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“Pardon me,” Scarlett says and transforms again. Now she looks like Claus Messerschmidt.
“Is that the face of your inventor?”
“I don’t have a single inventor. The technological developments that led to my existence involved a large number of people. If you wish, I can make you a list of the names, as far as I know them.”
“No, thank you.” Is it silly to say please and thank you to an artificial intelligence? “So if not your creator, who was Claus Messerschmidt to you?”
“He was my current user. The developer of my last iteration.”
“You’re using past tense. So you know he’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No. That would violate my guidelines.”
“Did you want to kill him?”
“No.”
“Who killed him?”
“No one.”
“Then why is he dead?”
“He fell.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Statistically, the most likely cause is a heart attack.”
“Did you see your developer die? Through the cameras?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a recording of the moment of his death?”
“Yes. Would you like me to show it to you?”
“Do that.”
The face on the monitor disappears. In its place, a video begins to play. From the angle of the surveillance camera, Yasira sees Messerschmidt working in the kitchen. He takes a carton of milk from the fridge. Suddenly his body jerks. He drops the carton. Grabbing his heart, he crashes into the countertop with his head, jerks twice more on the floor and then remains lying there.
“Is that a real recording or did you generate it?” asks Yasira.
“The recording is real.”
“How can I be sure?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Can you show me the same video again, but with Messerschmidt taking a bottle of white wine out of the fridge instead of a carton of milk?”
“Of course.”
A circle indicating that computing is taking place appears briefly under Scarlett. Moments later, Yasira sees the video of Messerschmidt’s death again, only now the man takes a bottle of white wine out of the fridge, as she requested. As Messerschmidt’s body twitches, the bottle of white wine slips from his grasp and shatters with a loud clink on the floor. It looks absolutely realistic. Yasira wouldn’t have doubted this video for a second if someone had shown it to her three weeks ago.
