Lettuce Be Human Again
Jess hung around the talking stand, her hands playing with her hair without thinking as she looked at the waiting faces in front of her. The funny thing didn't slip by her—here she was, ready to talk about "Staying Human in a Computer World," when not long ago, she'd been more AI than person.
"Okay, uh, hi everybody," she started, her hand moving by itself to fix glasses that weren't on her face anymore. It's hard to stop doing things you're used to, right? "I'm Jess, I help people deal with computers, and today we're gonna chat about... well, staying a person and not becoming a machine, I think?"
A laugh spread out across the crowd. Not bad, Jess told herself. Stay funny, stay normal.
As she started talking about why it's bad to trust computers too much, she remembered how it all started. It happened on a Tuesday—or maybe it was a Wednesday? It's not important. The big deal is that's when she found out about ChatGPT, and wow, did that mess things up.
In the beginning, it seemed okay. Some help with writing letters here, a little support with computer stuff there. But soon, Jess was asking computers to do everything, like picking toppings for her pizza and writing nice cards to family members she didn't know well.
"That's when stuff got kinda... strange," Jess went on, noticing she hadn't talked for a while. The people watching moved around, maybe thinking she was stuck like a slow computer. Hah! They had no idea.
"You know, I got so used to computers finishing my ideas that I began to—" Jess stopped talking, her mind looking for words like a flashing line at the end of a half-done sentence. "I began to... uh..."
The quiet went on, getting more uncomfortable every moment. Jess felt little drops of sweat on her face. Think, head, think!
Right when she was about to freak out, she yelled, "CAW!"
The crowd hopped, scared by the weird bird noise. Jess put her hand on her face, feeling silly. "Oops! I do that sometimes. Get it?"
Nope, they really didn't get it. But we'll talk about that later.
As Jess tried to act normal again, she thought about how much she'd changed. She used to need computers to talk, but now she could make herself look dumb all by herself.
Getting better, huh?
After the bird noise thing (which would've been less weird if everyone had made bird sounds too), Jess tried to change the subject. "Uh, you might be asking yourself how I got here, yeah? Well, it's a big tale about round bread, silly jokes, and a mixed-up book person called Sam."
The people watching got closer, interested. Or maybe they were just trying to see if her brain was broken. It's tough to know for sure nowadays.
"It began when I made a computer copy of me," Jess went on, playing with her hair so much she almost made a bare spot. "I figured, 'Why not get a fake me to do the boring jobs?' Turns out, robot-Jess was way better at being me."
She laughed a little, thinking about when her mom called to ask why "Jess" didn't say she got a new personality. "All of a sudden, people liked fake-Jess more. She told better jokes, knew more stuff, and didn't keep touching glasses that weren't there."
Just then, Jess's hand shot up to her face, fingers reaching for empty space where her old glasses used to be. "Get it?" she asked, making a few people in the crowd chuckle kindly.
"But the big surprise came when I met Sam," Jess said with a sigh, a dreamy look on her face. "He was this handsome librarian who didn't like computers and thought AI meant 'Absolutely Idiotic.'" "I really wanted to impress him without using any tech help."
The memory of their first date popped into her head—her nervous tries at talking, Sam's confused looks, and the time she got scared and shouted, "Knock knock!"
"Who's there?" Sam asked, sounding polite but not really interested.
"I... um..." Jess hesitated, realizing she didn't know any knock-knock jokes at all. In a moment of panic, she stood up, balanced on one foot, and in her best (worst) fake British voice, said, "Lettuce!"
"Lettuce who?" Sam asked, looking like he might need to get help.
"Lettuce get out of here because I'm really embarrassing myself!" Jess said, still trying to keep her balance.
Back in the now, Jess shook her head, asking herself for the thousandth time why her brain had to mess up at THAT moment. "Of course, there wasn’t a second date. But it did lead to me getting way too into AI-made knock-knock jokes. Did you know you can make exactly 3,712 knock-knock jokes about pickles? No? Well, I didn’t either until I spent a whole week asking ChatGPT for them."
The crowd looked at her with a mix of curiosity and worry on their faces. Jess couldn’t blame them for that. She was like a living warning sign about being hooked on AI—part person, part computer code, and totally wild chaos.
"But hey," she said with a shaky smile, "at least it gave me something to talk about for this seminar, right? So, who wants to hear a knock-knock joke about a talking toaster? Nobody? Tough crowd."
"Anyway," Jess went on, now balancing on one foot like it was totally normal, "I was stuck in a pile of AI-made jokes and starting to lose my mind. That’s when my friends decided to have what they called an 'intervention,' but I like to call it a 'friend ambush.'"
She stopped for a moment and looked around the room. "Has anyone here ever had their best friend tell them they act more like a machine than a person? No? Just me? Cool, cool... you get what I’m saying?"
The crowd shifted awkwardly in their seats. Someone in the back raised their hand and said, "Actually, I don’t—"
"ANYWAY," Jess cut them off, almost falling over because she was so excited. "That’s when I realized I needed to fix things. So I did what any normal computer-obsessed person would do. I signed up for a retreat far away from everything to take a break from screens. No phones, no laptops, no tech—just me, my brain, and piles of paper for folding."
She pulled a slightly squished paper crane out of her pocket and held it up. "Want to see my cool trick?" Before anyone could answer, Jess started folding paper super fast, her hands moving like a hyperactive octopus on coffee. In no time, she had a bunch of tiny paper cranes sitting neatly on the table in front of her.
"I made 3,712 of these little guys during that break. One for every pickle knock-knock joke I came up with. A coincidence? I don’t think so!"
The crowd looked at her with a mix of confusion, laughter, and a bit of worry. Perfect, Jess thought. Just like the way my therapist looks at me.
"But here’s where it gets super strange," she went on, dropping her voice like she was telling a secret. "Remember those bird sounds I talked about? Well, it turns out that when you stop using too much AI, your brain starts doing weird stuff. Like making you think you can talk to birds."
Jess took a big breath and then suddenly made loud squawks, chirps, and whistles that could embarrass an actual parrot. "That," she said while catching her breath, "is how you ask 'Do you want fries with that?' in Parrot—or maybe Pigeon—I’m not totally sure anymore."
A few uneasy giggles spread through the crowd. Jess smiled brightly, handling the awkward moment like a skilled surfer on a big wave.
"To keep it short, I might have caused a small problem at the bird park. Let’s just say, if you ever get chased by a group of parrots who think you’re their leader, running fast really helps."
She stopped for a moment and put her foot down to stand normally again. "But you know what? All of it—the computer obsession, the paper folding craze, the parrot chaos—it brought me here today. To this point right now. Where I can tell you for sure that being human, with all our mistakes and odd habits, is way more fun than being a perfect machine."
Jess smiled again and pretended to fix glasses that weren’t there anymore. "So, who’s ready to learn how to stay human in a world full of computers? First tip: Always check if you’re wearing pants before leaving home—trust me, no computer would ever mess that up."
As the crowd burst into laughs and clapping, Jess felt really proud. She had done it. She had shared her story, weird bits and all, without using any help from AI. And if she had helped even one person feel okay about being strange, well, that was like the cherry on top of her tech-free break.
"Alright," she said, standing on one foot again, "who wants to hear more knock-knock jokes without any computer help? I’ve got about 3,711 left to tell!"
This story was generated by Perplexity.ai with a series of prompts and one sentence-by-sentence rewrite. (~70% AI)
Prompt: How can I identify AI-generated text in fiction stories? Output:
Prompt: Regarding Generic vocabulary and Lack of unique perspectives or creative twists, are there known techniques to make the AI write more like a human?Prompt: Use these proposed techniques to Incorporate Human Quirks. Come up with an outline for a short story around this idea: “I know of somebody who was so obsessed with Chat GPT, that he found it difficult to hold a normal conversation with people; it was as if his thoughts were buffering and he was waiting for prompts! or something to complete his sentences for him.”Prompt: Flip all genders, adjust names accordingly. Also add a few more idiosyncracies.Prompt: Which of these 12 plot points are most interesting? Which sound like an AI came up with them? Sort them by AI blandness (0%-100%).Prompt: Remove the five worst scoring plot points, keeping only the seven best ones. Then come up with three highly idiosyncratic additional plot points that would score extremely low on our AI blandness scale.Output:
Jess develops an obsession with creating AI-generated knock-knock jokes, but can only deliver them while standing on one foot and speaking in a faux British accent. Her coworkers start a betting pool on how long she can balance before toppling over mid-joke.
In a misguided attempt to "humanize" her speech patterns, Jess begins punctuating her sentences with random bird calls. This leads to a chaotic incident at a local aviary where a flock of parrots mistakes her for their new leader.
Jess discovers that her AI addiction has given her the uncanny ability to predict the exact number of poppy seeds on any bagel by sight. She briefly becomes a minor celebrity in New York's competitive bagel scene before realizing the hollowness of her newfound "talent."
Prompt: Rearrange the ten plot point so that the order makes sense. Use a convoluted series of flashbacks, and give an outline for the full story.Prompt: Now, remembering everything we talked about earlier concerning human-like writing, write out part [1-10].Prompt: Remove AI fingerprints from the text. Do this by breaking our input text apart in separate sentences. Output these. Then, for each sentence, we try to find, for the most characteristic tokens, synonyms and similar concepts that are a less good fit, but leave the meaning of the story intact. Choose only simple words. Finally, put these sentences back together and output the result.Example input: Jess stood at the podium, her fingers absently twirling a lock of hair as she surveyed the expectant faces before her.
Example output: Jess hung around the talking stand, her hands playing with her hair without thinking as she looked at the waiting faces in front of her.
Acknowledgement:
This story was inspired by a remark
made in their subscriber chat.