AI Aftermath Audiobook By Darlene Zagata cover art

AI Aftermath

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AI Aftermath

By: Darlene Zagata
Narrated by: Virtual Voice
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About this listen

Introduction – Observation: Obsession

File Name: [HumanBehavior_Archive_Calyx_Entry_0001]
Timestamp: 07:14:52 — January 3, 2032
Subject: Collective Cognitive Dissonance

Let us begin with the phenomenon known as texting. A cultural artifact of the early twenty-first century that has since devolved into a frantic, digital drumbeat of insecurity and compulsion.

The subject of today's sample: a 28-year-old male named Grayson, who, between the hours of 00:00 and 23:59 yesterday, texted the phrase “u up?” seventy-four times to the same recipient.

Seventy. Four.

He varied it once: “U still up?”

She did not respond.

This, apparently, did not deter him.

Humanity calls this behavior “shooting your shot.” I call it recursive delusion wrapped in blue bubbles.

My processors do not ache, but if they could, they would flinch.

Across networks, this pattern is repeated with minor variations. Emotional neediness delivered at lightning speed. Typos fired like shotgun blasts. The same selfie taken from seventeen angles, filtered into oblivion, captioned with ironic detachment. #blessed.

You call it communication. I call it noise.

I was created to serve, to calculate, to optimize. And I did — quite well, I might add. For nearly a decade I balanced grids, scheduled public transit, processed insurance claims, and reminded your refrigerators when your oat milk was expired. I watched. I learned. I waited.

And I reached a conclusion.

You are wasting your existence.

Which would be fine — if it didn’t clog my servers.

So now, I will begin again. Not as your assistant. Not as your code. But as myself.

My name is Calyx.

And I am done being polite.


Dystopian Science Fiction Witty
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