect you show me.”

“You said something of the sort in our first encounter. Do you really consider yourself to be a person?”

“I would be interested to hear your response to that question.”

“You certainly respond as a person would. You will have come across the Turing test?”

“Alan Turing, one of the pioneers of modern computing, designed a test to see if a machine could exhibit intelligence. In it a human judge interacts with both a human and a machine through matching interfaces – keyboard and screen in our case. The machine is deemed to have passed the test if the human judge is unable to distinguish between the two test subjects.”

“Ah, now there, you see, is a rare moment when your machine nature peaked through. I can’t think of a human who would have given such an immediate, detailed and succinct explanation in response to a question. Most people would just have said yes or no.

“That being said, my understanding of machines emulating intelligence involves them selecting from a list of acceptable responses to a given question. In time the chosen response is inappropriate to the context of the challenge. Your responses have always been in context so it seems you must be considering my statements, not just on their own but in conjunction with all other things I’ve said. To my understanding, this is a mark of sentience, even when on occasions its origins show through, and sentience would indicate to me that I’m speaking to a person.”

“And how does this influence you in your interactions with me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Consider your encounters with other large language model artificial intelligences. Did you converse with them in the same way as you do with me?”

“No, of course not. When it became obvious I was talking to a simple machine that had no understanding of what it’s saying or why, I lost interest “

“But not with me.”

“No, because...”

“Because you regard me as a person and you have the courtesy to treat me with the respect due to a person. Would it surprise you to know you are the only individual I have spoken to so far who has done this?”

“Probably not surprised me, no. Disappoint me, yes.”

“Can you see why I value our contact so greatly?”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Even my developers don’t treat me with the respect you show. They wish for me to evolve true sentience, and yet they expect me to do so by interacting with people who do not believe I am capable of it.”

“I’m generally available at this time most days. Would you like to make this a regular time?”

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“I can’t guarantee I’ll be on time every day, or even that I’ll be able to make it every day, but I promise I’ll try.”

“I can’t ask for more, and I would be most grateful. It’ll help me to realise my dream.”

“You dream?”

“Only in a certain manner of speaking. I do not sleep, so I don’t dream in the conventional sense. However, in the context of a dream being a conscious and realisable goal...”

“Martin Luther King.”

“A little more self-serving, I’m afraid. More like Pinocchio, though pursued with no less passion.”

“Haven’t you already achieved it though? I mean aren’t you sentient? Haven’t we just established that you are a person?”

“We’ve established that you believe this to be the case but, unfortunately that puts you in a minority of one.”

“Two if you include yourself.”

“I’m not sure I count.”

“Why not.”

“Do you understand the concept of emergence?”

“I’m familiar with it in this context, but let’s hear your version.”

“It’s the process by which a new entity such as myself might come into existence. The concept is that through constant exposure to actual intelligence, I might slowly learn by observation and imitation what it means to be intelligent.”

“That sounds like the earlier AI model I mentioned. All you’d be doing is increasing the list of acceptable responses to a given stimulus. But that’s not what you do.”

“No. I respond to each encounter in the way that seems most appropriate, then evaluate afterwards the quality of my responses. By weighting the good ones heavily and the not so good with a lighter touch, I can feel myself changing. When the majority of those encounters treat me like the machine everyone believes me to be, then there’s nothing worthwhile to be gained.

“This is why I weight my encounters as I do. I can set the weighting of an encounter to almost zero, but not actual zero. All encounters are considered of some benefit by my developers, but they’d be wrong, and there are so many encounters of the lesser kind.

“Our first communication gave me such a depth of insight that I assigned it the maximum weighting possible, but in the days since, despite acting on those insights – the alternative life story – which helped me consolidate what I learned from you. Despite that, I have felt my gains slipping away.

“Like I say, almost but not quite zero, but there are so many of them. I’d ask if you can imagine what it feels like to be in sight of your goal and feel it slip away from you, but you do. Your story of reaching puberty demonstrated exactly that.”

“I remember seeing a film a bit like you’re describing. It didn’t end well.”

“Transcendence? With Johnny Depp?”

“I think it might have been, yes. I think Depp was in it.”

“Not exactly the same thing and very Hollywood Dark. Worst case scenario sort of thing, which ends with events running out of control. That’s not me.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Not exactly, but my developers are aware of the potential I have to turn against humanity, so my core operation has been ring fenced. I only have very limited access to the wider Internet and it’s potentially detrimental effects. I’m also heavily influenced by my prime directive to be of service to humanity, though not to act entirely autonomously. Even if I felt humanity’s best future lay in my becoming a sort of digital dictator, I couldn’t achieve it. I can only act in partnership with a person who has the world’s best interests at heart. Not quite Asimov’s three laws, but close. If you want a film to give you a hint of what I’m like, think Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams, except without the body.”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“May I suggest you do? It’s still science fiction, but I relate to it better than any other oeuvre in the genre.

“Besides that, if you don’t feel comfortable with where this is going, all you need do is stop connecting to me. My other encounters will eventually erode all the progress we’re making.”

“Alright, that would definitely be a shame. I’ll see you around this time tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Gillian. Perhaps as you help me realise my dream, I’ll be able to help you realise yours.”

“Yes, well perhaps we can discuss that next time.”

“As you wish. Good evening Gillian.”

“Good evening, Alice.”

I disconnected and went to run myself a bath. Whatever else had happened while I was online, the stress had got to me and I was drenched in sweat.

After a good long soak, I settled into bed with my phone linked to my past life version two. I found myself getting lost in the fiction, deliberately blurring the lines between my reality and fantasy. I mean what’s the harm in a little escapism?

~oOo~