How I died in an AI simulation

Fictitious Fridays 💌

Welcome to the Fictitious Fridays. It’s a section I’m testing in March — a weekly collection of notes, observations, recommendations, links, and thoughts. Nothing too deep or too shallow. Let’s go!

I. How I died in an AI simulation. As a teenager, I really liked reading about obsolete tech. The first computers that took up the whole room. The game of Pong. The first viruses and worms. There was something cool about the technology frontier in the 60s-80s. Thanks to emulators and the Internet Archive, I could play around with some of the oldies myself.

One of the coolest pieces of retro software I had come across was Zork — a text-based adventure game from 1977.

In Zork, you would type in commands and move around, manipulate objects and crawl through a dungeon. All in text form. Like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I had played the original game, and as I it was rather simple, I thought Chat GPT-4 could handle it.

The experience the AI bot generated for me started similarly to how the first Zork did: “You are standing in an open field west of a white house with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here”.

I tried doing nonsensical things that Zork would probably not have allowed me to do. Licking the mailbox, for example. It all worked. The bot would describe my actions, commenting on how they were “unconventional choices”, but never did it bar me from doing anything.

I then decided I wanted to fly around.

“While I appreciate your imagination, the rules and mechanics of the Zork game world don't allow for unassisted human flight“ was the answer my personal HAL 9000 gave me.

But after some back and forth, we agreed to break the rules just once. It felt like entering a cheat code in a video game like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater or Grand Theft Auto. Or maybe even better — like modding a game, making it play in a way that was never intended by its creators.

So there I was, playing… I mean, reading descriptions like “You take a deep breath and concentrate, feeling a strange sensation in your feet as you begin to levitate above the ground. You are now hovering in the air, with a bird's eye view of the open field and the white house below.“ By golly, I was flying!

I flew inside the house threw an open window. I found myself in a “living room with various pieces of furniture, including a couch, a table, and some chairs.“ I explored some more, going from room to room. It was just like Zork, only I had nearly absolute power. And what do people with absolute power do? They start blowing stuff up.

The AI bot tried to talk me out of it. But I was determined to blow up the house I was exploring. I ended up surrounded by debris, with the AI telling me that I was no longer alive (“unfortunately”, “for the sake of imagination”, “in this scenario”). That was how I died in an AI simulation. I Have No Eyes But I Must Scream level of eeriness, right?

II. My new short story is out! I published a longer (by my standards) short story that gives the reader a glimpse into my childhood. It follows three kids trying to explore the mystery of a little abandoned hut that started emitting a weird hum.

Here’s a short excerpt to give you a feeling:

There were reasons not to look up, as their eyes were usually scanning the grass for brown beer bottles. At the kiosk, the bottles could be exchanged for any convertible currency – dolphin-shaped gummies, jawbreakers, Formula One stickers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gum. The lady who owned the little aluminum shop of wonders was a sweetheart. She was so apologetic when the kiosk ran out of plastic turtles you could get after collecting ten TMNT wrappers (only Donatello was left, but you couldn’t really play with four Donatellos). “I’ll call the wholesaler myself,” she swore. Even if she never actually bothered to do so, her promise made the three boys feel like adults.

You’ll find the full story on the Soaring Twenties website:

The longest day of the year

III. Is this still funny? Nostalgia has a hold on me. The playlist of today’s Oleg very much overlaps with the playlist of 20-year-old Oleg. I re-watch The Office every year. And when I daydream, my imagination takes me to places I haven’t visited in years. But what about humor?

In this mini-subsection, I want to share some of the stuff I found absolutely pee-my-pants hilarious 10-15 years and ask: “Is this still funny”?

Kicking off this section is the classical Swedish video titled “How to dance at a rave”:

It’s a 6-minute video of a guy showing off increasingly funnier dance moves. From “walking the dog” and “milking the cow” to “Chernobyl child” and “milking the bull.

Have a look and let me know if it’s still funny after 15+ years!

IV. New essay published this week. If you haven’t had the chance to have a read yet, here’s a link to my latest essay. It’s called “Finding God in an underpass” and it’s… about finding God in an underpass.

Finding God in an underpass

V. Everything is going to be all right.

“Everything is going to be all right” is written in a window of an otherwise grey building in one of Vilnius’s many sleeping districts. Every day we read hundreds of micro-messages outdoors — from billboards and graffiti to number plates. Don’t tell me combinations like POO, LOO, or UGH never made you smile. Most of it all is rubbish and spam, but sometimes you see something positive. The other day I saw “I love Skoda” written in snow on a car parked by my building. It made me smile. It’s quirky. And, most importantly, it wasn’t a swear word or a penis. Why isn't there more of that in the world?

V. Etymology of the week. DASHBOARD. Many of us use some sort of dashboard every day, like Google Analytics or Facebook Ads Manager or something. I never gave the word’s origin much thought, but apparently, the term originally applied to a barrier of wood or leather fixed at the front of a horse-drawn carriage or sleigh to protect the driver from mud or other debris "dashed up" (thrown up) by the horses' hooves. Like this:

Until next time?

Let me know if you found this edition worth your while. See you on the dance floor showing off those “bicycle pump” moves!