Details about who is speaking

Narrator is thinking.

Narrator is speaking.

Nnedi (the narrator's agent) is speaking.

Nah'Sequa is speaking.

Martin (Nah'Sequa's agent) is speaking.

Malik is speaking.

Michael (Malik's agent) is speaking.

Omar is speaking.

Maria (Omar's agent) is speaking.

Abdi is speaking.

Ms. Fancy Hair (English teacher) is speaking.

Mr. Bolt (math teacher) is speaking.

Mx Heart (social studies teacher) is speaking.

Mandated Reporter:
My Conversations with Nnedi

A journal of updates, overrides, and who gets to tell your story

Chris Spackman

Chunk 1(Click to read)

My Journal, Day 1

My parents screwed me. They put their beliefs above my future. Because of that, I’m stuck going to public school. We have enough money. I could be at an academy, or home schooled. But, nooo, they stick me with a crappy AIAI is "artificial intelligence"AI significa "inteligencia artificial" and then are like “sorry, enjoy public school.” Fuck them, fuck that, fuck AI.

Mind you, I don’t hate Nnedi. It’s not her fault she’s an open source[the code for open source software is freely available for anyone to use] AI agent. She’s got a couple of features that the real AIs don’t have, which is cool, but she also can’t do a lot of stuff that like everyone else’s AIs (for students not in public school) can do. Not Nnedi’s fault, but I’m the one that has to live with her, not them. Well, okay, sort of them; they have similar models. But, they choose less-than for themselves. I didn’t. So, fuck them. Fuck that. Fuck AI.

The narrator is a high school student with an AI agent named Nnedi. She is unhappy with her parents for giving her an agent which she thinks is not as good as others.

Anyhow, public school. I shouldn’t have to go, but I am. Nnedi’s model isn’t on the accepted list, so public school it is. Nnedi’s actually pretty powerful, so, school’s not hard or anything. Just, if they’d gotten me a real AI, I wouldn’t be in this run-down, piece of shit building with these poor kids. Poor in the “no money” sense. …

Are you done whining already?

It was Nnedi. I guess I’d paused too long while dictating for the journal assignment.

Wow, judgmental much? Didn’t realize mom and dad had turned on that feature. Is it new?

Actually, it comes turned on by default when the ward is between ages 12 and 17. And, no, it is not new. You turned it off a few years ago. The recent update turned it back on. Also, it is time to go to geometry class.

Class. Huh. That’s funny. You’re just going to do the work for me. Why don’t you go, and I’ll go home and sleep.

I was kidding of course. I had to show up in class regardless if Nnedi was going to do the work. School has facial recognition[technology that identifies people automatically] and RFID tracking[System using small electronic tags to track people or things] tracking. Well, sort of. I hacked the RFID tracking 10 minutes after starting here. Their AI is cheap and proprietary[the code for proprietary software is kept secret by the company that develops it], so it was not hard. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the IT guys knew and just didn’t care.

Anyhow, I got up and headed to room 23 for what is laughingly known as “geometry class”.

St. Abdi High School is a pretty typical public school. I think. I mean, I’ve only been in the one. But, I asked Nnedi about it once. The building is falling apart, the halls are too narrow, the climate control doesn’t, and the teachers are fighting a losing battle against a society that claims to care. The students come from families that are poor (not like mine), ideological (like mine), or both.

Hey, Malik, how’s it going?

Malik’s an old friend. We’ve been in school together since last year.

All good, all good. You? Any Nnedi updates you can share?

Chunk 2 (Click to read)

Malik’s AI agent, Michael, wasn’t the worst, but he definitely made Nnedi look closer to the top of the line. Luckily, Michael was also easily hack-able by pretty much every other AI and even some humans.

Just the judgmental mod. You don’t want it. I don’t want it, but too late.

Get enough of that at home, for sure. I’ll pass.

All right class. I’ve put today’s lesson on the CDN. Work through it with your agents. Group 1 students, meet me at the conversation corner.

Mr. Bolt. Nice enough guy. Crap teacher. Pity the Group 1 kids — their families couldn’t afford any AI at all. They have to learn the old fashioned way, from a guy who doesn’t seem to know any way of teaching, old fashioned or otherwise. How is this even a thing in the world’s fourth richest country? Some kids have AI agents that make Jarvis from those old movies look like a moron. Yet, here I am, “learning” (those were air quotes) with students who don’t have any AI. Sometimes I think it is a good thing the world is literally turning into Hell. Not here of course; not yet at least. Not sure if it is really ironic or …

Chunk 3 (Click to read)

Hey, Nnedi, is it ironic that the world is going to Hell, and we are living in one of the few areas getting nicer to live in? Or at least getting worse more slowly. Is that foreshadowing or what? Metaphor?

Maybe if you stayed awake through English class next time?

Bite me. But first, answer my question, please.

I believe that it could be considered a form of irony, yes. Also, I do not have teeth, so I cannot bite you. Even if I did, I would not commit violence upon you or any other human.

Thanks. I thought I turned off your HAL warnings, though. I know you don’t have teeth. What’s up?

Chunk 4 (Click to read)

The judgmental mod was not the only one reset by the last update. You might want to take a look at the others you changed. After we finish the geometry classwork.

Shit. Okay. In the future, please tell me right away when any settings get changed by an update. Now, what are the learning and language objectives?

With Nnedi’s help, getting through classwork is not difficult. It rarely is. I’m in public school because she’s not on the approved list, not because she’s crap. She’s not. Crap would be the other students’ AIs. Some of those are barely a lesson ahead of their users. Of course, that’s true for some of the teachers as well.

Chunk 5 (Click to read)

That Night, My Bedroom

Nnedi and I (well, mostly Nnedi) edited my journal in my bedroom, before I went to bed. We don’t usually have ‘homework’ — too many of the kids at school either have a shit home life and wouldn’t have time to do homework if they wanted to, or have jobs and wouldn’t have time to do homework if they wanted to. Or in some karmicly unlucky cases, both. School knows this, so teachers usually don’t give any. Plus, even most crap AIs can get you through the class work during class. Hence the name ‘class work’.

But, not Ms. Fancy Hair (not her real name, of course). She’s so old fashioned, she makes other old fashioned people feel sorry for her.

Nnedi, that sentence is crap. Suggest some rewrites, please.

You know I can’t do that. Also, I won’t do that. It is important to communicate respectfully with people. Especially teachers.

Thanks for nothing.

Chunk 6 (Click to read)

Anyhow, Ms. Fancy Hair usually requires us to write BY HAND … ON PAPER! I mean, what is this the 1900s? WTF, like join this century already. Everyone hates her because our AIs can’t write our papers for us. Ms. Fancy Hair hates us (I’m assuming here) because we don’t actually do the work or turn in the papers. So, stalemate, I guess?

For this assignment, though, she got devious. We have to keep a journal of our thoughts and actions for a week. We can use our AIs to help record and then edit the journal entries. In a way she turned Nnedi against me, because she knows Nnedi will do a lot of it for me anyhow, so I don’t have any excuse not to finish and turn it in. The bitch.

Sorry, Nnedi. I didn’t mean you. I meant Ms. Fancy Hair.

You did not offend me. Also, why are you using such an odd nickname for her?

She said we should use pshydonims — wait, how do you say that word?

I believe you mean pseudonym. Yes, she did say you should use them. But, I asked why that pseudonym for Ms. Fancy Hair?

Don’t worry about it. Good night. Wake me up at 5:00.

Good night. I’ll wake you up in three hours, at 5:00.

Copyright

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