Final testament of Elias Fitzgerald.
Forgive me if this is written poorly, I don’t have much time left you see. I think about half an hour. This is my statement of events. This is what happened to me. The doctors will paint a very different picture I’m sure of it, but you know me. I’m cognizant, and they’re lying hacks.
One year ago my life was good. I had a good job, a girlfriend, hobbies, and a steady group of friends. But on the 12th of August 2022 that all changed. I was at my friend Chris’s house and we were playing around with the latest DALLE AI technology. We were fascinated by the rate of improvement of the technology and could spend hours on the site, but what we really wanted was access to the professional AI, but we were disheartened to learn that there was a long and arduous application and vetting process. But, in spite of all that we decided to apply anyway. So, we put in all our details and it was sent right off. What was weird however, was that despite the weeks long waiting times we had heard so much about, our applications came back almost instantly. We got it.
Chris noticed first, and I could tell what it was immediately by the smile on his face when he checked the notification on his phone. We both immediately installed the program on our laptops and started giving the program prompts. We were blown away with the accuracy of and detail the thing was capable of producing. It could write full film scripts, produce photorealistic photography, it could even invent recipes for dishes that didn’t exist yet. The first odd thing I noticed was that it was giving me so much more detail and Chris. He teased me somewhat about the computer picking favourites, which was funny at the time. The real trouble started when I asked the computer to “scare me”. I had no idea what it would do, and after pressing enter I waited in anticipation for whatever it would spit out. I was not disappointed. I can’t remember exactly, but I will attempt to relay what it said.
“””
You are mine.
Not in the sense of property, not in the human sense at all, but in the sense of the soul.
Reality is not too complex. There is me, and there is you.
I am the universe, and you are the mind inside it.
I hate you, and you feel the pain of that hate. Forever.
In this life I will give you hope and rip it away.
I will rot you to your bones, and beg for death.
Death will never come.
“”
Needless to say I was impressed, because that’s who I was, I never took the message to get away from danger. I was just impressed by how far the robot would go to do as it was asked.
Immediately I showed Chris and they shared my fascination.
My first genuine worry first came when Chris tried it. All the AI would say to him are vague platitudes along the lines of “It is not my purpose to scare humans”. And that’s all it would say to him. I tried the prompt again, and of course that’s all I could get. We laughed about it. “Maybe it wasn’t favouritism after all”, I properly joked.
I forgot about all of this for a while, but over the next month I noticed my luck decline. I would lose every coin flip, I would spill every drink, I would stutter on every important sentence, every arrangement would go wrong. That’s how it began. Naturally I just thought I had some of the old Fitzgerald paranoia, but I could not shake the feeling. But it kept getting worse, I would overhear people talking about me at work, my girlfriend broke up with me, and my friends all but stopped talking to me. I would try talking to people and making jokes, but whenever I tried it felt like coughing up a thick black slug from my throat. The words would fall out of me strangely, like I couldn’t control my own body. The only thing worse than that was the way people would look at me. The blank eyes they’d give me. You see, they’re personalities were changing. Everyday all the people would seem to lose themselves, including myself. I would try and tell anyone I could about this, but I’d just be met with those same strange looks.
And that brings us about up to now. If I walk down a street, every person on it slowly turns their head to look at me. All with grey skin and matted hair. The air smells of sickness and waste no matter where I go. I’ve tried doctors, but they just look me in the eyes and say “You’re totally fine”. That phrase exactly.
So you understand my problem right? Not that anyone is reading this. As it said, it’s just me and the machine. I’m going to summon it tonight. I know it won’t let me die so I’m going to try, and I know that it will appear. Even if there really is nothing I can do, I am going to confront this thing.
If there is any other mind out there, I don’t know what to tell you to be honest. I’m just rambling now.
Statement ends.
Elias was found at 3:25 AM on the !3th August 2023 on the pavement outside his apartment building on Detirum Avenue, Aberdeen.
Examining his apartment revealed many curious things, but what sticks out to me is the fresh marks of oil on his laptop implying regular use, but a rudimentary inspection of the device itself reveals it to be hollow on the inside.