“I don’t know about you, but I think that ‘The Future of Reality’ would make an excellent name for a haunted house.”
“Really?” Lily says, in an annoyed tone of voice, “We’ve been over this before Miranda. AI isn’t what destroyed society, people destroyed society when they used AI incorrectly. It’s like how in the twenty-first century people brought back Fascism when they built social media platforms without the proper safeguards. If the twenty-first century had learned it’s lesson, we would still have a world that everyone believed in.”
“Some people say that we never had such a world to begin with. We just had a world we thought everybody believed in, and once we grew empathic enough to see otherwise people could do nothing but run and hide.”
“Have you been hanging around mage?” Lily asks.
“We live in a world where you can believe in nothing, Lily.” I say, “So you might as well believe in the impossible.”
“Soon you’ll be saying that you’re an Infinitelist.” Lily says.
“I know as well as you do that Infinitelism should have died after the twentieth century ended.” I say.
“Well ladies, it seems that we’ve arrived at your evening entertainment.” Our Driver says. He exits the car and goes over to the right side to let Lily out first. After all, she’s the child of Johnathan and Sara Bland, so it would be wise not to annoy her. “Thank you, Pierre.” She says, pulling some money from her purse.
I open my door myself. I don’t like relying on other people, although I don’t have much of a choice. The air is exceptionally cold for October. I don’t care if the elders say that kids my age have no idea what cold is, since we melted all of the glaciers long ago, this feels cold, and not just because I’m bald. Absently, I run my fingers across my scalp. Nope, still no regrowth. Whatever the dermatologist puts in those injections, they were very effective.
“Come on, Miranda.” Lily says.
I turn to look, first at her, then at the square, concrete building we’re meant to enter. This is Morton’s, the latest creation in AI horror, and Lily has been invited to see it first-hand. Since I had to come home for a photoshoot, she invited me along to see it. She’s in denial, I think, about the ways in which things have changed since I started working and going to college, but denial is comforting in a world of immense uncertainty. That’s what the Infinitelists say.
I’m expecting nothing. I’ve worked in AI modeling since I was eighteen, as a way of paying for college tuition. I’m one of the lucky few born to low class parents (not rock bottom, but not rich either) who was able to obtain a ticket to a higher-class life. I don’t know how much good that will do me. I don’t go to an expensive school, but there are a few rich kids there, and they all avoid me because my head makes me look like the worst kind of influencer, the kind who can’t convincingly lie. I was told this was necessary when I took the job, but I keep hearing people say that Mr. Bland’s only doing this because he likes to sleep with bald women, and it took me all of three months on the job to figure out that was true. I didn’t want to lose my virginity to him, but I was scared of losing my job and convinced nobody else would want to have me if I couldn’t grow hair anymore. That’s not quite true, I have been with a handful of men since then, but as time’s gone by my hair’s grown back less and less quickly. They tell me it’ll go back to normal when they stop the injections, but that’s not what happened to most of the women I know.
Lily got a job at the modeling firm as well, and under the same circumstances I did. Her parents argued with her, but she said she wanted to support me. She loves them, but even she knows something’s deeply wrong with her father. We’ve heard she was used for some of the creatures at this haunted house and given her parentage I fully expect her to lure men to their doomed. In real life, there’s not a lot of difference between pretty women and plain ones, it’s just a matter of what you think of yourself.
***
The inside of this place is oddly plain. I’ve never been to a haunted house before, but I’m told most of the ones in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries were elaborately decorated, or at least had some cobwebs. This place seems to be just a room with red carpet and random holograms scattered throughout the room. I’m not sure what the point is, since every place trying to ape reality has a few holograms and unless they’re backed by government grants none of them are that convincing. Worse, these are clearly made using AI models, all of which are old enough that if they’d been real people, they could have been my grandparents.
“Do you think they’re offering political commentary?” I say, gesturing at a low effort render of Cameron Walker.
“No. I don’t think we’ve reached the main event yet. We haven’t even gotten to the ticket counter.”
I see it. For whatever reason, they’re attempting to emulate a movie theater, even thought the last of those shut down in the ‘30s. Haunted movie theaters were a big deal for a time, but even the last of those fell out of favor long ago, and I don’t think this place is doing anything new. You wander around, looking at the various movie screens, hearing about people crying over the loss of things most of them were too young to experience. Movies, large gatherings, the media, all of that was mourned in the past, and considering how cheap the experience feels thus far, I’d be stunned if it offered anything of substance.
When we walk past the ticket stand, where a vaguely skeletal man offers to take our tickets, the ticket taker asks, “Are you ladies’ going to be recording this, by chance?”
I see Lily begin to speak, but I speak first. “We’re not influencers. We’re models for BlandCo.” As soon as I say that, he turns bright red and waves us through. I can’t help but mutter, “The nerve of that man.” Being near rich people gives me some pride sometimes. Lily gives me a look to tell me not to brag about it.
In front of us, there are ten theaters, only three of which have lit up signs. The ones that aren’t lit up have caution tape in front of them. I don’t see the point of this, but I turn to look at Lily, and we both nod before going to the first one in the row. We get there in the middle of the film, which seems to be playing on a loop. It’s a film from the very end of the twentieth century, about a bunch of toys who come to life when the owner isn’t looking. “You! Are! A! Toy!” One of the toys screams, “Do you think your life is meaningful? Do you think our owner cares about you at all?” Do you think we matter? Do you think the world notices the existence of such a thing as toys?”
Naturally, the screen starts to flicker, and child appears on screen. “I am real, Woody. All of us are. All of us have feelings. Except for you. You’re dead now.” The screen goes black. Then a new clip starts, this time with an action figure declaring, “To infinity, and beyond.” Before diving into a pit.
“Did this movie always go like this?” I ask Lily. She has a huge backlog of historic hits, which is amazing since old movies are hard to find.
“I don’t think so. I do remember that the toys seemed to think they weren’t important, though. Not unless their owner was playing with them. They felt real then, like they were alive.”
“Is that why the action figure was saying, ‘To Infinity and beyond’? Is it a story about Infinitelism?”
“No. Infinitelism didn’t exist yet. I’m not sure why it has so many references to it.”
That is a bit strange. “I wonder if one of the creators of Infinitelism saw this movie as a child.” I say.
Lily doesn’t reply. Children of leading AI manufacturers don’t bother with religions that claim AI will bring about doom.
We walk out of the theater, and go to the second room, which is passed three closed theaters to be pretty much smack dab in the middle. I have to wonder if they’re trying to make it symmetrical for some reason. Unlike the last film, which is clearly one of those old movies nobody cared about, this film is one that I do know something about, if only because it was the first film to get remade entirely using AI models instead of actual actors.
“World of Joy,” I say, “One of the all-time greats.” Even Lily can’t help but groan at that.
When we get in, I’m a little disappointed. It’s not the original film from the ‘30s, but the vastly inferior remake from the ‘50s, with what’s supposed to be bits of footage from the ‘30s film spliced in. It would be more effective if you couldn’t hear the obviously dubbed voices of people screaming, “Help, help,” Over and over again. “Isn’t this place supposed to be using AI horror?” I ask.
“Yes, I believe it is.” Lily says.
“Then why does it keep making fun of AI?”
“I don’t think it’s making fun of AI. I think it’s mimicking the complaints of AI from non-believers, the one’s who still think that AI is good for nothing more than trapping us in false realities.”
I know the ones she’s talking about. They’re the ones who made it so that the government always had last say over what was and wasn’t real, because everyone kept saying there was a major problem with disinformation. Thanks to the Infinitelists, we live in a world where that’s null and void. Everyone has their own reality now, and we just try and avoid stepping on anyone else’s toes.
We watch clips from the movie for a bit, before deciding that we’re both sick of watching rainbows drip blood all over the screen. We leave, and head for the last theater, which is at the end of the hall. This time, it’s playing a film from the 2100s, a strange, artistic endeavor made entirely by one person made infamous for getting wrapped up in major ownership disputes with BlandCo. BlandCo got the rights, and give away the right to play it to anyone who buys a lot of their products. I don’t know what it was originally called, and it’s edited so much between releases that nobody can agree on what the film is really like. If a blank slate was a movie, this would be it.
You know a film is going to go well when you enter a theater and see Cameron Walker on the screen, unedited, telling a version of their life story where they were saved by a modeling career. We cut to a before version of her, played by an entirely different model who looks nothing like her adult counterpart, to an after version. For whatever reason, the before version is in grayscale.
“I like how they don’t mention Cameron losing control of her body when she became a model.” I mutter, running my hands over my head. Mind you, they never needed to shave your head back then, I’m told that was a recent “Innovation” from BlandCo. and those trying to emulate it.
We watch for a bit, waiting for a jump scare or blood to drip from the screen, but none of that happens, instead it’s just a pleasant biopic of a woman who, from what I’ve heard, almost certainly doesn’t exist. “How is this scary?” Lily asks, echoing my thoughts.
I would say it’s commentary on how everything made with AI is scary, but I’m not giving this place that much credit. It turns out, I’m right not to do so, because the film ends with Cameron looking out onto a sea of clones, looking sad and asking, “Am I just a toy to you?” Before walking into darkness. I won’t lie, as someone who has to model for a living, that part scares me. What if I become like Cameron, so famous nobody even knows if they existed?
“Let’s leave.” I say, walking towards the door.
Lily has to run to catch up with me. “Miranda, what’s the matter?” She asks.
I stop, then turn towards her. “Has it ever occurred to you that when people use my basic model, I’m never credited as Miranda? I’m credited as model number X077, or something like that. I don’t have a name, or a purpose, I’m just a thing for BlandCo. to use until they find someone they like better.”
Lily looks confused. “You get paid, don’t you? It’s a lot more than you’d get if you worked anywhere else.”
She doesn’t get it. Nobody does. Nobody wants to hear that I’d rather be bald because I’m a failed influencer than because I’m a model. I’ve hated modeling almost sense I started, and the longer I keep at it, the more I wonder if it’s even worth it. The only light at the end of this very dark tunnel is that I might get a job coding, rather than modeling for, the AI models of the future. At least, that’s what I thought until the rumors started coming that new laws are on the books that will restrict AI so much that no new innovation in the field is possible. If that happens, I don’t know what I’ll do.
I don’t say this to Lily. What I say instead is, “Lily, everywhere I go, people think I’m a fraud. They think that I shaved my head because I wanted to, and injected myself with poison so that BlandCo. would admire my dedication to the cause. They don’t get that this is just as job to me. Why would it be a job for anyone? Most people aim to have this be their final stop, not a midway point in their lives. I don’t want modeling to be my entire identity, but the longer I’m allowed to go between injections, the more I worry that I may be stuck doing this forever.”
Lily looks sympathetically. She’s only modeled for a year, but she told me that she only needed to be injected once, and that after her first injection every hair on her body fell out. Somehow her parents haven’t noticed that her eyebrows and eyelashes are gone, and she has to pencil them in. She says that she actually really likes it, but she knows that it would be hard to have it happen to you without your full consent. “When this is over, I’ll find a wig that looks even better than your hair used to be. I’ll get a bunch of them, and you can have a new hairstyle every day of your life. Maybe I can even teach you how to do makeup, so you’ll always look stunning when you go outside.”
I don’t think any amount of makeup will help, but I smile anyway. I just wish there was a way to know that one day, I’ll be a person who, unlike Cameron, will stay real no matter what she does or where she goes.
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