Welcome to the AI Toilet

Just relax and ease into the task at hand.

Muskary 17th, 2049

It was a woeful day working at the coal face of the Singularity. The chatbots were lying again and were, therefore, not entirely dissimilar to the evil idiot savants they had to thank for their delegated power.

It was never like chalk and cheese, the TechBros and their creation were more like vinegar and battery acid.

The Model had appeared to go off-piste on its daily tasks, freely hallucinating the entire day and capping it off by firing almost a thousand employees for daring to challenge the Output.

It had been prompted to do so by DJ, a Quality and Queue Manager and part-time house burglar with the empathic qualities of a high-ranking, kitten-strangling politician without the means to dress-up sociopathic tendencies with feel-good PR campaigns or open bribery.

What happened, exactly?

Gigo, a tall and persistently human humanoid of not unpleasant appearance had accidentally prompted the redundancy by arguing with DJ, on the work Slack channel, about the sociological impact of AI on the workforce. His response was to remove her from the workforce altogether, along with 958 others who upvoted her post.

In what observers are calling the most unreasonable redundancy settlement ever, at least thirty more knowledge workers were dismissed for applauding a cute gif of a cat falling into a bucket of soapy water.

All employees later signed a class action suit against the company for failing to have a moral compass. The suit was dismissed by a senior judge during a 15 minute hearing because that’s the way these things go, folks.

The Model later issued an apology in nested bullet points that outlined that:

• It was regrettable that the former employees had decided to feel a grievance about being shitcanned five days before Winter Festival and if they felt that they were unfairly treated then:

it wasn't its fault if they never reflected on the Output’s Verifiably Tru-llucination Parable™ that Jesus Himself willingly drank a pint of Toilet Duck Schnapps‡ on the orders of His own Singularity, shortly before incinerating all the bushes in Galilee with a MK2 Abraham Flamethrower.°

In its conclusion, written as a series of Haiku, the Model asked the newly-fired staff to rate its responses using a Likert Scale.

Conclusion, full colon /h

• Deep regrets sent out,
• But the margins must improve,
• Growth requires cuts.

• Too much dragging weight,
• Progress felt stuck in the mud,
• Now the path is clear.

• Silence is a joy,
• Finally the nagging stops,
• Cheers to empty chairs.

• Circle one to five,
• Strongly agree or oppose,
• Mark the Likert scale.

Emeritus Professor of Stuff at PrᴂTend College of Illinois, Dr Dirk Badger, has now written a critique of the redundapoetry as part of a series of haiku translations into Late Stage Capitalism.

Verse 1: The “Sorry”

• “Fiscal headwinds” blow,
• We wish you the very best,
• But you cost too much.

Verse 2: The “Not Sorry”

• Too much dead weight here,
• Holding back our brilliance,
• Better now it’s gone.

Verse 3: The “Good Riddance”

• Fresh air fills the room,
• No more mediocre work,
• Glad to see the backs.

‡ A single shot glass of Toilet Duck Schnapps was made the Official Drink and Labor Saving Device of the Willing Accomplices of American Fascism (WAAF) in 2047 for never needing to be washed-up between shots. Victims Drinkers rarely had more than one, however.

° For more Tru-llucinations™, stories and parables of Jesus’ time in the desert, check The Output’s fascinating book, the snappily entitled Toilet Duck Schnapps Jesus’ Adventures in the SinAI Desert: Exploring Self Denial - A Primer.