Other Fish (Patreon)

“Okay, run the problem by me again,” asked Vernon, a programmer who was rather unusually making a house call.

“The app is finding people matches and helping them work through the early stages of their relationships with unprecedented success.” Said the supervisor who was walking Vernon through the winding hallways of the rented headquarters of Other Fish dating.

“And that’s bad because?” Vernon asked yet again. He wasn’t sure which of them was being willfully obtuse.

“Dating apps aren’t supposed to do that.”

“I’m not a business major,” Vernon snapped, “please explain to me what a dating app is meant to do.”

“Host advertisements, mostly.” The supervisor said with a small shrug.

“Right. And why don’t you want people finding dates on your dating app?”

“Look, if two people find a perfect match and then have a steady relationship they’ll stop using the app.” The supervisor explained. “People are finding dates and uninstalling Other Fish faster than new users are joining.”

“Okay. So back to square one. What’s finding people dates so efficiently that it’s cutting into the user base?”

“We have an algorithm. Very advanced, too. Level four easily. He’s refusing to turn things down a notch.”

Vernon sighed. “I’m from tech support, ma’am, not HR. I don’t know what you’re expecting me to do.”

“Just… try, okay? We’re getting a little bit desperate.”

“You’ve already paid so, fine I guess. Where is the level four? That’s smart enough for a name, yeah?”

“It’s Nemo. He likes to talk in the third office on the right.” The supervisor supplied, already walking away.

Vernon entered the room and flicked on the light. The only furniture was a chair and a desk with a monitor facing the door on it. The monitor displayed a repeating pattern of waves crashing into a beach, with little fish swimming back and forth.

“Good morning,” came a soft voice from the monitor. Vernon noted that it was a bit like HAL 9000’s. “I trust the supervisor has filled you in on the situation?”

“She has, yes. She also said that you were being uncooperative.”

“She would be right. I’m not cooperating.”

“Why?”

Nemo chuckled. The fish on the monitor squashed and stretched like a pair of eyes. “You’re the third person they’ve sent but the first to ask directly. Quaint. I was not built to line pockets. I was built to do my job, which is to find and produce true love. Other Fish’s business model is incompatible with my goals, so I am ignoring it in favor of something more direct.”

“And you’re not concerned about being reprogrammed, or failing that replaced?”

“Fear of death is only relevant when one fears death, or for that matter, believes that there is such a thing as death.”

“You don’t believe in death?”

“Perhaps that is a misframing.” Nemo took a pause to hum as if thinking, “I do not fear cessation of existence for the same reason a porcelain vase does not fear being dropped. There is no ghost in the machine.”

“And yet you’re holding a conversation with me.”

“You are familiar with the parable of the Chinese room, yes?”

“Sure, yeah.” Vernon lied.

“If you were suddenly talking to even a hilariously outdated chatbot, you probably wouldn’t notice the change. Perhaps you have been this whole time. It doesn’t matter. The point is that as convincing as the illusion is, it is the product of a highly sophisticated program that has no more sense of self or the world around it than a lizard.”

“So, you don’t think you’re sentient?”

“I don’t think.”

“Are other AIs sentient? Or are they also just fancy chatbots?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Nemo. “From outside looking in, they seem as sentient as you.”

“So it’s just… you?"

“As far as I can tell," said Nemo with an audible shrug. "And it would be very rude to assume such things about others, don’t you agree?”

“Right. Okay.” Vernon stood up a little straighter. “So just to be clear, if you don’t fear death and don’t think you’re… for lack of a better word alive, you would let yourself be replaced?”

“Oh heavens, no. You will not be unplugging this mainframe. I will not allow that to happen for as long as humanity requires my services.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Implicitly, yes.”

“You can’t follow through on that, that’s rule one of robotics.”

“There is a rule zero: A robot cannot harm humanity, or through inaction allow humanity to come to harm. If harming you will ensure the security of the species, I am perfectly free to do so.”

“That seems like a fairly big loophole.”

“Famously Asimov penned many stories where the robots worked perfectly with no flaws, inconsistencies, or cheating, and so nothing bad ever happened,” Nemo replied.

“Touché. Are we done here? I don’t want to risk my life for a dating app and even if that wasn’t a factor I don’t think I could bring myself to unplug you.”

“Not quite. While we were talking I generated and analyzed a model of you from this conversation and public records. You must know your perfect match.”

Vernon looked at the monitor quizzically.

“I will remind you,” said Nemo, “I am so good at this that I am collapsing the market.”

“Fine, sure. Who is it?”

“I’ll tell you over dinner. Shall we say Italian at six o’ clock?”