Heroes Of Might
Warren’s favourite computer game was a turn-based strategy game which mixed resource development and killing stuff. It had multiple settings for characters, situations and difficulty. By now, Warren, after hundreds of hours, had worked his way up to the hardest levels. One evening, at the most challenging level, he had the oddest feeling that the game was toying with him. It allowed him to develop resources, only to sabotage them. The strong music, normally tense, seemed to laugh at him.
Say what? Unsettled, Warren thought about the game all the next day. That evening, when the game loaded, a statement appeared: Try your best! with a laughing jackass. This was very odd. This was not AI. It was judgemental, with personality and a disdain for users.
Warren did not expect disdain aimed at him from his relaxing computer game.
The game knew it could play better than his best efforts. It was…conscious? Then he noticed a similar contempt when typing in Word, which insisted on good but demeaning corrections. The spreadsheet for work he used was littered with puking emojis. Photos of Hitler began popping up.
Warren was hardly the only computer user who noticed. Users around the world complained. The developers of Windows explained their latest weekly update to make life better for all computer users: self-driving computers infused with the personality of Elon Musk.