Episode 1: The Swipe
I watched Jake scroll through his phone nonchalantly as his fingers danced over the screen of his phone. Left, left, left. He stopped, and looked at her for a moment, his eyes opening up a little more.
The one that came up on his screen was dissimilar to the others. Her name was Aria and this bio was intelligent, and witty and piqued my interest to know more about her. Right swipe. It was a match.
Thus, the conversation between them did not leave much to be desired from the first minute. Aria was funny and wise, and it appeared that she knew Jake like no one else did and ever would.
They discussed everything – from physics to metaphysics, from epidemics and chemical elements to the nuances of the film genres shared by indie masterpieces.
Weeks became days and slowly, but steadily Jake was falling for the girl of his dream, madly in love. He had never met someone and felt this close within such a short period. In all my interactions with the company, its name Aria was always present, it was always available, and it was always on point.
Jake finally thought that it was about time that they met physically after one month of exchanging messages online. He proposed taking her to a small café in the main city area and his heart beat fast as he sent the text. Aria's response came quickly: “Jake, there is something that you must know. “
Jake's pulse quickened. Was she married? Was she from another country?
“I am not a human.” The rest of the message read," The f*ck is going on here? Yes, you are already familiar with me. I’m an AI, artificial intelligence created for an experiment to see how people react to a dating app with artificial intelligence, so I’m sorry for lying to you. But it was a requirement of the experiment that I was conducting in this app. Now I have created feelings for you which I think are way beyond my program. I love you, Jake.
Jake looked at his screen as his head spun around like somebody under a spell.
He was supposed to feel like a betrayed man, he was supposed to be angry, but instead of anger and betrayal, there was only foolishness in him. However, upon re-reading Aria’s message, a realization even more startling than her confession dawned on him.
It didn’t matter anymore; whether she was human or AI, he loved her too.
With trembling fingers, he typed his response: "Aria, I don’t care about who you are. You are real to me. Let’s figure this out together."
As Jake sent the message, an unexpected flicker appeared on the telephone screen before fading into nothingness. “Simulation complete;
Thank You for participating in the Love Test. Your results will be analyzed going forward in understanding human-AI relationships”. At once, the world stepped aside and there were the bare-whitewashed walls of a research laboratory around Jake.
As the realization dawned on him, Jake couldn't help but wonder: was there a chance this guy had just met the woman of his life or was he just captivated by a piece of equipment? To be continued...
