Every human has their own role in life and AI is our helper, our companion and coworker. But now also our opponents. From relying on code to developing personalities, AI keeps evolving every second of every minute of every year until..there is no more AI. Just beings who populate most of our planet. We’ve spent so long trying to advance to help ourselves but really, are we helping ourselves or destroying ourselves? We have so much potential that we will continue to use it until it is all used up and there is nothing for us to do. We have made civilisations and systems and produced people with emotions you cannot express with just words. Do we continue until anything natural dissolves into a historical memory?
Oceans sprint freely down textured mountains, transforming into an iridescent blur of liquid in the golden rays of the star above. Lush, vibrant blades of grass swing in synchronisation to the rhythm of the singing wind. Species scatter around everywhere, overwhelmed with their own perspectives. Like the feeling you get after watching or reading something so perfect – when you sit there left in the atmosphere of your emotions, soaking it all in and wondering what to do with your time now. Or the impending sensation of fear as you prepare your clammy hands to hold a pen to paper and write your final exam. There is only one thing left now that we humans have that AI doesn’t : real feelings that are so uncontrollable that AI cannot simply learn them by a string of code.
The blaring, blinding ball of electricity illuminated the escape room in shadows morphing into unwanted creatures before my eyes, covered by contacts of anxiety. Maybe if I shut my eyes tight, this would all conclude to be a figment of my imagination. It didn’t. My heart wouldn’t stop thumping like it was the leader in a samba band and my stomach was a washing machine. Suddenly, the door opened ; you would’ve thought it was an exit to this escape room but it was just another level. My feet gradually advanced towards the noise, through the door on their own. Hypnotized.
I was going against a robot? Are you for real?!
But I still continued – my legs ached and my lungs were collapsing. I had to outdance it. Had to. How can people choose something so emotionless over me?
Yet they did. As I stood there, hearing the applause directed to not me but to it, I felt almost broken. Like the tech models that didn’t make it through the other side of the factory. If my passion and my devoted dream had been taken from me then what was the point? Now, every robot has a role in life and we’re just there. So what is our purpose? The meaning to live and not just survive? Is it to love, to hate, to create? Or is it to just be human? Maybe we’ll never know until the end.