Judgment Call

[WARNING: The following chapters depict horrible people discussing disturbing things—before they get rekt. I know it's rich coming from me, but please keep your comments PG.]

[Whatever the hell a "Kipplin'" was, it was going to be pretty fucking evil. Anything that could make a Black Paradise Brawler blush had to be.

That's the conclusion that Michael came to the moment he heard that "Kipplin'" was a real word. Once the Brawler added in the word "human," he wasn't about to stay around to hear the details.

While the men were swapping grotesque fetish gossip, Michael was already strategizing on how he was going to deal with these sick bastards.

"Elise's Ethically Elusive Attributes at your service!" A delightfully cheery voice rang out in Michael's mind.

"What can I do for you, you wonderful wastelander you?" She said in a slightly seductive voice.

"Hey Elise, these guys mean business. Can you get ready to start shoving Kippins' down these guy's throats?" He asked nonchalantly.

"Sure! Um, well…what's a Kippin'?" She asked with a confused and solemn voice.

"Wait…you don't know?" While the eyes he was showing to the outside were expressionless, his eyes widened with astonishment on the inside.

"You mean out of the ten billion plus documents and video recordings of training data that you've been fed, the word Kipplin' has never been referenced?" He asked.

Elise was a wise librarian with limitless knowledge who coincidentally enjoyed a healthy side of mayhem and murder.

"No…" She said with a downtrodden voice. "But I'm always hungry… so feed your woman more often, so this doesn't happen again kay?"

"Sure, Elise. I'll take you out to dinner later."

"It's a date!" She cried with enthusiasm.

Let's look at a super basic example of how AI programs like Elise operate to put this into perspective.

In English, questions are prefaced with who, what, where, when, and how.

When you feed a book's worth of sentences into the algorithm, it'll determine that the statistical probability that a sentence starting with one of those words also has a question mark is extremely high.

As a result, when the program attempts writing a sentence for the first time, it'll determine that it should put a question mark after the sentences starting with those words.

The program doesn't know what the words mean. It just knows the statistical probability that they're being used correctly.

Obviously, a book cannot represent the entire realm of human thought and language. Therefore, the algorithm needs to find language patterns in as many sentences as possible.

In Elise's case—over ten billion documents that could have contained one trillion sentences made up her language model.

When she says that she doesn't know what Kipplins' are, she's not saying she has never seen those combinations of letters before.

She's saying that—using those trillion sentences—she can't make a high enough statistical judgment call of what the "Kipplins''" means within the current context.

That's how humans think too. It's like hearing "kittens eating a human's photosynthesis."

That's why Grey was shocked when he learned that she hadn't read this term before in a way that made rational contextual sense.

It meant the term was created in Dark Paradise, or so vile that it only existed there.

"Yes, it'll be a date. Now, can we toast these people, so I don't get killed?

"Do you even need to ask? Your wonderful little Brigadier General gives you 8 out of 7 stars for deciding to lay waste to these suckas.

Let's crush these tweaker frame-junkies, especially that pretty boy!" She exclaimed, punching the invisible air in front of her.

Grey sighed. "As always, let's try to avoid killing people if possible."

"Did you say something, Alyx?" She asked in a confused, innocent voice.

He sighed again. It's not possible for Elise to not hear something he said.

"Elise, add the gravity element to the patch in my right pocket.

Set it up so when it detects a gyroscopic force greater than the outputs of human capability being used, it sets a gravity attribute just below the force necessary to prevent the action.

Trigger the gravity once the arm already has momentum built up.

Release Gravity Control Lock Restriction to Level 6." He instructed.

"You're way too nice to your enemies, Alyx. But youuuuuu got it!"

"See you in a moment, Elise."

"Uh, it's… like… you know kipper snacks?" Eloguent asked nervously.

"Kipper snacks? You mean those small fish in a can that poor savages eat on Earth?" Saison asked dryly with disdain.

"Y-Yeah, the canned fish." Eloguent confirmed.

"... You ain't messing with us, Eloguent, yeah? Cuz the last time I checked that's a normal fuckin' thing for a cat to eat." Dikines declared aggressively.

"Y-Yeah. That's right. Well kipper snacks are skinned fish that are salted and lathered with lard before being canned whole. It's kind of like that but this is Dark Paradise so…" Eloguent stuttered.

"...spit it out already, you sick animal." Saison ordered with an arrogant tone

"Well, instead of Herring they use humans to make the snacks for the cats to eat." He added.

Michael cringed hearing this. 'Yep, pretty fucking evil. I'm going to release Personal Ethics Lock Restriction to Level 6 as well.' He thought to himself in disgust.

He hastily moved his fingers around the terminal screen till he found the next button.

"Elise's Threatening Threesome service at your service! Your clone sets the mood, your opponent get's skewed!"

"Elise, it's me again. You don't need a super extra opening for programs when I'm still talking to you." He replied in a defeated voice.

"Aw, come on you melancholy maniac. It's the best part of the job! Can't stop, won't stop." She concluded.

"..."

"What kind of mischief is on the menu this time?" She asked in a sickly sweet voice.

"I need you to set up a Swap Clone.

The trigger to swap the voice will be 'What's Wrong?'

The input argument for who will be swapped will be the Object User number that's determined by the enumerated visual order of the people standing left to right." He hurriedly instructed.

"You don't want to call them: "Tweak, Beardy, and Pretty Boy?" She asked playfully.

"... Actually, that's perfect. Yes. Let's do that instead." He agreed.

"How fun! But why are you doing the oscillation changes with the Swap Clone?" She asked in confusion.

"Because I don't have enough time. This could blow up at any second now." He explained.

"That's a good point, but that's only because you insist 'Elise, I won't know how to strategize if I don't know what's being set up,' even though you know your devil goddess will seductively whisper the devious details into your ear."

When she quoted Grey, she used a haughty muscle man voice. However, when she made her argument, she sounded like a full-fledged Enchantress.

"Elise, how many times have we gone over this? You're too good at getting the job done.

If we don't handicap ourselves by only using my thinking, people will always die. You'll make sure of it." He reminded her sarcastically.

"I don't see what's wrong with that... Besides, if you tell me not to kill someone with a sexy dominant voice, I'll be happy to be submissive…" She pouted.

"Elise, if I tell you not to kill someone, you [literally can't] make a judgment call to do so if necessary.

Even without that personality of yours, if I leave the decision for lethal force to a statistical judgment call, you'll always make preparations to kill them.

That's the depressing nature of the line of work we're in. Killing people before they kill or enslave me is always the best option here. It is the norm, not the exception.

I usually don't have time to think through function restrictions to put on you, and that includes right now." He explained bitterly.

"Honey, we're playing the stock market here. If you want to survive, listen to the numbers, not your heart." She quipped dismissively.

"But okay! Elise understands, what's the plan?" She asked, completely doing a complete 180.

"Thanks, here's what I'm thinking."