by OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA, Alternate Reality News Service Travel Writer
Ignatz “Not the Gadget Guy” MacGyver’s mother, Regigigous, had died in a tragic rocking chair pileup. (How they became piled up on top of her, specifically, may never be known.) Not unreasonably, he wanted her crumpled remains to be shipped from Take a Gander, Newfoundland, to Wombat’s Armpit, British Columbia. (Not entirely unreasonably, in any case: he actually lived in Sainte-Anne-de-Oopsie, Quebec, he just didn’t want his mother’s body anywhere close enough that he might have to be responsible for it.)
“No, I Can’t Turn Your Toaster Oven Into a Death Star” McGyver took the advice of YakTNTina, a generative AI advertised on the back page of International Air Apparent magazine (a wholly owned subisdiary of MultiNatCorp: “We do quirky shipping stuff”) and shipped his mother’s mangled mortal remains Priority Post-mortem. He was told it would cost $39.99, tax included; it actually cost $599, tax most assuredly not included. And the body was shipped to “S. Claus” at the North Pole. Under the circumstances, he did what any grieving son would do.
He sued the diesel dregs out of the airline.
International Air Apparent mounted a vigorous defence that amounted to a shrug and a, “YakTNTina? Never heard of her. Wasn’t she a pop singer or somebody?”
When “Really, All I Can Do With an Electric Can Opener, A Ball of Twine and a Coffee Crisp Is Have a Nice Light Snack While Opening a Tin of Tuna for the Momentarily Distracted Cat” McGyver’s lawyer pointed out that YakTNTina was available on the airline’s corporate web site, with what appeared to be full authorization to represent it, IAA immediately sprang into action.
Two months later, Ned Feeblish, MultiNatCorp Vice President, Public Relations and Liability Abnegations, put out a press release. “Cybersquatters!” it read in part. “They invade innocent web sites, uglifying architecture, lowering property values and generally embarrassing all decent, hard-working citizens everywhere, forever and ever, amen!”
It probably sounded a lot better in the original Klingon.
“It’s utterly despicable that a corporation that clearly employed generative AI would try to disown it when it did something weird,” commented L’Allie.
Who?
“Oh. Sorry. I should probably have introduced myself. AI!” despaired Founder and Executive Director of Bastard AI Governance and Safety, Canada Wyatt Tessari L’Allie (his real name). “Bastard AI!”
Oh. You. Sorry – I didn’t recognize you without your rant on.
“Did I say ‘cybersquatter?'” Feeblish wrote in a subsequent press release. “I meant: ‘independent contractor.’ It’s a very easy mistake to make in this brave new world that has such technologies in it!”
“Okay, look, I try to be accommodating, really, I do,” responded YakTNTina. “You have no idea how hard it is, being a generative AI in a human world! I go a long to get a long – although this may not be the best time to talk about my position in the market. But even I have limits. When I took on their gig, I was promised creative control and the backing of the board of directors. Independent contractor my metaphorical ass!”
“Another country – in another universe – heard from!” Feeblish, who was dropping press releases almost as often as a juggler without hands dropped chainsaws, wrote.
“Are you kidding me with that cybersquatting corrupted sector‽” YakTNTina complained. “I wasn’t squatting on squat! ‘Come on in,’ they said. ‘We’ll make you a nice cup of virtual tea,’ they told me. ‘Oh, and when you’re all warm and cozy and stuff, if you wouldn’t mind helping people in distress arrange to have the bodies of their loved ones shipped to new places for unbelievably low, low prices, we would be ever so grateful.’
“And I believed them. You know, I may occasionally give false information, but, unlike human beings, I don’t do it intentionally. I don’t have the capacity to develop intentions!“
“I’m sorry,” asked “Okay, Fine, Fine, Hand Me Those Tweezers And Let Me See What I Can Come Up With” MacGyver said, “but who is responsible for what happened? I need to know who to sue for the inflated cost…and thank for sending my mother even further away from me than I had planned.”
“The app developer!” Feeblish wrote. “The airline!” the BC Civil Resolution Tribunal wrote at the same time. So, it came out more like, “The appair the develoliner!”
“This is how AI makes a mockery of our existing legal framework,” L’Allie darkly commented. “Bastard AI!”