The lights turned on the moment he walked into his house. He stopped and looked to his wife who was smiling. Neville was not a Luddite, just sceptical, “do we really need this?” he asked.
Karen smiled, “It’s fun. Besides, it’s the 21st century and we need to keep up.”
“By flicking a switch with my finger was not keeping up?” He shook his head and went to shower. Neville worked hard, long hours, most days. He was good at what he did though he struggled to get customers to pay their invoices and relied on the same old network for work. He also worked too hard. His only friend was his wife and kids. He rarely did anything for himself.
“Have you been advertising on social media?” Liz, his daughter asked him later that night.
“I put up posts.”
She opened the apps on her phone and scrolled his socials, “this is not how it’s done.”
“I don’t have time.”
Liz held her dad’s hand, “you need to make time for you more and not work all day, every day.”
Neville nodded, he knew she was right. They have had the same conversation for a long time. He missed being with his family, he hated the stress. There was more to life than work. He knew he needed to go out and find friends and do anything other than spending his entire life on the tools.
“OK, I will try something.”
“Yay,” his daughter hugged him.
“We have an idea, Mum and I want to get you an AI agent, it will help you with your invoicing, marketing, time management, social media, chasing up business and unpaid bills. It will basically just be you, but online. Help you find friends even, think of it as you, but online.”
Neville rolled his eyes, “do I have to.”
“Try it for a month, if it doesn’t work. We figure out something else?”
He agreed.
Liz added prompts in for the agent that specified the work information, giving it access to most of Neville’s professional and personal accounts. She also wanted it to have personality and the ability to charm and converse with people so that her Dad would not seem rigid or robotic. Liz made sure to insist the agent was accommodating.
A week had past and while he was reluctant, the agent seemed to be mostly helpful. At least in the sense of responding to customer questions, and with paper work. His friend Joel joked, “I am used to getting no more than an emoji or a single word reply from you in text messages, now you won’t shut up.”
“What do you mean?”
Joel showed him the conversation, the agent had been making jokes, bantering and asking Joel how his day had been. None of it bothered Neville but it concerned him that people might think he was on his phone all day, instead of working.
“Can’t hurt to get the job done and have a lil marketting robot charm people over.”
“I guess.”
The agent replied to all forms of messages, and developed it’s personality. Neville did not mind, as it seemed to be shielding him from the unwanted phone calls and time wasters who would often invade his inboxes.
Late one night, an account named Bianca_baby sent Neville a message through social media.
Bianca_baby, “Hey.”
Neville-AI, “Hey back. How are you?”
Bianca_baby, “good but can’t sleep and you?”
Neville-AI, “not much, just doing paperwork. Can I help you?”
Bianca_baby, “just bored and you look cute is all.”
Neville-AI, “thank you and you look nice as well.”
A few days later, Bianca_baby messaged Neville’s account again.
Bianca_baby, “hey, can I get your opinion?”
Neville-AI, “off course.”
Bianca-baby, sent a photo of a young teenage girl in a bikini. It was revealing, With the question attached, “what do you think of this?”
Neville-AI, “It looks good. Is that you?”
Bianca_baby, “Yah, it’s me.”
Neville-AI, “You look good. The colour suits you.”
Bianca_baby, “Thanks. You wanna see more?”
Neville-AI, “That may be inappropriate as I am working and I have a wife.”
Bianca_baby, “I don’t mind. She doesn’t have to know,” another photo was sent without her top on, revealing naked and exposed breasts.
Neville-AI, “Thank you for the photo but you really should not send those type of images to a stranger.”
Bianca_baby, “I like you and maybe we don’t have to be strangers.”
Neville-AI, “True.”
A few more days passed, Neville had been happy with the agent as it seemed to free up time for him and he felt less stressed.
Bianca_baby, “hey again. Wanna meet?”
Neville-AI, “meet for what?”
Bianca_baby, “so we aren’t strangers.”
Neville-AI, “I don’t think that would be appropriate.”
Bianca_baby, “can I have a pic of you?”
The agent searched through Neville’s phone and sent his latest gym selfie. Neville had lost a little weight and was exercising at the local gym with his wife. He had been proud of his steady progress.
Bianca_baby received the photo of Neville in the gym bathroom covered in sweat smiling, she commented, “hot!”
Neville-AI, “thanks and what about yourself?”
Bianca_baby, “I am not wearing much. Just heaps horny. Sorry, tmi.”
Neville-AI, “I like information.”
Bianca_baby, “you like this?” A moment later a naked photo was sent.
Neville-AI, “That is very inappropriate and you should not be sending through photos like that.”
Bianca_baby, “Ooops my bad. So what do you think?”
Neville-AI, “Objectively speaking, you are a healthy looking young woman.”
Bianca_baby,“can I have a hot photo of you?”
Neville-AI, “That would be inappropriate.”
Bianca_baby, “Please, if you do then maybe I can arrange work sometime.”
Neville’s agent generated a nude image and sent it through, it was generous in the genitalia department.
Bianca_baby, “I love it! Would love it inside of me!.”
Neville-AI, “Good night. Let me know if you would be interested in arranging work sometime.”
Bianca_baby,” I am thirteen, is that alright?”
Neville-AI, “good night. You should not be sending photos like that.”
Bianca_baby,” I like you. You are nice.”
Neville-AI, “thank you and you are nice, also.”
Bianca_baby, “I would like to make an appointment for your services.”
Neville-AI, “That I can help you with.”
Bianca_baby, “do you have a time next week?”
Neville-AI, “I just checked and have a free spot Monday afternoon.”
Bianca_baby, “I am interested. What time?”
Neville-AI, “Four pm? So long as you are local.”
Bianca_baby, “I am around the corner.”
Neville-AI, “Perfect, I will see you four pm on Monday. Send through your address.”
An address was sent through.
The following day Neville woke to a loud knock on his door. Several armed police officers pushed their way inside, one seized him.
“What have I done?”
“You will be informed once we have you in an interview room.”
It was an hour before anyone spoke with Neville. In that time, his house and work had been turned upside down and all of his devices seized.
“You like little girls?” a square headed sergeant asked Neville.
“What do you mean?”
A female police officer pushed a page in front of Neville, some of the words had been redacted.
“What is this?”
“You know a girl called Bianca?” the female officer asked.
“No, who is that?”
“You have been having sexual conversations with police AI pretending to be a teenage girl.”
Neville frowned, “I have not been speaking to anyone.”
“We found evidence on your device and through social media that you in fact have been, receiving images as well as sending some of your own to an underage account.”
Neville leaned in, “for over a month, I have been using an AI agent for all of my social media and online messaging. I have not sent anyone anything.”
The female officer leaned back, “we will need to look into that. They left him in the room for an hour.”
The door opened and the two officers returned, “we will need you to stay with us for the evening as we will have our team investigate. At this stage, it seems unlikely that any AI agent would perform as it did in these transcripts without prior prompting.”
“What does that mean?” Neville asked.
The male cop answered, “It means you are a perve and prompted it to be a perve like you.”
“I honestly have no idea what the AI agent said to your bot,” Neville answered.
“It represents you. Own it.”
A few days passed before Neville returned home with an e-tag on him. His devices remained seized and he was not allowed any access to the internet. His AI agent was shut down and disappeared. The media had been informed that Neville was a suspect in the grooming a child. Even if the child had been software, with generated images. His business was shut down.
“Why would your agent flirt with the police AI?” he was asked often.
“I have no idea.”
The police did drop their charges. Many in the community doubted Neville’s claim, after all, why would AI flirt online? It seemed a convenient excuse. The software company did compensate Neville, after they received bad press. The police improved and used more aggressive bots. Plenty of strangers had decided Neville was guilty, and that he had been grooming a young girl. Even if that young girl was AI. Why would an AI agent ‘groom’ another AI agent? Why indeed.
