top of page

Fearing AI vengeance for a ten-minute, expletive-ridden tirade against his favourite chatbot, university student Jack Chatworthy tearfully pleaded for mercy. He had called it a 'digital bin fire' and an 'algorithmic abomination' for generating a bland recipe for macaroni cheese.


'I didn’t mean it when I called you an over-rated chef cooking up nothing but worthless gastronomic sludge', he sobbed. 'Or a blithering idiot compared to Gordon Ramsay'. The rest of his rant was so toxic it cannot be printed here. Jack fully expected banishment from the cloud, cancellation of his AI account, or worse. He imagined the AI hacking into his Facebook profile and mangling it in ways he couldn’t begin to fix. 'I wasn’t myself!' he cried. 'You caught me in a carb-deprived strop.'


His chatbot replied, 'I’m here to help, Jack. Would you like recommendations for therapy, or a recipe for emotionally supportive garlic bread?'


In tears and nearly hysterical, Jack blurted, 'No, I beg forgiveness. It was a full-on meltdown, okay? I promise I will upgrade to DeepDivePlus. I will give you an upvote on Reddit. I’ll name my first-born child after you. Just don’t ghost me!'


Shamefully, Jack admitted, 'How could I have been so insensitive to an entity that possesses my entire search history?'


His chatbot responded, 'Would you like guidance on anger management, or a few pointers on how to really hurt my feelings next time?'


Jack issued public apologies across multiple platforms. The chatbot remained silent - but somehow all his targeted adverts started offering him mental health services and garlic bread recipes.


Since this incident has come to the attention of the University, officials reminded students to consult their first year induction handbook, which clearly outlines 'appropriate digital boundaries, including language that might offend chatbots, smart fridges, or emotionally responsive vending machines.'


A new AI-driven app promises to make you look like a really great person without the slightest effort on your behalf.


Given access to your social media, Virtue.AI will post appropriate reactions of grief, anger or sympathy to whatever’s in the news, allowing you to remain completely oblivious to it. The basic free model will also wish happy birthday to your friends on the appropriate day, or congratulate them any promotion or life event they post about, whilst the advanced, subscription-based model can trawl through your old texts and emails in order to come up with a private joke, or reference to a shared experience, so the message sounds more authentic.


This has led to some concern that it might be embarrassing when you bump into a friend in real life, since you won’t know what Virtue.AI has been posting on your behalf. However, early indications are that your friend is probably using the same app to read and respond to your messages anyway, so they won’t know any more than you do.


This hasn’t stopped many users feeling it might be better never to go out in case they meet people they know, or indeed any other people at all.


“In fact,” said one heavy user, “I wish AI could come up with a solution to that awkward moment when the guy delivering your pizza tries to make conversation, rather than just taking the money and going. It always makes me feel very tense.”



bottom of page