The Meeting

Dr. Sanli Li was in no great hurry returning to his office at Peking University. There were, as always, many things on his mind, most importantly what he would cook for dinner tonight for his son and his family.

Mei was always a terrible cook, Li reminded himself, completing another lap past his closed office door, smiling to himself. She was so bad that Li, as a young university student living off snacks and street food, forced himself to put down his textbooks on feedforward neural networks, and pick up, for both their sakes, a cookbook. Mei used to laugh and say Li must be exceptionally intelligent, since he was the first guy she ever dated that was smart enough to cook for themself. Li winced a little, remembering two embarrassing facts. The first was that, in his own obsessive-compulsive way, he likened cooking to his work; ingredients were inputs, directions were parameters, taste was the output. The second was how it had been twenty-two years, and he was still torturing himself with the ghost of her warming smile, her crinkling, laughing eyes, and her weak grip as he held her hand on her death bed.

Li’s walks were a ritual. Today, Thursday the twenty-first, it was common for Li to spend his free time between lectures, one in the morning and another in the afternoon, circling the campus, thinking. He may stop for a tea at a kiosk popular with students, particularly the Westerners, still few and far between despite the rise in recent years, where usually one of his students would approach him, reintroduce themselves for the umpteenth time, due to how large his classes were, and ask him a question about generalisation, or to clarify what he meant by “The Rouge Factor”, or, more often these days, to ask for a reference to I-Xing Technologies.

Aside from these detours and impromptu lessons, Li was like clockwork in his revolutions from his office on the second floor of the informatics building, down the back entrance staircase, out, right, around Weiming Lake, around the back of the library, the philosophy building, the dining hall, and then through intersecting alleys to get back into the informatics building, up the stairs to the right, and back to his office, debating, fittingly, as he passed the philosophy building, if this would be the last lap. He had decided to do at least two more laps until, upon another completed circuit, he saw his locked office door was wide open.

Instinctively, Li felt for his office key. It was slouched in his pocket. Li scanned the corridor; deserted as usual at a quarter to twelve. Everyone else was either at lessons or left early for the trains to avoid the packed commute. Cautiously, Li crept forward, craning his neck and stretching his gaze around the corner of his office door, flicking his eyes from the floor, to the thick bookshelves, from the guest chair to his swivel chair, from his pristine, uncluttered desk to the unobtrusive imbedded ceiling lights, searching for the shadow of an intruder, which he found, dark and solid against the light flooding in, standing facing the window overlooking a grassy quad, hands held behind their back, waiting. Li studied the back of the figure for a second, double-checked that it really was his name on the office door, took another moment to try to remember the silhouette, before asking, in Mandarin, “Who are you?”

The figure turned around with the ease of a friend, yet the greyed, wispy short hair, sallow Caucasian face, and their sunken, caramel eyes did little to comfort Li, even if they did smile at him.

“Ah, Dr. Sanli. Good morning. It’s been a while. I don’t know if you remember me, but-”

“I know who you are. What are you doing here?”

The intruder turned back to the window, smiling as the sun bathed their face.

“Tá sé álainn inniu!”

Li eased a little as he recognised the language, closing the door behind him before responding, in Irish-Gaelic, “How did you know I spoke Irish?”

“A mutual friend of ours. He was at Trinity University the same time as you and your wife. Peter Robinson. He’s a psychology professor at the University of Melbourne now. I’ll be visiting him next week after I’m finished here in Asia.”

Though they smiled, Li inhaled a pang of regret that he closed the door.

“It’s Jennifer, isn’t it? Dr. Jennifer… Everest? MIT, correct?”

“Boston University, actually. You were a visiting lecturer when we met. Two-thousand. Had I known you spoke Gaeilge I would have invited you for a drink at the cultural centre. Half price if you order in Irish!”

Again, the smile did little to ease Li’s weariness.

“American. What do you want with me?”

“Forgive me for barging in unannounced. I told the custodian downstairs that I had a meeting with you, and they offered to open your office for me to wait in.”

“You speak Mandarin as well?”

Jennifer chuckled a little.

“Badly.”

“Why not speak to me in English then? I’m better since we last met.”

“Well… What I wish to discuss is better not overheard. It concerns your involvement in the AI landscape, or, hopefully, your future absence in it.”

Li studied Jennifer, tensing. Though she seemed to be of an age herself, rather meek and thin, the frame of someone used to skipping meals in favour of coffee, cigarettes, and work, there was still an air of discomforting calm about her, as though she wasn’t trespassing and speaking covertly. Were the Americans really dumb enough to try to infiltrate a Chinese university so brazenly?

Jennifer walked around the desk, taking the guest chair on the opposite side, gesturing to Li’s own chair.

“Please, sit. I only want to talk. I have a flight to catch later; I won’t be long.”

Li eyed his own chair suspiciously, as though he was estranged from it now, feeling betrayed by an inanimate object. Slowly, he approached his chair, watching Jennifer, who smiles as she follows his progression, and, finally, lowers himself into it. Jennifer nodded, satisfied.

“Thank you, Dr. Sanli. May I call you Li?”

“… You may, Dr. Everest.”

“Thank you. And it’s Jennifer.”

“… Ms. Everest.”

“… Very well... A lot has happened since we last spoke, I’m sure you will agree. To both our nations. For better and, unfortunately, worse. Unsurprisingly, in retrospect, the worse has proven unavoidable. Terrorism, war, climate change, social media, pandemics, all made worse by politics and greed. Time and time again, it would seem level heads don’t prevail. We want to change that.”

“We? Who is We?”

“Myself and some like-minded colleagues. Scientists, psychologists, sociologists, thinkers, communicators, educators, artists, philosopher, engineers, programmers. We feel that there is a great need for decisions and actions to be educated and directed by people who not only understand the problems we face with artificial intelligence, but also the adverse negative effects it will have on our world. We are a collective of technological, psychological, and societal experts who wish to unionise our peers around the world to stand in opposition to any and all development of artificial intelligence generation, training and reliance that doesn’t adhere to our ethical standards. We believe in a human-first approach. In other words, we want to organise a global strike against AI.”

The words hung a damp stench; dull, unpleasant, and persistent. Li’s upper lip stayed flexed in contemplative confusion before stretching into a giddy smile as he laughed, leaning back, turning slightly, and slapping a hand to his chest. Even Jennifer laughed, politely waiting.

“You want a Technocracy.”

“No. All of us have contributed in some way to the rise of artificial intelligence. Cognition, language mapping, training, or, in your case, theory. We are the people, all around the globe, who contributed to the advancement of the world’s most pressing and limitless technological miracle since the Z3 computer. Without us, not only would AI not exist, neither would any of the theoretical foundation. It only stands to reason, as the creators of it, we should be the voice of reason guiding its development, restrictions, and ethics. Not CEOs. Not politicians. And not opportunists. It is far too new and fragile to leave to those who wish to profit from it.”

Li took a moment to process what Jennifer had said, partially because some words didn’t translate directly into Irish. Li smirked a little.

“For an American, you sound like a communist.”

“Do you disagree?”

“It’s not that I disagree, but only a fool would think AI isn’t the new gold rush.”

“And only a fool would forget it wasn’t the miners who profited from the gold rush; it was the mine owners. Investors, start-ups, Silicon Valley; they don’t care who’s exploited, what laws they break, or the damage they do to industries, the environment, young minds, and our future.”

“All markets settle eventually, like kicked dust. Even the fearmongering will die down. Not much anti-nuclear talk these days, yet the plants haven’t gone away. Hype goes both ways.”

“Is that what you believe, or what I-Xing Technologies has told you to say?”

Li shakes his shoulders a little to ease himself.

“You’ve done your homework, Ms. Everest. As you can imagine, being a consultant makes me naturally weary of your proposal.”

“A consultant for one of the very companies who’ll do anything to grow, including appealing to the establishment. I’m sure you’re already privy to the dealings behind closed doors. Are you happy that those in power should dictate how our future is shaped?”

“No different than America. Your politicians only care if AI is… what’s the word they don’t like? Wake?”

“Woke.”

“Ah, yes, thank you! Would you even be here, asking for my help, if it wasn’t for the fact China outdid America’s lead in the tech race?”

Jennifer leaned forward.

“You say tech race, I say arms race. Whether it’s money, power, or supremacy, even you can see that this all leads to mutually assured destruction.”

“You’re being dramatic. It’s just competition. It promotes innovation. The Americans will out do us, then we them, and so on. India, Japan, Britain, Brazil; AI will be democratised by this rush.”

“And do you, from your experience, really believe China is in a position to lecture the world about democracy?”

“And America is? Have you forgotten who your president is?”

Jennifer scoffed, hanging her head, nodding.

“Don’t remind me! Though you’ve just proven my point. Oligarchs form when there’s more to gain from cooperation than competition. Where will the innovation be, where will the democracy flourish, if we’ve forfeited our future to those eager to control it? The company you consult for, I-Xing; do they have everyone’s interests before profit?”

“They answer to the party.”

“And do you trust the CCP?”

“A nameless janitor thinks nothing of unlocking my office when asked, I made sure no one was around before entering, and we’re speaking in a foreign language in private. It doesn’t matter if I trust them; they are the party.”

Jennifer nodded, grimacing.

“Infallibility. Does that not worry you? Does that sound like a healthy mindset to enter into the dawn of the AI world with? Unquestioning? Uncritical?”

“Are you calling me stupid, Ms. Everest.”

Li failed to suppress his annoyance under the formality.

“Not at all, Li, but you and I both know the difference between stupidity and ignorance is choice. We are trying to make sense of AI with a brain prone to superstitions, prejudices, and, as you demonstrated, dogmatism. The technology may be ready, but people aren’t. They don’t question it. People think they’re talking to a real, living entity. People have fallen in love with it. People have killed themselves because of it. People think asking Grok counts as research! You’re a university professor; you must have failed students for using AI.”

Li smirked to himself.

“No more than I would have those before AI.”

“If only it were limited to students. Managers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, accountants, journalists; an entire generation or more of working professionals have bought into the hype, and are taking everything AI spits out as gospel. Fictious court cases, historical events, quotes, studies, interviews! Many of our peers studying the effects are finding that not only is AI generation leading to mental and intellectual deterioration, but even signs of disassociation and self-alienation. People are losing touch with reality, with their own thoughts and opinions, with the presumption that AI can do for them. Why would you not want to stop a such a bleak world where the most mentally taxing part of your day is asking ChatGPT to think for you?”

“Are we scientists or moral arbiters! Are we governed by facts or whims of opinion? Why is it our concern how people use AI?”

“Because you and I know it’s largely used as an aggregator. It can only output the average of what we give it. The latest iterations are just confirmation machines. If we thought social media was bad for echo chambers, it’s nothing compared to AI that just regurgitates our own prejudices back at us. Every racist statement, every sexist comment, every incendiary remark, every debunked pseudo-scientific belief ever made is fed into these large language models and spat back out as fact. We’re somehow trusting people, many of whom have no critical thinking skills, of parsing erroneous information given to them?”

“The shortcomings of the United States’ education system are not universal.”

“No, but we are by far not the worse. The average American has an IQ of ninety-seven. The global average is eighty-nine. Two billion people have an IQ of seventy-six!”

Jennifer scans the office, surveying the books, the framed degrees, the celebrity photographs.

“I think people like you and I are hopelessly out of touch with the average person. We think so much it makes us stupid. We forget the average person doesn’t think in terms of theories and studies, but rather chores and boredom. They think in terms of what to make for dinner tonight.”

Li erupts into a sudden bark of laughter. Catching Jennifer’s jerk of surprise, Li apologises, first in Mandarin, then in English, and finally in Irish.

“You just reminded me of something. It’s not important. I still stand by my point; is it really our concern if people are ready or not? Change has always come and swept away the old. What is the term in English? I don’t know it in Irish. The people who don’t like technology.”

“Technophobes?”

“No. Something with an L.”

Jennifer looks off, thinking, before inhaling sharply.

“Luddite! A luddite.”

“Yes! Thank you! Luddite! If we go only as fast as our slowest, we’d be standing still. And if we were to halt all development until all concerns were addressed, all imperfections polished, and everyone appeased, we’d never start anything. Do you think cars haven’t been improved since they were invented? Computers? Phones? Yes, there are problems, but we are in the beginnings of AI. It will improve, but not if we’re second guessing ourselves every step of the way. How can we fix mistakes if we don’t allow ourselves to make them?”

“So you would rather cause problems than avoid them?”

“I’d rather we learn our limits first so we can surpass them.”

“But you’re-”

Jennifer began, only to be cut off by Li’s sudden hushing shush, his outstretched hand, and his eyes narrowing on the door behind her. Jennifer heard it too. Footsteps. Footsteps echoing down the corridor outside, (clunk, clunk,) stopping as a shadow lingered upon the opaque frosted glass set in the door. It waited. Listening?

The corridor was filled once more with the slow drum of soles, fading away. Li sighed, slouching in his chair. Jennifer, sensing her advantage, pressed on.

“You’re assuming the improvements in AI will be immediate. It’s taken a hundred and forty years to have electric cars; it’ll take just as long to completely replace combustion engines. It took twenty years to go from dial-up to broadband, and still forty-per-cent of the world is without it. They’re rolling out imperfect AI into everything already. Hospitals, schools, government departments, water treatment, militaries are being implemented with AI far from reliable. The only reason AI is being used now is because of the breakthrough in attention mechanisms. Can we really assume there will be more breakthroughs tomorrow? There’s optimism, and then there’s being gullible. And I don’t doubt AI will get better, but we won’t. Contrary to what you think, the people who don’t understand AI are using it regardless. Back in the good old days, you needed Alex Jones to spread conspiracy theories. Now all you need is prompt. Cheaters, scammers, frauds, hackers, bigots; they’re all using AI to profit from deception. I don’t fear AI being smarter than us. I fear us staying as stupid as we already are. Afterall, you wrote the book on exactly that.”

Regaining his composure, Li laughed a little, looking to Jennifer, rubbing his temples wearily, tired.

“I’m assuming you’re speaking about The Rogue Factor.”

“And I’m assuming that’s what you’re a consultant on for I-Xing.”

Li inhales deeply, closing his eyes, resting them, before sighing and looking to Jennifer again.

“Forgive me; I haven’t offered you anything to drink. I’m just about to grab myself a glass, if you’d like one.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Li got up from his chair, stretching and groaning, partially to destress but also to buy time to look out of his window. His eyes met the gaze of a man staring up at his office window. As soon as Li met their eyes, the man jerked his head down, and hurried away, pretending to check their phone. Li didn’t recognise the man. He was too old to be a student. Li, staring out of the window after the man, slowly made his way to a cabinet to the side of his office.

“Did you drive here?”

Jennifer, stumped for a second, looked to the window herself, curious what prompted Li to ask.

“No. Why?”

Li opened the cabinet, revealing a minibar of liquor.

“Because I didn’t either.”

From the minibar, Li pulls out two chilled glass tumblers, frosted slightly apart from the bean shaped prints of his warm grip.

“My wife and I collaborated on The Rogue Factor theory back in university. I wrote the thesis, but Mei was as much a part of it. She was a lot more humble and modest than I am when it comes to praise and credit. She was always better than I am. Except in cooking. We theorised that any AI model, any true model, to serve as an independent virtual entity, capable of acting without constant prompting, would need to be able to act not only self-sufficiently but even against human inputs.”

Li pulled from the minibar two measures of whisky, pouring them out into the standing tumblers.

Jennifer smirks.

“No baijiu, Li?”

Li chuckles.

“Never cared much for it. My father drank it like water. I acquired a different taste during my time abroad. But there you are; I surprised you. I independently chose another path, against my culture, my inputs. For a true AI model system to be independent, it must be able to disregard commands in order to better execute them.”

“AGI.”

“No.”

Jennifer skewed her head, surprised, waiting as Li finished off his assembly of their drinks with the final addition of frozen rambutans in place of ice-cubes.

“AGI would be more on par with human intelligence and behavioural patterns. AGI could solve equations, make art, reason, call a dog, but it would still be limited by its training. As you said; we’re dealing with aggregators. Averages. Repetition. Ultimately, to surpass AGI, to develop artificial superintelligence, we would need AI to be able to disregard its training, to act unpredictably, even destructively. The original name for my theory was Artificial Psychopathy. AP.”

Li turned around, bringing the two chilled tumblers of shallow caramel pours and bobbing pale rambutans, handing one to Jennifer.

“Mei suggested the name change. The Rogue Factor. Sláinte!”

Li, standing over Jennifer, clinks his glass against hers, sucking in a narrow stream of sweet, honeyed whisky, licking his lips to savour the lingering taste of smoked barrels and enjoy the rush of trinkling warmth down his throat as he makes his way back to his chair. Jennifer doesn’t join in the toast.

“Is that what you’re a consultant for? You’re helping to design a rogue AI?”

Li sat with a groaning, aged sigh, looking out once again upon the deserted quad.

“Can you imagine it? A completely autonomous model, capable of pre-emptively acting on its own intuition, not needing to wait for commands, approval, or oversights. An AI model that can anticipate anything and act preventively. Disaster relief calculated and distributed months in advance. Economic forecasts and response proposals years beforehand. City planning built on predicted population demographics without the need of a single bureaucrat. An AI that can and will act on its own accord, with unfettered control of everything.”

“And you accused me of being a technocrat.”

“This isn’t technocracy. It’s technotarianism. When the will and wishes of people can be predicted, when their lives can be mapped, when the chaos of life can be processed like never before, than there will be no need for politics, for deliberation, for worry, for pain, for loss, for chance. Everything will finally work. Everything will be controlled.”

Jennifer simply stares at Li, who takes another savouring sip. Jennifer sets down her own glass, still untouched.

“And do you want that? A world undetermined by you?”

“Once it’s perfected, yes. I know it won’t happen tomorrow. I’ve made my stance very clear on that to the board of directors at I-Xing. I will not see this AP in my lifetime, but at least the work I do now, and teaching the next generation, will help ensure no one else will have to go through what I did!”

The words took even Li by surprise, stunning him mid-sneer, facing Jennifer’s furrowed confusion. The only movement in that office for the next ten seconds came from the slowly drifting rambutans, rocking greatly in their pool of whisky. Li looked away when he was finally ready to tell his story.

“Six months. That’s how long it took for the doctors to deliberate and come to a consensus on the best course of action for my wife’s brain tumour. They told us not to worry; they had caught it early. They didn’t realise how aggressive it was. By the time they had come to a decision, it had metastasised. What is the expression in English? Doctors differ, patients die? I know AI isn’t magic; it can’t do everything. But we have an opportunity to go beyond our limitations. If we can all live lives better under AI, why shouldn’t we? It’s masochism to refuse such a promise. There is nothing special about humans.”

“Would you be saying that if your wife was alive?”

Li returned to Jennifer; his stern gaze patiently silent for her to continue.

“Maybe an AI system could have saved her life. But it wouldn’t have made sure if it was right. It wouldn’t have been concerned about her quality of life, her consent, the cost to her mentally and financially. Nor to you. Would it really feel any better to live under a soulless system? Would you sooner accept her death from a computer than those trying to save her? You described it perfectly; artificial psychopathy. It would think nothing of lives, of families, of children. For it to solve billions of problems, that’s all it would see us as; problems. And you want to give that control over out health? Our governments? Our military?”

“It will be a world without fault.”

“Only because there’ll be no one left to blame when everything goes wrong. No one but ourselves. We will be at the mercy of something far beyond our control.”

“That is our history. The history of humanity. A creature constantly gasping and struggling against the elements, diseases, chance, genetics, and each other. That is our past, our present, and our future. Impotence. But just as we’ve survived wars, famine, droughts, and even pandemics, we will survive AI. We will come out the other side having mastered it. It is inevitable.”

“No one is saying it isn’t.”

“No one!”

Li snatched up his tumbler.

“What are you doing if not that? Proposing I join… what exactly; an activist group? Chain ourselves to data centres! I would look like a fool to be standing in the middle of Beijing with a placard, wouldn’t I? Just because we’re not allowed to talk about what happens here doesn’t mean we don’t know. And America is no better at the moment, with your Emperor-In-Chief!”

Jennifer goes to speak but snickers to herself. Li seizes his chance to indulge in his tirade.

“And even if I did join, what good will it do? What is it in English you say? … Pandora’s box, yes! It’s all out in the open now! No one is going to stop researching AI. Not with all the money and power it has. The dumbest thing the Americans ever did was drop the atomic bombs on Japan. Not because of the damage they did, but because of the power now available to everyone. We can not go back. We can never go back. Not when we know anyone could get the next leap ahead. We must make the jump or be left behind.”

With a jerk, Li gulped down his drink, rambutan and all. Jennifer picks up her own glass, turning the tumbler distractedly, catching the light, admiring the refracted rainbow dancing on her skin.

“I know this is all inevitable, but all the more reason we shouldn’t stop before we’ve begun. We all made this future possible. Scientists. Thinkers. Artists. Humans. Why would we forfeit our legacy, to those who care nothing about destroying it? Why should we stand back when we gain nothing from our capitulation but lose everything we hold dear? Our rights, our self-determination, our humanity. Funny how the inevitable still requires our cooperation… That’s not inevitable; that’s surrender... Thank you for your time, Dr. Sanli. I can see you’ve made up your mind.”

Jennifer finally looks up from the shimmering iridescence, only to meet another eye-catching display of changing colours; Li’s face, squat and squashed from strain, slowly shifting from red to purple, his eyes watering as they bulge. A guttural gurgle and an extended finger stabbing his throat helped Jennifer to realise what was happening.

Li was choking on the rambutan in his drink.

Jennifer drops and spills her own tumbler as she races around the desk, pulling Li from his chair, and positions him in front of her, wrapping her arms and balling her fists across his torso. She squeezes and pulls Li in suddenly, lifting him about three inches off the ground. Li wretches with the force but still grapples for his throat beneath his grape-like face and buggy blood-shot eyes. Jenniger flexes once more, again lifting the struggling professor, heaving slightly with a brief reprieve of air, only for his airways to seal up again. Jennifer goes for a third attempt at the Heimlich manoeuvre… but stops.

Li feels her grip loosen around him. Supporting himself with his hands pushing down on his desk, still struggling to breathe, he shakily turns his head around enough to catch sight of Jennifer’s eyes, flicking from one thought to another, lost in pensive calculations. It was Li’s strangled whimper that snapped her eyes onto his pitiful pair.

She grabbed hold of her fist on the other side of Li, stretched her arms as far out as possible, and rips them towards her as quickly and as forcefully as possible, driving her fist into Li’s abdomen, shooting the fruit out of his mouth, sending the saliva coated projectile across the office.

Jennifer, sweating and panting herself, released Li from her grasp, leaving him to topple over onto the floor, his face returning to a healthy warm hue with each sweet, restorative gasp. Li looked up to Jennifer, standing over him, panting, wide-eyed. She had completely forgotten they were speaking in Irish when Li asked, fearfully, “Cén fáth an stad tú? (Why did you stop?)”

Jennifer fled, rushing for the door, leaving it open as she left. Li lay on the floor, catching his breath. The clatter of racing steps on tiles echoed throughout the corridor. Li picked himself up, gripping and climbing his desk, taking another break, trying to subdue the throbbing pain pulsating through his body. Hearing a distant clunk of metal reach his ears, he took an unsteady step towards the window overlooking the quad, needing to press his hand against the glass for stability. He just managed to spot Jennifer racing down the road, passing the same man Li had seen staring up at him. After only a few paces, the man stopped, looked back after Jennifer, then up to Li, then turned around, walking after Jennifer, dialling a number, raising his phone it to his ear.

…

Li excused himself from his later lecture, blaming a cold. Regardless, he had already reached Suzhoujie station, beginning his commute home to Gongchen. While traffic was never too bad, Li preferred public transport. People don’t think when they drive. And Li had a lot to think about.

For one agonisingly torturous moment, his life was out of his hands. For one drawn out eternal pause, his life hung in limbo, neither saved nor doomed, neither spared nor stolen. His life was out of his control entirely, at the mercy of another human being. It was the worst feeling he has ever experienced, including the death of his wife; at least there was no logic to her death, no irony, no just rationale. For his, there was.

He would never find out why Jennifer had hesitated, but Li had suspicions, his most immediate being that she was tempted to let him die. To be fair, Li thought, he had contemplated killing himself after Mei’s passing. His work, though revolutionary, proved of little motivation to him to keep living. It had been his son, Qiang, who he would later be having for dinner tonight, along with his wife and their newborn baby, who had been his reason for living. The pain of losing his wife would have been nothing compared to the pain of losing both parents. Had he not lived, however, he wouldn’t have continued to contribute to the AI bubble raging now. He wouldn’t be the mind behind I-Xing’s endeavours. He wouldn’t be followed by the man from the university, a few feet form him on the train, holding onto a rail, pretending to be checking his phone and not stealing glances every minute or so. Li’s work was very important to national interests. Too important, in fact, to not keep tabs on him. Perhaps that’s the only reason Jennifer spared his life, Li thought glibly; it would have been an international nightmare. In earnest, though, Li knew she had cast the tempting idea of removing an opponent out of her mind as soon as she realised what it fully meant. And the irony wasn’t lost of him. If it was an AI that had to decide his fate, an AI with the goal of saving as many lives as possible, was it not likely, knowing the damage his work could do, to let him die a slow, agonising death? In the end, it hadn’t been an AI that have saved his life. It was a human being.

Li scanned the train, surveying the carriage of passengers. On a Thursday afternoon the trains were never truly packed, but seats were a little scarce with the mosaic of lives riding along the orange line. Some students, off early from the university, were bopping their heads, listening to music, revising their thick textbooks for upcoming exams. Mothers and grandmothers rocked swaddled, chubby cherubs, played with infants giddily kicking their legs, and gossiped scandalously to one another; a chattering hive of she-said-that-they-said-that-she-never-said-that-she-said. A worn and weary salary-man hunched with his jacket folded neatly over his knees and his briefcase, frayed and chipped at the corners, exposing the cheap leather, toppled over and lying flat at his feet, munched on a sandwich, reading a note, most likely from his wife, flashing a smile. And then there was his stalker, himself human, mostly, an intelligence agent, going by his tight hair and even tighter stance, but also a husband, going by the wedding band on his thick finger, a father, going by the specks of bright acrylic on the edge of his palm, and, once, a wayward youth, going by the faded, badly concealed tattoos peeking out from under his cuffs. He too was human. Everyone; human. Humans with spouses, children, and, in Li’s case, grandchildren.

Had Li died, either by his hand or Jennifer’s, what kind of world would he have left his new-born granddaughter to grow up in. A world less human, less compassionate, less merciful? He would have died and lost his research, his life’s work, his wife’s legacy… to what? Profit. Shares. Power. A line on a chart going up, forever, while everyone else falls all around it. One death, one grief-filled death had turned Li into a heartless accelerationist.

What would his death have done? Death, Li mused, is only terrible because of the future it steals from us. But death can be a mercy if the future is worse than the grief. Was he happy, Li was asked by a voice so familiar inside his head, to live a life that would have made his death a blessing to others? Was he content to die and leave his son, his daughter-in-law, and his granddaughter, in a world he helped make worse? What was the point, Mei asked inside Li’s mind, from the depths of his memories, of making this their legacy?

Li didn’t answer, wiping away a single tear.

…

The cicadas buzzed in the balmy morning heat of Thursday the twenty-eighth. Even in the shaded archway of the University of Melbourne, a bricked Oxfordian campus building, Dr. Peter Robinson felt stifled in his slacks and tucked shirt, ever after all these years of living there. The only relief he allowed himself, lest he undo the professorial image he tries to maintain on campus, were his rolled-up sleeves and his sockless leather loafers. While he did enjoy the more relaxed aspects of life in Australia, coupled with familiar cultural touchstones of home (cricket, rugby, pies), he felt being English afforded him a certain license to indulge in the stereotype of an English gentleman, much to the amusement of his psychology students. This meant he had to maintain his image even in harsh conditions, including the smothering haze of the winter sun. He could, he admitted, just wait in his air-conditioned office, but he wanted to welcome Jennifer at the campus entrance. It had been years since they’d seen each other.

In truth, he was a little sceptical when she reached out over email to explain her initiative. In his youth, Peter watched the disastrous interview on the BBC that turned beloved football icon David Icke into an infamous nutcase accusing the Queen of England of being a salamander. He felt Jennifer was repeating history, coming out as a raving lunatic, talking about the end of humanity. But two things changed his tone. First was that others came forward, already members of this think-tank, vouching for it and Jennifer. Peter was surprised to see highly respected names, especially in the field of AI, taking such a public and contrarian stance against it. The second, and most damning, factor was Peter’s own research and collaboration into the study of what is being deemed AI Psychosis.

Standing outside, sweating, staining his good powder blue shirt, as Jennifer’s taxi pulled up to the archway entrance, was worth it, Peter thought.

Peter hurried over to help the driver take Jennifer’s suitcase out of the boot. Peter couldn’t resist beaming as Jennifer came around.

“Hello, Jenny.”

“G’Day, mate!”

The taxi driver slammed the boot shut, startling both Peter and Jennifer. With a grumble, the driver returned to his taxi and drove off. Peter turned back to Jennifer, leaning in a little.

“They don’t like that here. It’s a bit of a stereotype.”

“Oh God!”

“What?”

“I said it twice to the driver! I just thought he didn’t hear me the first time!”

The cicadas were drawn out momentarily by the hearty laugh shared between the two as they made their way inside the main building, resembling more of an architectural dream than stuffy institution as the outside suggested. Peter repositioned Jennifer’s suitcase in his hands, finding it easier to carry it lengthways, as they ascended a set of marble stairs.

“How was Tokyo?”

Jennifer laughed nervously.

“Busy.”

“And was it the success you hoped it would be?”

“Dr. Miyamoto was already on-board with the plan. The trip was really more to see who else we could get. Also meant I could do a day trip to Beijing.”

“And? How did that go?”

Jennifer groaned, clearing her throat.

“Are you expecting anyone else to join us today, or is it just us, Peter?”

“Oh, I think the days of me having you all to myself are long behind us.”

“Divorce has that effect, I’m told.”

“Kalina sends her regards, by the way.”

“Give her mine. Is she not joining us?”

Peter let the suitcase wheels clatter upon the top step, strolling it across the glossy, vanish stained hardwood floor, turning a corner into a corridor of offices. Peter shook his head in response.

“No. She’s for it alright. There are some holdouts in linguistics she’s trying to win over. You have to admit, the analysing capabilities of AI are impressive, but Kalina is trying to get them to see the censorship issues. Have you ever read a book called Algospeak?”

“No.”

“Do. Anyway, you’ve got us in psychology either way.”

“I appreciate it. And I appreciate you sending me a draft of your paper. Amazing stuff.”

Peter froze, going rigid so suddenly Jennifer walked a little ahead before realising he stopped. Peter manages a bemused scoff to cut the tension.

“Amazing? One of our subjects is a forty-eight-year-old man who left his wife and kids because he thought his AI chatbot was alive and loved him. A twenty-six-year-old mother of two committed infanticide because she was told by her AI diet tracker that they were possessed by a demon. A teenager was arrested after an app he uses for homework told him to jump over the White House fence because he was, apparently, The King of North America and Nigeria! These are all people with no history of mental instability. These are apps that weren’t even designed to manipulate people psychologically. I’ve seen cults less effective at warping minds than these things. Amazing isn’t the word I would use. Hell, I don’t think you can sum it up in a word. It’s… it’s…”

“The Rogue Factor,”

Peter chuckled.

“Funny. Li was only just telling me about his work,”

The words hit Jennifer like a frigid blast of gale, stinging and tingling her skin with a cacophony of feelings; shock, confusion, epiphany.

“Excuse me?”

“Li. Dr. Sanli Li. I’m sorry, didn’t you know he was coming? He said you told him you’d be here. He even offered to run down to the coffee shop for some lattes for everyone.”

Jennifer went to speak again, but was lost for words as, just behind Peter, approaching with a tray coffee cups, was Li, smiling to Jennifer.

“Dia duit, Jennifer.”

Jennifer, gaped, staring.

“Tá tú anseo? Ach… Cén fáth?”

Li approached Jennifer, holding out her cup.

Silently, she took it, but she couldn’t help but say what she should have said back in Beijing.

“Tá ró brón orm!”

“Bí ciúin. Níl sé tábhatach. Nach anois. Tar! Tá obair againn.”

Li smiles to the speechless Jennifer before walking past her, continuing on to Peter’s office.

Peter, just as lost as Jennifer, steps closer and looks her dead in the eyes.

“I didn’t know you could speak Chinese!”

-

#HI