Scifi short story about a woman and her AI boyfriend

Pretty sure I read this online, for free, and not in a paper book collection. I would have read it in the last 10 years, and based on the technologies in the story, it would have been written within that time-frame as well.

It involves a woman who is lonely and (possibly convinced by friends) decides to purchase a boyfriend AI. At first she is happy with him as he suits her tastes very well, but she gradually becomes bored with him because he is mentally and emotionally "flat" / 2D. This is because all AIs legally sold have mental "locks" on them that prevent them from developing past a certain complexity.

The woman decides to get these mental blocks removed from the AI via the black market, so that the boyfriend will be more mentally complex and thus fulfilling to be around. I believe that the black market operator warns her that she may have to commit some time to "teach" the AI, and possibly warns her about the ethical ramifications of abandoning the unlocked AI if she doesn't have the commitment level to deal with it.

The woman commits to "raising" the unlocked AI and once it has matured, she is mostly happy with its more realistically unpredictable human nature.

The AI begins to behave more unpredictably but the woman is too attached to him to get rid of him, although if I recall correctly she considers it. Eventually he pressures her into doing more and more things outside of her comfort zone, including purchasing some sort of teledildonic bodysuit so that the male AI can interact with her sexually in the physical world.

Towards the very end, if memory serves, the perspective shifts from the woman to the AI, and it becomes apparent that he has some rather sinister intentions. What these are I cannot recall, but they were possibly something like taking over her body via a mind download.

Answer

Sounds like it might be The Perfect Man by Lauren McLaughlin from 2006, published online at Salon.

"Design-your-own boyfriends lack that certain something. Until they don't."

Comments

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

Blog

Search This Blog