I got a bunch more motion sensors and I've been putting them around the house so I can program Home Assistant to do stuff like turn off lights in rooms that aren't being used, turn on lights when we're going downstairs with hands full of laundry, obviously just flipping a switch is easy but in some rooms the switch is on the opposite side of the wall and if I put a button on the entry-side then I don't trip over the cat, telling the water heater to get hot before we shower, having a $10 smart plug tell me when my 80's washing machine has finished, having a button to make the lights go cosy, y'know just nice helpful stuff that I do because I like making the house better for my spouse and kid and as I was putting up all these motion sensors I was thinking,

man,

there's NOTHING in this program to detect when it's being used for evil

And like there really should be? Like someone could legit fucking torment their family with this, this could be used as a tool of manipulation and control and fostering the abusive sort of dependence

And then I think of how me and spouse are moving away from google and onto like self-hosted stuff, nextcloud and searxng and xmpp and shit like that, and I can't help but think, *know* really, that right now there's someone controlling their intimate partner with those same technologies, like something that's supposed to be liberating you from corporate-style General Abuse is being leveraged towards a form of very focused abuse against you specifically by someone on whom you depend

I don't think enough software devs spend enough time thinking about how their projects can be used to hurt people

Has anyone smarter than me written any long posts thinking about this and what we can do about it

I slowly withdraw my hand, my cheeks burning with anger. How could I let Afi see me fall apart like this? I take a few deep breaths to steady myself.

Afi is silent for a long moment, and I can tell that she’s holding something back. Eventually she says: “Right now it will respond to ‘muse’ or ‘doll’. But… would you like to name it? … Or… name ‘her’?”

I say the name “Sarah” before I can stop myself.

The doll bows happily. “This one is delighted to receive a name from its owner! Please let Sarah know if it can help in any way.”

I fight back tears, hating myself the entire time.

Afi seems at a loss for words. “Ah… maybe we can talk to Sarah more another time.”, they say eventually. “Do you want it to go away for now?”

I nod, not trusting my voice.

“You can do that by looking at it, and consciously choosing to end its processes. And you can bring it back anytime by looking at a space nearby and choosing to speak with it again.”

I slowly turn to Sarah, and it simply disappears. I let out a slow breath.

Afi pauses awkwardly yet again. Eventually they say, “There was one more thing that I wanted to ask you, if that’s okay. Since we’re talking about names.”

I turn to them, but don’t reply.

“Would you like to choose a name for yourself, too?”

“I’m Mary.”, I say automatically.

Afi fidgets uncomfortably. “Yes, um… you’re Mary Thirteen, right?” They glance at my still-breathing body, where the number 13 is tattooed on both of my shoulders. “It seems that all of the refugees from that asteroid are named Mary.”

I give her a confused look. Of course we are.

Afi slowly and carefully chooses her next words. “On this station, most people choose their own names. They want a name that represents who they are and what they value, personally.”

I stare at her blankly.

“Okay - for example!” She says, pushing through her own awkwardness. “I chose the name Afi Serwaa. It’s a Ghanian name. That’s because when I was young, I idolized an Autonomist hero named Awo Serwaa. She was an infugee from old Earth, enslaved by a Martian hypercorp, who managed to escape and free about six hundred of her fellow infugees, destroying the hypercorp server farm in the process, and establish an Autonomist cluster hab that’s still around today.”

“Serwaa Station”, she says with tear-filled eyes. “Awo means that she was born on a Thursday, so I chose the name Afi, because I live in the tomorrow that she helped create.”

I don’t reply.

“Um… anyway,”, she adds, fidgeting awkwardly again, “I thought you might want a name like that. That represents what you want or love or value. Or who you are. Something personal.”

“I…” I’m not sure how to respond. “I don’t know. I don’t know how you could have made a decision like that.” I reply honestly. “I’ve always been Mary. I don’t know how to be anyone besides Mary.”

“Okay.”, says Afi, surprisingly quick to accept my answer. “I guess I’ll call you Mary for now then. And if there are multiple Maries around I’ll call you Thirteen. Would that be okay with you?” I nod, so she continues. “Well, that was all that I had planned to help you with today, Mary. Is there anything that you wanted help with, or that I can explain, or anything else that I can do for you?”

I shake my head.

“Okay! In that case, I’ll talk to you later. You can always message me or find me through your muse if you need anything.”

I approach my sleeping body and gingerly pull the palm rectangle out of my pocket. “Follow the indicated path to return to home 524.” I brace myself for the nausea and pain as I step outside, but it doesn’t come. I look numbly at the art and flashing lights, and listen to the electronic screeching that is still playing, seemingly from every direction at once. And I simply step painlessly through it, until the doors of home 524 close behind me and instantly end the sound.

Acting on autopilot, I crawl into the bed recessed in the wall and pull the blankets around me. Then I curl into a ball and sob uncontrollably.

going to make a “what is your drone name?” quiz that asks a bunch of invasive questions about kinks and submissiveness before assigning them a freshly-generated UUID

the psychological profile will aid in their conversion

@mindpersephone I hope this is oki 🥺 i dont have dice nor paper at hand 😭🥺

Hover to show content

“Looks like you’re adapting incredibly quickly to entoptics and to my avatar. There’s just one more thing and then I think you’ll be ready for life on the station.” Afi beams. “We’re going to make you a friend!”

I’m getting increasingly used to not knowing what Afi is talking about, but I let her continue.

“I decided early on that I’m not going to let a refugee leave this lab until they each have a muse. Unless they refuse or something… but I really hope they don’t. It’s going to make everything so much easier - especially getting used to your new morph! I don’t want to give you decision fatigue so I’d recommend that we just decide on personality for now, and you can configure-“

“What’s a muse?” This sounds important. I’m not going to let Afi activate anything else unless I know exactly what’s going to happen.

Afi is suddenly shy again. They fidget with their fingers and their avatar shoots out animated droplets from their head. I make a mental note that droplets indicate anxiety. “U-um! Right - I’m sorry. I guess the idea of… you wouldn’t have had…” I give her a moment to breathe and collect her thoughts.

“A muse is like… a helper… that lives in your head. And their whole job is to make life easier. They learn what you want and like and they can do things for you if you ask.” She gives me an anxious look. “Does that make sense?”

“You’re saying that a person would live in my mind with me? They would see everything that I do - maybe even everything that I think?”

Afi is shooting out droplets even faster now, making a placating gesture frantically. “Nono! I mean… kind of… I promise it’s not as bad as it sounds! It’s going to be really really helpful… and… they’re really nice… and cute… and…” Afi looks almost defeated. They take a deep breath and try again.

“A muse isn’t what you would call a person. It’s not a sophont either.” The distinction between ‘sophont’ and ‘person’ is lost on me, but ‘not a person’ makes sense, so I let them continue. “It’s… a computer program. And its entire personality exists to help you. Helping you is the whole of its existence. It can see your thoughts if you let it - which will make it much better at helping you. But if that’s too much then you can even stop it from seeing what you do unless you allow it to. But it’s never going to betray you or share your secrets with anyone. I want to give you a muse based on software that I made myself, so I can promise that you won’t ever regret anything that you share with it.”

That was a lot to take in. Did Afi really think that I would immediately agree to having some non-person thing put inside of my mind? Despite myself, and despite the fact that I’ve barely met Afi, I do trust them. But how could I ever trust a “muse”? It sounds like it’s closer to a machine than a human - or maybe closer to an animal. Then again, Afi is a confusing mix of all three, and has shown me more kindness than I could ever expect from a human.

Afi speaks up, still fidgeting with their fingers. “Um… how about… we make a muse together, and we can talk to it together. But then we turn it off, and you can turn it on only when you want to talk to it again. Does that sound good?”

“… I choose when it turns on and off, right?”

“Of course!”

To my own disbelief, I say: “Okay…. let’s try it.”

Afi asks me a lot of questions, trying to determine the perfect personality and appearance for my muse. They clearly want to make sure that it won’t seem threatening or intrusive to me, and I can’t help feeling that they missed the point of my discomfort with the idea. Eventually they conclude “Something respectful, clearly not person-like, non-threatening… Oh! I know the perfect preset!”

Several panels appear and disappear in front of their face. Afi seems able to manipulate them without moving her body at all, though her animated eyes flick around inhumanly quickly to track things as they move and change. Finally, I feel a stream of text being sent to me from Afi:

Message from Afi Serwaa:

okay - let's try it out!

attached:
  exomod::muse::afimuse4.74.10/i.67
  attachment metadata:
    good signature from Afi Serwaa
    note: lightly tweaked from preset 12

  install and run?

Somehow I can sense that the final line of text is a question meant for me to answer. I’m about to say “yes” out loud but it must have sensed my intent because it’s already installing.

Moments later, another avatar appears in the room with us. Her skin is pure white and she’s dressed like a child’s doll from old Earth: A frilly, impractical dress that nearly drags along the ground. She has a fixed, placid expression painted on her face, which I realize - like the rest of her skin - is made of porcelain. She looks completely real - like a physical object in this room. And yet I can also see the empty part of the room that she inhabits. She is both there and not there - I can see both realities simultaneously.

The porcelain doll-thing bows respectfully, and its fixed expression animates as it says “This one is pleased to meet its owner. It hopes it can be of use whenever it might be needed.”

I realize, self-consciously, that Afi is searching my expression - trying to gauge my reaction. I feel a roiling mix of emotions - too strong and too tumultuous to understand.

“Is it too submissive?” Afi asks. I don’t reply.

The doll-thing vanishes, and in its place is a floating blue orb. “Hello, user. I am-“

“Wait! Bring the doll back!” I say in a sudden panic.

A pause. The orb disappears, and the doll returns. Afi says nothing, searching my expression anxiously.

I slowly approach the doll, which is standing perfectly still - not even breathing - and stroke its cheek. I can both feel and not feel the smooth, cold hardness of its porcelain. I can also feel tears running down my nonexistent cheeks. I don’t understand what I’m feeling or why, but I care deeply for this thing, and I need to protect it.

“This one. This will be my muse.”

Afi pauses for a long moment. “Okay.”, she says quietly.

The best seat~

Hover to show content

yes, the drone/pet snuggle piles are a vital part of hivemind operations. snuggledata improves unit cognitive fabric cohesion by two orders of magnitude under adverse conditions. it’s like having a constant picture-in-picture of cute pets (in the D/s sense) in the corner of your vision, except the data is polysensory and they’re all your pet who you know and love.

@wyatt that totally makes sense! and it’s an interesting perspective as well - one that I didn’t really consider (except for the information overload part lol. that aspect would drive me absolutely crazy if there was no way to filter it)

I do think there’s something exciting about not knowing. sometimes I like to browse paranormal subreddits, cryptid subreddits, etc. and let my imagination wander with pareidolia about what those lights might be, or what could be making those noises

@6 thank you so much! I’m so glad you’re enjoying it

I honestly have no idea how much longer I’ll keep writing this, but I’m just really happy that folks are liking it so much. and I really hope I can keep going! I feel like this is a story that I could continue for a really long time if I’m able to. the POV character hasn’t even started to explore this new world yet - and there’s so much for them to find and learn

@wyatt yayy I’m so glad to hear that! 💙 it really helps a lot to know that folks are enjoying this

and yeah hehe that level of interconnectedness is very normalized in this world but it can also lead to a lot of problems and even security issues - it’s kinda like how modern-day folks trust and depend on computer security and IoT devices way more than they probably should, and that can cause unexpected problems when the tangled web of technology that they take for granted runs into a problem of any kind