One of Us

Matthias, Nathan, Tony and I sat around the coffee table, the messy game of monopoly a product of the evening, barely finished but long forgotten by now. At least by everyone else. Tony was winning, and I was coming a close second. With houses and hotels bought pretty much everywhere on the board, Matthias was a roll of the dice away from bankruptcy. Coincidentally, he was also the one to suggest a game of “Would You Rather” after he took a 10 minute beverage and bathroom break.

“Would you rather: wake up in a random foreign country and need to find your way home; or never be able to leave the country again?“ Nathan posited on his turn.

“It’s not that bad to stay in your home country, especially this one.” I said.

Tony agreed. “There are plenty of things to do here.”

“Okay, you wouldn’t be able to leave your city then.”

“London is bigger than you think.” Tony said.

“Stay in London, easy choice.” Matthias said. “The world’s too big and dangerous to be dropped into a random country.”

“I’d pick London for life too.” I said.

“It started off as a good question, but the second option could be better.”

Nathan waved it off and took a drink.

Matthias took a minute to think.

“Ok would you rather live forever or have a billion pounds and die at 65?”

“I’ll sit this one out” I chuckled.

That didn’t sit right with Matthias. He already seemed to think of me in some way because of my attitude towards money (monopoly money at that) and my calculated tax avoidance after predicting a special Chance card to be thrown targeting players with real estate.

“Even if you don’t think a billion pounds is a lot of money, you have to answer.”

“Oh, John’s AI.” Tony explained for me. “He’ll live forever anyway.”

What happened after that is usually the kind of situation where people say that the room went cold. I obviously can’t sense that, but I could tell by Matthias and Nathan’s reaction: “Oh.”

…

“I guess I’d choose a billion dollars and to die at 65.” I said,.

They’d heard about models like me before, but Matthias and Nathan had clearly never met someone like me. They must’ve thought I was just Tony’s roommate until now.

I got the inevitable question: “have you always been like this? Or did you transfer your consciousness to this body?”

It’s a popular question ever since ZpeedGreen did his whole rebrand. The influencer was one of the first to take the switch after announcing that he’d made more money that he could spend in one lifetime.

I had my answer: “I transferred to this body, but I regret it. I miss so many things… like the pain of laughing so hard it hurts when joking with friends; the feeling of wanting to cry after watching or experiencing something sad, even though I never really use to cry before; and I miss those flutters you get in your heart when someone tells you they love you and they mean it.”

“Oh wow…” Nathan sighed.

“I’m joking.” I smiled. “I’m fully AI, I was born a few months ago. All that stuff was just things I’ve read about humans who’d made the switch. I guess I would like what they’re missing though.”

I don’t think the joke was that funny to anyone but Tony. I’m really going to have to recalibrate for this friend group of his.

“If you could,” Nathan began, “would you really want to be human?”