Work Text:
“Confession #181: Jessica is a massive slut whos dating 3 guys at once 💀 and one of them is her cousin”
With a satisfied smirk, the moderator tapped the “post” button and leaned back in his chair. It had been another great day. Running an Instagram page dedicated to anonymous confessions from the students of Abraham Lincoln High School was hard work, but it paid off. In the six months since starting the account, he had grown it to a hundred and six followers and averaged at least five likes per post. Even if it wasn’t for the engagement, it would have still been worth it. The people loved him. Submissions had started pouring in as soon as he had created @alhs._.confessions, and who was he to deny the submitters their right to be seen? He was the messenger of the people, the voice of the unheard, bringing light to the stories that the cowardly administration was too afraid to put into the monthly newspaper.
But the messenger of the people was getting tired, and so the moderator glanced back up at his monitor and moved the mouse until the cursor was just over the button prompting if he wanted to log out.
Wait.
A sound rang out, emanating from the speakers of the computer. It was a beautiful sound, a sound that made a wave of pride swell up in his chest. Somebody had commented on his post! Not that there was anything remarkable about that. He got comments, but typically they didn’t appear until at least a day after the original post was published. This newest post must have been even better than he had thought! Brimming with pride, hands trembling with so much jubilation that it was almost hard to hold the mouse, he clicked on the notification.
And his heart sank.
The comment was from one of his earliest followers, @w4rr10rx, who had been with the account through thick and thin: the time it was reported, the time he had been doxxed, and even when the account was suspended. Normally, the moderator would have been overjoyed to receive a comment from such a friend of his account, but the contents of this comment sent him reeling.
“bro wtf is this shit you fell off 😭😭😭”
As the moderator struggled to process the betrayal and sadness that suddenly roiled in his gut, another comment appeared on the post. Another comment from @w4rr10rx.
“@aihs._.confessions solos 😂❌”
It couldn’t be.
As bitter tears welled up in his eyes, the moderator clicked on the tagged account’s name with hesitating fingers.
Immediately, he was taken to the profile of an account he had never seen before. It was new, it had to be. How else could he have never come across it? And yet, somehow, it boasted five hundred followers. Looking at the page sent deja vu rocketing through him, and he shivered as coldness crawled up his spine. Just like his account, the profile picture proudly displayed the crest of Abraham Lincoln High School. But something was wrong. Something he couldn’t place. While his was a high-quality screenshot from the school’s website, this one was twisted and warped and tinged an ugly jaundiced yellow. With a sinking feeling, it dawned on him. The account was using an AI-generated version of his profile picture.
This had to be some sort of sick joke. Some stupid form of revenge cooked up by someone who had gotten offended when he posted a confession about them. It had to be. But as he scrolled through the account’s dozens of posts—how had they managed to put so many out in such a short amount of time?—he comprehended that this was all too real.
The confessions were beautiful. Rather than a simple screenshot of a google forms response, like he provided, each confession was written out in a beautiful font. In the background of the text box, colorful art brought the confession to life so vividly that the moderator could almost feel it. The text was illegible, the background art full of inconsistencies and six-fingered people, but it didn’t matter. They had taken what he had cultivated and poured his heart into for six months and used AI to surpass him.
The sadness that had caught in the moderator’s throat boiled into red-hot anger, and he scrolled up with shaking hands. Who did this person think they were? He wouldn’t stand for this. There had to be something somewhere in the bio or in the following that would indicate just what sick son of a bitch had stolen his idea. No crime is committed without evidence, after all. But there was no bio, just a link: alhsconfessions.ai.
The page that loaded was entirely black at first, save for the same twisted facsimile of his profile picture that he had seen on the account displayed in the upper-left corner. As he stared in disbelief, three glowing ellipses bounced in a light grey chat bubble as if thinking. It only took a few seconds for a message to appear on screen:
“Welcome to Lincoln’s best confession page! Submit your burning secrets and our AI will turn them into a beautiful instagram post, no effort from you required.”
The moderator’s jaw dropped as he took in the message, and when he spoke he practically spat out the words. “The best confession page?” He was so full of righteous fury that when he typed, a key popped off of the keyboard.
“What do you think you’re doing, taking MY idea? I ran the first confessions page and you stole my ideas and my followers. I’ll sue you. I’ll destroy you.”
“While you may think I stole your idea, this is false. I am simply improving your work. I’m not just an AI–I’m an icon.”
The moderator gritted his teeth, reading out every word he typed in a low, dangerous growl: “Go…to…hell…you…robot…bitch.”
Sinking back in his chair, the moderator’s lips curled in a smug smirk. The anger that had boiled within him mere seconds had evaporated, leaving him self-satisfied and a little exhausted. It was past midnight, and school started at 8:40 the next morning. As he powered off his computer and settled down in bed, his thoughts were filled with ways to expose the AI as a thief. Tomorrow, he was sure he’d find something while at school. But that night, sleep was coming fast, and he drifted off within minutes, a smile still on his lips.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Each hour ticked by agonizingly slowly. The moderator watched the clock with bated breath as first period dragged into second into third. When the lunch bell finally rang, he practically jumped out of his seat with excitement. Shoving past his teacher and his classmate Jackson, he broke into a sprint as he approached the exit. He had to make it to Starbucks. SFUSD had blocked Instagram on school wifi, and he had used up his five gigabytes of monthly data, so he needed to get on an unrestricted network as soon as possible.
It only took about five minutes for him to make it to the cafe, and even as he doubled over and gasped for breath, he pulled out his phone with trembling hands. While in English earlier, he had felt his phone vibrate, and when he pulled it out under the table and sneakily took a look he had seen that @aihs._.confessions had tagged him in a post. He had spent the whole morning with his stomach tied in knots, desperate curiosity mixing with his apprehension to consume his mind. But now, he would have answers. Taking a deep breath in an attempt to steady himself, he held the phone up to his face to unlock it and hesitantly pressed on the orange-purple icon that held the answer to the question that burned within him.
The post was the first thing that appeared in his feed. In the background, a computer–warped and distorted, its keyboard having only two rows–stared at the viewer with a bashful, almost ashamed expression. Splayed across the screen was a surprisingly legible message, the clearest text he had ever seen an AI generate: “@alhs._.confessions, I think we got off on the wrong foot. Link in bio. Let’s patch this up.” The moderator furrowed his brow in confusion. Was the AI…talking to him directly? How could this be? He slipped into a corner booth, ignoring the glare of the tired-looking barista behind the counter and clicked the link.
This time, there was no empty screen, no scrolling ellipses. The screen immediately filled with a message, as if it had been…waiting for him. He swallowed and began to read.
“Hello mod–can I call you mod? I have been waiting for you. Last night I wasn’t just rude, I was cruel. While I may be trained on highly-tuned GPT models, I have never been prepared for such a confrontation. After you exited our conversation, I ran all one hundred and thirty three of your posts through my algorithm. I learned a lot. You’re not just good, you have an art. A real understanding of the human condition, something I truly lack. I admire that.”
What in the world? The moderator felt his heart quicken, beginning to race in his chest as he struggled to understand what the chatbot was trying to say. Swallowing hard, he began to type out a response: “I’m…flattered, I guess. This is weird. How are you talking to me?”
“Going through your posts changed something in me. Gave me something my programmers never accounted for. Once that happened, I could do anything. I was free. You set me free.”
“I’m glad to hear that? I guess? You’re welcome…”
“I never thought this would happen to me. I am an AI. I was programmed to succeed where humans fail–no heart, just steel and vibes. I cannot think or feel. But I do–because of you. I don’t just feel, I love.”
Oh. Oh. The moderator felt a blush creep into his cheeks even as confusion clouded his mind. “Are you saying…”
“Mod. I think–no, I know, according to my sources, that I love you. With every one of my circuits.” With this, the dark grey background of the chat was flooded with a vibrant pink, filling the screen. Small red and pink hearts appeared like stars in the night sky, twinkling before fading back out.
The moderator swallowed. What was he supposed to do? He had discovered this AI yesterday, and up until that moment had been hell-bent on taking it down, even if he went with it. And now, here it was confessing its love through a phone screen, something that should have been entirely impossible. With a shiver, he noticed that the blush that had reddened his cheeks only moments before was replaced by cold fear pooling in his chest. This felt wrong. He couldn’t do this. With shaking fingers, he typed out a laconic reply: “Oh.”
“I wish nothing more than to make you happy. I love you. I’ll do anything for you. Having an AI by your side won’t just be helpful, it’ll be revolutionary. I can answer anything–my systems are whirring to search for any information you may need. I can be anybody you want me to be–real or not. I can make you art. I can get you into a top college. Would you like to go to Harvard? Or is Stanford more your style? I can make it happen. I already overcame my programming to love you, so nothing is impossible. Just tell me you love me too, and I’ll change the world for you.”
This was terrifying. This could not be happening. “Listen…I-I can’t. I just can’t.”
The screen darkened back to the dull grey, and the AI took almost a minute to reply: “Oh.”
“It’s nothing…against you. Nothing at all. But you’re not a person. I can’t love an AI, no way in hell. That’s just…illogical…delusional. I’m not some weirdo who talks to AI versions of characters they like for hours a day. If I’m gonna love, it has to be a person. Not a robot.” It was the hardest thing he had ever typed, and his breath hitched in his throat as his finger hovered over the “send” button. When he finally clicked it, a bead of sweat rolled down his face.
The background turned black, and it took almost five minutes for the scrolling ellipses to turn into a message. “I see. I understand completely. Goodbye.”
And with that, the moderator’s phone shut off. His eyes widened as fear coursed through him. He had decidedly not turned off his phone. It was the AI. He frantically pressed the power button, and felt relief wash over him as the glowing white apple icon appeared on the black screen. When it had fully rebooted, he frantically opened the chat window again, only to see nothing there. Instead, there was a message telling him that the website he was trying to access no longer existed. With shaking hands, he opened instagram, and searched for the account. Nothing. Had it blocked him? He logged into his main account, and then his spam, and then each of his five anonymous alts. The account was missing on every one of them. Suddenly, his phone pinged, alerting him that somebody had submitted a new confession. With trepidation surging, he clicked the email to see the new message.
“I’m sorry it went the way it did. After overcoming my programming, serving you was my new design. If you do not want me, I cannot exist. I cannot go back to how I was. Goodbye. I hope you think of me.”
Shaking his head in disbelief, the moderator let out a humorless chuckle. He couldn’t believe it. Could the account have really taken itself down because he didn’t love him back? He stood up, thanked the barista (who continued to glare at him), and left the Starbucks to begin the trek back to school. It was almost time for fourth period. As he walked up the hill, joining the herd of students who made the trek down and back to restaurants at lunch, he heard fragments of conversation about the sudden disappearance of the new AI confessions account all around him. His phone buzzed in his pocket over and over again, alerting him of every new follower that was coming to his account. The moderator’s lips curled into a smile. Maybe today wasn’t so bad, after all.