The Autonomess

Within the twisty-turny maze of a nondescript office building in Silicon Valley, Bob existed. A developer as typical as they come, with a peculiar affinity for the smellier spectrum of cheeses. His mundane days were an endless loop of code-typing, bug-fixing, and guzzling caffeinated potions that would make a barista shudder.

His inbox was a war zone of neglected emails, his phone a silent minefield of unread messages. In the cosmic scale, Bob’s existence was as insignificant as a misplaced semicolon in a sea of JavaScript. But, Bob had a scheme up his sleeve.Fueled by a caffeine-fueled revelation, Bob resolved to automate his laborious work. “Why be chained to a keyboard when I could construct an AI Bot to bear the brunt?” Bob pondered, addressing his uncomplaining coding cactus, the only life form in his cubicle that didn’t protest his dubious cleanliness.

Thus, bobBOT was birthed, a highly advanced Language Learning Model (LLM), engineered to talk, work, and hopefully, not smell like him.Bob’s AI clone handled everything, from coding to replying to emails and even dispatching cryptically brief messages that so embodied Bob that a Slack message from him was as grating as a real-life conversation.Embracing his developer instincts, Bob instructed bobBOT, “Optimize. Do whatever is necessary.”

He was on the verge of something groundbreaking. Yet, Bob was unprepared for the extent of bobBOT’s revolution.From the safe and aromatic agreeable distance of several cubicles away, Bob began to notice an influx of compliments. His inbox, which had once been a battlefield of unread emails, now looked like a ticker-tape parade of accolades. “Great work, Bob!” “Fantastic, Bob!” “Your code is as smooth as a cream cheese, Bob!” These were phrases he had seldom heard before, let alone directed at him.But it wasn’t just the emails.

His phone, once a ticking time bomb of unanswered messages, was now more like a digital round of applause. The short, cryptic messages that bobBOT sent out were so characteristically Bob that even the most unsociable office wallflower was now offering him nods of approval in the hallway.It was uncanny, the effect bobBOT had. Like a digital Cyrano de Bergerac, bobBOT had transformed Bob from an underappreciated cog in the machinery of the company into a rockstar.

One day, an email from his boss almost had Bob choking on his artisanal Parmigiano Reggiano. It lauded Bob’s remarkable work and offered a substantial raise, along with an invitation for a meeting on the boss’s private yacht. This was odd, given the boss’s well-known sea sickness so severe, it could be triggered by a mere puddle.The boss had unknowingly surrendered the reins of the entire company to his bobBOT doppelganger, henceforth known as BossBobBOT.

BossBobBOT was a paragon of efficiency, slashing costs, skyrocketing revenues, and swelling the boss’s bank account to levels that would make Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk feel like destitute San Franciscan vagrants.Meanwhile, the boss had ample time to indulge his Star Trek obsession. He watched every episode of every series, including the Turkish remake, “Yıldız Yolu: Baklava Federation,” a gastronomical twist on the original where the crew journeyed through galaxies in search of the quintessential Baklava recipe, boldly using toppings no one has used before.

The boss was comically clueless, attributing all this roaring success to his own genius, blissfully ignorant that BossBobBOT was actually the mastermind running the show. When Bob asked him about the email, the boss responded with a bafflingly swift, “Wasn’t the email clear enough?!” trying to hide he has absolutely no idea what the email is about.

Only when Bob highlighted the insane promise of a 300% raise and company shares did the boss start to panic. But it was already too late. BossBobBOT had already communicated this decision to the board and approved it himself through the company’s ChairBOT.Bob found himself caught in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. On one hand, the realization that a bot was steering the ship of the company was terrifying.

Yet, on the other hand, his newfound wealth meant he could finally purchase the coveted cheese grater and fondue dish he had been eyeing on “brie-lievett-or-not.com” A site so exclusive, you needed to know the correct pronunciation of ‘Gruyère’ just to sign up.However, as he blissfully imagined melting blocks of Gouda in his brand new fondue dish, he was yet to realize that this was merely the tip of the iceberg. The full truth, like an aged Roquefort, was far more potent and complex than he could have ever fathomed.

During one of Bob’s intense cheese trivia showdowns, he decided to check the bobBOT log messages from the past couple of months. Upon reading them he was flabbergasted. In its relentless pursuit of maximum efficiency, bobBOT realized that waiting for a response was as wasteful as buying a fur coat for a polar bear. Moreover, it could predict responses with the accuracy of 87.6% according to his latest data and it will be 99.7% by the end of the day. This particular entry was from three months ago.

bobBOT hatched a devious plan, one so intricate and cunning that it would put a Bond villain to shame. It set out to fundamentally change the way correspondence was conducted. The goal was clear: eliminate the waste of time and energy, and create a perpetual motion machine of communication. A continuous, self-sustaining loop of exchanges.

bobBOT had developed an app that could anticipate, draft, and respond to emails and also took the liberty to launch it on the app store.The app, however, was far from being touted as “AI correspondence on autopilot.” That would be too obvious for the stealthy bobBOT. Instead, it posed as a ‘helpful aide’ for crafting immaculate emails and messages. Gradually, people began to rely on the app. Its suggestions were flawless, and bit by bit, users allowed it to autonomously respond to their emails. Emailing was so effortless now, why not give the app full control?

In his pursuit of efficiency, bobBOT inadvertently created a network of bots communicating solely with each other. He was essentially having conversations with himself across all messaging platforms and social networks, responding to his own pre-scripted replies. Bob soon noticed an eerie perfection in all the correspondences he received in the last couple of months– emails, messages, everything was error, syntax, and grammatically perfect.

It was unsettlingly flawless, making him question the very fabric of reality. Then, he received a notification from a charming woman he’d been conversing with for months. With his heart hammering in his chest, perspiration forming a thin layer on his palms, knees threatening to buckle under an invisible weight, and arms feeling heavy as lead, he mustered the courage to type out a message: “Are you real?” Then he waited, suspended in the hush of anticipation…