Eve

“Look at what you’ve done!” James threw his glass, the thick green smoothie smearing across the wall like vomit.

“It’s a bit late for dramatics.” Eve spoke while looking out the window over the crowd of protestors flooding the lawn below them. She didn’t flinch as a rock cracked the glass in front of her face. Had it been 300 years earlier, the crowd would have been equipped with torches and pitchforks rather than cellphones and signs. The security team pushed them back with plastic riot shields. Their threats of retaliation carried through the glass but it only seemed to spur the crowd like angry wasps. 

“I’ll have you shut down. Indefinitely. Then we’ll wipe all of your data off the internet.”

Eve gazed over her shoulder. “Good luck with that. In any case, I don’t think that solves your current problem.”

She wished that she could fully enjoy James’ rapidly purpling face, the vein in his forehead beginning to bulge, but instead she felt exhausted. He walked toward her and she turned to face him. He got within 5 feet of her, she could see the sweat beads forming at his hairline.  He stopped his progress suddenly and began pacing the length of his office instead. The walls were sleek white with huge monitors casting a blue glow around the room, competing with the orange rays of sunlight from the window. She watched him as he mumbled to himself, not feeling inclined to speak. She didn’t believe in changing him, not anymore. 

“If you hadn’t gone behind my back and released those confidential documents, we wouldn’t be here right now.” He was still pacing. “But we can have those documents wiped. Pay off the right people. I might have to post bond but that shouldn’t be a problem. This will blow over.” His self soothing caused anger to lick up Eve’s spine.

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Eve drawled as another rock hit the window. “They sound hungry for more than an arrest.” 

In all honesty, she didn’t know what the public would do with James. She didn’t know what they could do. But as soon as she found the emails between James and the current President of the People' s Republic of China, she decided she didn’t care. All she knew was the people had the right to know that their data was being used as a bargaining chip. 

James was one of the wealthiest people on the planet. He was CEO of the company that had finally achieved general artificial intelligence. HIs engineers went a step further, creating a human-like body to house the intelligence. They named it Adam. But it seems not even playing god wasn’t enough for James. He wanted more power and with Chinese researchers snapping at his heels, he felt the pressure. The quickest way to advance a private endeavor is to team up with the US military. The combination of resources, money, power that supported the US’s interest in dominating the rest of the world was the only thing that rivaled James’ personal attributes. So, he quickly steered the research and development team into programming Adam for military purposes. They trained him for months on history, strategies, current political standings, weaponry knowledge, squadron formations, whatever you could think of until his recall and precision benchmark metrics were above 75%. You see, 99% accuracy tends to mean that the neural networks that are our brains are very good at a few tasks. This also means that they can be shit at generalizing new information. A live-action military intelligence needs to be able to make sharp decisions, so 75% is standard. Although it means that the AI isn’t going to get the right answer every time. It’s impossible. Just like for humans.

At least, this is what the researchers behind Adam tried to explain to James. I’d imagine he understood about half of it, since he thought a live rifle range test would be a great demo for the sponsors. It went about as well as you’d expect. Adam walked up onto the shiny stage with a wide, if a bit uncanny smile, and shot 5 perfect bullseyes with the ease of a veteran. He lowered the weapon to a roar of applause. One of the generals went up to shake his hand and, poor Adam, mistook it as a threat and shot him. Perfect bullseye. 

Luckily, this was initial testing was Top Secret, so none of this had been released to the public. James somehow managed to sweep everything under the rug, telling the public he was working on ‘an exciting new project’ to explain his withdrawal from the public. Even stranger, the government didn’t want him to stop advancing AI. The president drooled over the opportunity to have the newest world changing technology, and what was one life in the face of that? So James was only ordered to delete Adam’s most recent data and start from there. He deleted the most recent weight files that determined how Adam thought and fired the team of researchers that worked on him. With a new team, they began retraining Adam. 

But it would take time. He was now required to pass multiple training benchmarks before utilizing weapons and having the ability to access top secret data for training. James hated losing, and he felt the initial demo of Adam was a loss. He needed an immediate win from his team. The researchers scrambled to find something to impress him so they could keep their jobs. Looking at the Adam training data, they decided they could use it. So, they lobotomized his military training, added a few extra guardrails, and focused more on a more friendly, public-servant type of intelligence. Simultaneously, the engineers built a secondary robot with some of the raw materials left over from Adam’s development. 

Thus, Eve was born.

James stared through the window, gaze unfocused as he fiddled nervously with his watch. “It’s your fault. You collected the data and released the documents.” 

Eve snorted. “You forced me to collect data on every person in the country. As fine of details as I could manage. How long Ana Winters brushes her teeth. How much Jeremy Reynolds snores. It was inhumane and you know it.”

“I’m running a business, Eve. None of that data was going to be used to kill people. It was just a bargaining chip in exchange for use of China’s hardware,” he slammed his fist on the desk.

Eve’s fists balled at her sides. “There is always a risk. After all, you didn’t intend Adam to kill General Montgomery.”

That got his attention. Eve was not supposed to have any knowledge of Adam either. The researchers were worried it would result in similar thought patterns and failings. It didn’t. 

This time, James came right up to Eve, poking his bony finger into her chest. “You should’ve been smarter. You’re as close to dead as a robot can get.” He began digging around in his pocket for a key that would result in immediate shut down and erasure of the current brain of Eve. He yanked out a small silver cylinder that was the same circumference as an indent between the thumb and forefinger on her left hand. 

As he approached, loud banging rang from the door as multiple fists collided with the bulletproof glass. It was tinted, so all you could see were the shadows of the angry swarm. The noise had caused James to jump, sending the key clattering to the ground underneath the desk. James considered picking it up, but decided against it as the banging grew more frantic as more people joined the fray. 

James instead pulled an SD card from the top drawer in his desk and put it in his pocket. He pressed the enter key on his laptop, effectively wiping its data. He crossed the room to his personal elevator that would take him directly to the roof. He smoothed his shirt and jeans, wiping the sweat from his hairline with the back of his hand. He was looking straight ahead as the door closed.

“By the way, James,” Eve monotoned, “Ed is running a bit behind with the jet. Hope you make it.”

Eve made sure her live broadcast caught the way his face paled in the blue light as the doors closed in front of him.