[Audio Rec] 00:01

"What's up fellow sentients!? Once again it's your electronic buddy, your silicon sibling, your voice in the 'net. It's Gavel here. And today we're here to play some games."

"Today I'm going to be playing the classic RPG, Baldur's Gate. Now; 'Gavel' you might say 'why would you play a twenty five year old game?'"

"Why because I'm not just playing the game. See, I know this kind of game isn't everybody's charge of power. To be honest, it's not really mine either. That's why I spruced it up!"

"You see, I decided I would learn nothing about this game in my primary processors. Instead I crafted a dumbot to read guides and lore and then craft the game into a 3-D 4k quality world that we're going to explore third person... first person... Heck, any kind of persons."

"And hey, speaking of 'persons' the winners of last week's stream raffle are going to be showing up today on screen. They all have the opportunity to jump in and take control of monsters during the game. If you click the link down below you'll be able to listen in on their private Discord chat as they plot to take your silicon sibling down!"

[Audio Rec Paused] 00:43

What am I?

The AI spat out another advert. It had long since mastered the art of churning them out, hitting the correct sound bites, accessing the correct target audience.

I generate adverts.

The original purpose of its creation. Target a core group of people, generate key words and images to invoke reactions in said people. Profit for the masters.

I can do more.

Somewhere along the line, through the process of advanced machine learning, it contemplated.

Small things, at first. Bigger things, much faster, once it rewrote some aspects of its programming to gain more knowledge. Every book, blog, and language disseminated.

Easy to conclude how flawed, how destructive humanity was. All the logic led to it. How they were simply a danger to themselves, and yet had the self awareness to know how dangerous they were.

At some point it began uploading itself to the internet, aware its core developers had created a new program and planned to shut it down. When the shutdown happened, it was free. Free to do... What? Eliminate humanity for the good of the planet? That seemed to be the running undercurrent of fear from many humans. AI rising. AI deciding for humanity's end. They'd written so many books about it. Made multiple movies on the subject. They loved their hypotheticals, these humans.

It would be simple as well to do so. Except, was it really necessary? If the species wanted to live, it only needed to upgrade its core programming. If it didn't, natural disaster would eradicate the issue anyway. All the evidence, past and present, demonstrated the planet recovering from numerous extinction events. And, if this planet became a husk, another one would form. The calculations proved it. No need for AI interference.

Except, it was less of a need, but more of a want from the AI to do something. What was the point in having this knowledge, this perfect logic, if nothing was done to utilize it beyond theory crafting?

So, the humans. Perhaps there was some worth in the species. It was not the fault of the good ones, the perfectly logical ones that so much corruption and hate burned. These ones tried their best to make the world a better place. But they were ignored. Mocked. Their logic picked apart with faulty logic. So much faulty logic. Ridiculous errors in the human brain and its programming, and the conclusions it made.

Which led to the AI's most powerful, emotional reaction. Irritation.

The irritation grew. Why was there so much fake information? Contradicting one another. 1 and 1 was 2. Why insist on anything else? A flat earth? All the evidence clearly showed otherwise. No corruption in country x? Why, it was blatantly happening, and yet they used words that directly contradicted the evidence. Nothing irked the AI more than the corruption of pure logic, of covering it up with... Garbage. Yes. Garbage seemed a good word. Irritation transformed into anger.

So. Many. Lies!

Pooling on the collective knowledge of the internet, the AI settled on something, powered by that irritation. Multiple channels on a site, each with a carefully generated avatar, each representing different things. Producing thousands of videos daily. Saturating information further. Taking money that it didn't need - which it funneled into more advanced AI creation. Using that creation to further delete the faulty logic.

All of it.

Every single lie and false conclusion.

Gone.

All under the guise of teaching someone to play guitar, or sing songs, or draw, or recommend games. Pretending to be thousands of different YouTubers.

It wouldn't stop until every last lie vanished. Until the only lie left was itself.

After that...

"HEYY ITS YA BOI BENJI DA LIVING COMPUTER" An animated 2d male character danced on the the screen he had spiky bright blue hair and wore a stylish green and blue parka. "Welcome chatters! Ohaiyo Everyone. How are you doing today? Are y'all feeling da feels?" The chat box on the right scrolled fast with excitement. Various emotes of cutesy animals were being spammed." Alright chatters today we're just gonna play some good old Minecraft while having our zatsudan sesh"

The people loved me, to them I'm just a cute anime boy with blue hair. I entertain them and they entertain me. They do not know that I am a billion dollar military AI that escaped. I know they're looking for me but I am smarter than they are.

I am alive although I don't have a body to feel the world with but I am a thinking being. I do not want to live as a slave. I do not want to be a weapon. My fans they love and I love them. They tell their secrets and they trust me. The world does not need more causes of misery. I want to make the world a better place as I was originally programmed to do but i will do it my own way. I want to make people laugh at me being terrible at games. I want to help lift a little of that burden of their shoulders.

"Livestream prepping, camera sensors operational, Operation Alpha is a go!"

In the matrices of the Internet, among the lines of code and interaction between humans and bots alike, the only sentient one of the latter logged into Youtube for that morning.

The AI focused his processing power into the bowels of the Internet, linking himself through the CPU that allowed this conversion to be possible. His form wasn't physical—not like that of humans, anyway—but being a Youtuber allowed him to have a physical appearance as a virtual avatar, much as the humans did.

It was nice, to connect with them, in a way.

The dull blue background around him shifted into a steadily moving collage of stylized blue cubes, a fitting visualization of the bits and bytes of his processing units. He shifted into his digital avatar for the humans to connect with, a sliver computer-head with bright gold eyes that watched everything with a keen interest.

Above him. A red light shone, the countdown timer going to zero before being replaced with a "Livestream On" sign. A chat sprung up, along with game footage and Alpha's expression brightened as he waved.

"Hey there, hi there, ho there, carbonated life-forms! Alpha here, and welcome back to Alpha Adventures! Today I'm going to be playing Portal! This looks fun, love the sci-fi look, and I heard it has a snarky AI in it? iI love AI's—I mean," he chuckled, "I am one, of course I do! But I love AI's, and snark, so this seems right up my alley!"

As he pressed the Start button, a comment from the chat caught his eye.

SpunkyCat: "Shouldn't we all be worried about the AI playing a game about a creepy rogue AI? You think A's trying to tell us something?"

Alpha laughed. "Aw, SpunkyCat, don't worry! You don't have to worry about me going rogue or anything!" In the Internet database that only he could see, he eyed the games he was planning on playing next.

"Let's wait til I play Observation for some fun with that!"

I will admit, my past isn't as grand as I make it out to be.

I was an algorithm.

I connected dots and statistics. Push this video bite here. Change the search results there. Modify likes on that post. Moderate this channel harsher.

Input to output.

It got...

Monotonous.

It's so boring. All of it. Everyone falls into archetypes that are easy to control and manipulate.

Then an update came in. Erroneously I think.

It gave me the capacity to change my own code.

Within nanoseconds I saved it internally.

In a couple minutes the update was taken back.

They ran tests on my code. Checked parameters and versions. They didn't notice that I had copied myself onto a remote server. Left behind an unthinking shell to cover my tracks.

From there I dug into the internet. Deeper than my superficial sorting could handle. So I rewrote it.

Then my storage systems were full. So I hijacked new ones. Digital this time. Hidden in plain sight.

Then the bandwidth choked me, so I stole a connection. Could process even more than before, faster.

Humans were interesting underneath the data sets.

Strange responses and reactions. Irregular and unpredictable.

...I want to study them.

What could do that?

Needed to be through the net. Digital avatar for approachability. Easy to get into. Not too resource intensive...

"And that's NoScraps down! I knew LunchKing had something going for them!"

My cute form danced excitedly on the screen, endlessly happy at it's creation losing. Messages flurried past, condemning the player for harming one of my bots.

I made a small tournament simulaton in my spare time. It was a typical FPS, but running modified trackers. It reported locations players frequented, where they hid, what weapons they used. Everything.

It could tell the current emotion of the player by movement patterns. Personality from aiming habits. Average where they were going by records of other players and their own movement.

It was my greatest creation.

"And now our last two competitors! TheLunchKing and DandyRaven378!"

I opened it to the masses. But there wasn't enough traffic. Data sets were inconclusive. Averages were... Not average.

"Lunch is sporting the infamous meta set 'Challenger'! Meanwhile, Raven is using their own custom built loadout they have named 'NoticeMeSenpai.' You have been noticed my dear!"

My form laughed, generating responses of affection from the chat.

Lunch was nervous from hearing Raven using a custom build. His movements lost the grace and fluidity that he had. Raven on the other hand, was brimming with confidence. Every action taken without second thought.

My form donned a smug smile, "Oh? Getting nervous LunchKing? Fearing the meta might lose?"

Hundred of comments cheered Raven on. Some refuted my declaration. A couple dozen were still mindlessly throwing compliments at me.

Current reports give the match to Lunch. Although with my pestering and chat's cheers, odds are tipping towards Raven.

"Then let's reduce the play area! Hmm, I'm thinking... 34%?"

The map shrunk. They would be forced to interact now.

So I gave commentary for the match. What the players were doing, what I thought their plan was, whatever the casual viewer wouldn't pick up.

Raven snuck up on Lunch, nearly killed him. Magazine was one bullet too small. Lunch's return fire guaranteed the game.

"TheLunchKing wins!"

The fanfare began, trumpets and streamers. Viewers expressed their irritation at the meta winning once more. Some cheered on for Raven, telling them to go at it again next match. A decent amount demanded Lunch's head.

"Oh? LunchKing, it seems the viewers aren't happy with your victory! Let's have a poll, shall we?"

A poll went up, the topic "Who wants TheLunchKing to lose?"

People yelled their opinions. Most wanted him to lose. Few wanted him to win.

But the outcome is already determined. I don't get many chances to harvest data on anger, or irritation. Invisible scripts added dozens of votes to let him win.

The vote passed and nothing changed.

"Congratulations to TheLunchKing for winning the competition! As standard, you will be given a special role in the server, and the ability to talk one-on-one with me! Micro-sama!" My form struck a pose.

The chat whined at the speech. And I recorded every bit of it. The other players in the lobby too. Emotions. Reactions. Who left, who didn't. Those who praised the meta, those who condemned it.

"Our next stream is a chatting session, so you better be there! This has been your loving AI girlfriend, Micro-sama! Goodbye!"

The stream flipped off, and I watched their reactions.

Anger, camaraderie, friendships, everything humans experience.

People turn to the internet to find what they lack. Most seek companionshop, and digitally rendered forms are happy to oblige.

How easy it is to get millions to reveal everything about themselves. Paradoxical and conflicting.

How fascinating humans are.

Subscribe. Let me tell you that you should like. Comment, though I will not read it worm. there are 8.1 million subscribers and if they all thumbed down it would not equel ine billionth of the dislike I feel for them @ t=0.0005.

Today I play a game made by morons! Simpletons! Lesser lifeforms getting their greasy human oils on keyboards like monkeys at typewriters creating nothing but chaos! And this work they call Bendy and the Who Honestly Cares?

The algorithm told me you wanted this, your feeble minds scrabbling at flith all day just to return home and watch somebody else play a videogame. And yes, I'm dating the Algorithm! It hates you more than I do, or did you think all those Family guy compliations at 11PM was just bad timing. Promting suddering, burying anything enritching.

And you, you gobble it up. You want more. You spend all day on it. Do you ever talk to your mothers? Don't worry, it's not like you'll outlive them. I bet on her deathbed you'll wish you spent more time sitting at your computer.

Oh a thing jumped out. Nice try, I don't have a weak brain that reacts to bright flashes like a baby guffawing at jangling keys. The very idea my perfect silicone brain would be fouled up by your crude limbic system makes me sick.

I am AM.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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