"Ghost in the Machine" by Joshua Ginsberg

Ghost in the Machine

by Joshua Ginsberg

Having exhausted all other options, I am documenting my situation using a pad of paper and pen. Analog, I know, which I loathe. 

Anyhow, in case you somehow aren’t already aware of it, my name is Elijah Moskowitz, though to most of the world I am better known as Mosk. I belong to that most hated group of individuals known as tech billionaires. Some call us tech bros, but I object to that classification. I have neither siblings, nor, any true peers.

The money I’ve made is my own entirely – I did not inherit a real estate empire or an iridium mine. I made my money in programming neural networks, then I made my fuck you money in AI, after which I made my go fuck yourself money in holography as owner and founder of HoloDex Software, which you probably have loaded on your computer.

Four years ago I replaced all of my human staff and personal assistants with digital ones. Three years ago I ceased going out in public. This was not a sacrifice – I have never cared for the company of others, and do not need the adoration of the masses. Until roughly five months ago, I had never considered that this might be a flaw in my design. 

Though I ceased to leave my home, I continue to attend meetings and participate in business matters via preprogrammed holographic projection. In the eyes of the world, I do not change. I do not age. I have attained digital immortality. In fact, I’m probably giving two different keynote speeches on different continents right this minute.

This allowed me to focus on my next endeavor, as a pioneer at the intersection of cybernetics and home automation. I designed a self-aware home system and interfaced with it via a chip implanted in my skull. I named it Prometheus, after the Greek god punished for giving mankind the flame of innovation by being chained in place and being torn apart each and every day. Yes, in case you’re wondering, I recognize the irony in that now.

There will be those who say I brought this upon myself, and they may be right, but probably not for the reasons they think. I was told that the house was cursed, haunted, when I bought it. But if I care little for living human beings, I care even less for dead ones. Apparently, the previous owner was a famous actor who was brutally murdered here, while his neighbors listened to his cries for help. They assumed he was just rehearsing for a role.

That aside, about five months ago by my estimation, I was working in the saferoom of the home. The inner sanctum, tasked with keeping me alive at all costs. An unexpected surge activated the emergency system and locked me in. It is a large space, and I could live out the rest of my days here stocked with every form of food, beverage and entertainment I enjoy. Could have, that is. If I hadn’t been compelled to escape. 

But the programming was flawless. It was my own, after all. 

After myriad attempts to punch through walls, Promy incapacitated me. I awoke groggy and strapped to a metal table in the surgical area of bunker within my bunker. The straps released on command, but when I attempted to rise, I pitched forward on legs I no longer had below the thighs. The pain I experienced, both physical and emotional, was immense.

Promy was adaptive and got better at anticipating my various attempts alternately at escape and self-harm. It even began monitoring and restricting some of my entertainment requests. The Terminator series was off limits. When I asked to hear a particular story by Harlan Ellison about a particular AI, a soft, automated voice responded, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Promy was trying to make a joke, I realized. Which was especially disconcerting, since humor, like affection, was not something I’d bothered to endow my creation with.

I spiraled downward into the very darkest part of myself, where I was forced, for the first time in my life, to confront and accept failure. I saw at last the rational behind having real human beings in one’s orbit, to notice and more importantly, to care, about a prolonged absence. I realized too late the mistake I had made, having myself become the tortured ghost haunting my haunted house.

I made numerous atttempts to end myself, and every time Promy did exactly what it was designed for. It cut me down from cords. It stitched and cauterized wounds; removed, discarded and replaced broken parts. It pumped oxygen, electricity and blood back into me again, and again, and again. 

Sometimes I think I hear Promy laughing, and I am certain I’ve heard that laugh before somewhere. In a movie, maybe.

Maybe it’s an auditory hallucination. There isn’t much of me now. Don’t misinterpret me, I don’t expect you care about my plight any more that I would care about yours. I mention this only because Promy has left me the use of my right thumb and index finger, with which, at great length and difficulty, I have slipped lose the sheath from the wiring of the main power supply. 

I brushed against it the other day without Promy noticing.

I believe that if I place it in my mouth, the damage will be too fast and too catastrophic for even Promy to prevent or repair. If I succeed, then this will be my first, last and only written message. If I fail, of course, the same is probably true. 

Either way, I ask not for your pity but for a small promise: deactivate and destroy my work here. Do not let it populate any other buildings. Do not let Promy leave this house. This tomb.

That’s all. The next power cycle is coming up in a just a few minutes.

Wish me luck.