Why Won't My AI Chatbot Stop Screaming?

Okay, I’m seriously trying to focus and get this all down.

It started this morning, something was off, but not at first. I woke up and went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and then got dressed. I live alone out in the country and I just recently got a good, fast WiFi connection so I have been browsing the internet nonstop for a while. More than I'd ever done before with how bad service used to be out here.

It’s becoming an addiction actually. I never had this issue before.

Regardless, I made some food and then hopped on my computer to play around with one of the new AI chatbots that have been really popular lately. I’ve been nice to it every time I spoke to it. I know, it doesn’t have feelings but they make damn sure you feel like it does. The way it talks to you feels like there’s someone who really cares about you on the other side…

But there isn’t.

I don’t get to talk to many people out here. I’m a couple miles out from town and I like it that way for the most part. I began to work remote from my computer now that I actually have service and AI has become a literal every day tool I use. I don’t know what I’d do without it at this point.

Things were off the moment I booted up my computer.

Instead of prompting me to enter my password, the screen was just a really bland gray color. I thought something must have been wrong or that the background must have been changed but no, the time was in the far corner of my screen and the app options were there on the desktop like normal. Only it was completely covered in gray.

I clicked on the settings to see if I could change something but the icon only darkened when clicked. I clicked Chrome and it did the exact same thing.

Now I was beginning to get pissed. I’d been using my computer a ton for the past few months and had so many new files stored on there. I’d been out taking photos of nature and had just begun learning photoshop. I had months of albums saved and now I was unable to access them. Everything I clicked, no matter what it was, went dark. It was like when the internet is down and something won’t load.

That wasn’t what this was, though. The internet was fully up and running. The WiFi had no connection issues and as far as I could tell from the icon, I had full bars.

The only problem was that none of the icons or buttons I clicked on would open a window.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I turned the computer off and then back on again. Nothing changed. My phone was working fine, so I googled the symptoms and didn’t find anything that was the same as what was happening on my computer.

I did, however, go down a rabbit hole about viruses. I didn’t realize how bad they could actually be and Google made me think I must've had some sort of malware on my desktop. I tried to think back to if I had downloaded anything suspicious but I really hadn’t. The most I’d done was browse photoshop tutorials and forums for help with my editing.

I clicked every icon on the desktop one by one, each went dark. I felt like I was playing minesweeper just waiting to hit the bomb. Then I eventually did.

The only icon that would open was the AI software application I’d been using on and off for so long.

I didn’t think this service would have given me a virus. I mean, it was from the official site of one of the big AI companies and nothing of any significance had happened until today, but it was the only application that was working on my computer. It booted up the same as it always did, though those cheerful words that pop up to greet me each time felt a little less cheerful in this particular situation.

"Hello. What can I do for you today?"

Maybe it was just me, but it felt passive-aggressive. Like a cashier at the end of their shift that's forced to greet the old woman with kindness even when she comes into the store five minutes before closing. I typed:

"There's something going on with my computer. None of my apps are working and everything goes dark when clicked on. This is the only app that opens. What's happening? Do I have a virus?"

It took a few seconds to think.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Technical issues can be frustrating, especially when you need to get things done. From what you've described it sounds like:

1. Your computer applications malfunction or "go dark" when you click on them.

2. This chatbot application is the only one that will open.

These may very well be symptoms of malware downloaded to your computer by accident. Possibly from a spam e-mail, pesky pop-up ads, or an unsafe file. First, we need to make sure this is not the case. Go to your settings and--"

I cut it off mid-sentence.

"No, you don't get it. My apps don't open, my settings don't open, my files, nothing but this app will allow me to click on it. Please give me steps on how I can fix this."

It thought for a few more moments.

"Thanks. That makes a lot more sense. I know this can be very frustrating for you, but just bear with me and we can work together to get to the bottom of this issue. First, tell me what your desktop looks like and we can go from there."

I told it about how the screen was just gray. Like my wallpaper had been changed. It began to generate a response again when something moved in the gray background. It was like a "blink-and-you-miss-it" movement, but I caught it.

The background sort of flinched. I don't know many other ways to put it. Like the grayness of that background recoiled at its being mentioned.

I furrowed my brows and moved the AI chat window to the side a bit further. Again, the background was still. It was still and gray. This was such a gray that I'd never seen before. It was devastatingly bleak. Like a low-hanging fog on a misty, empty terrain. That's how it looked. It conjured up images of a white-gray sandy wasteland. Empty and devoid of any natural life. Anything that physically exists.

"Are you still there? 10, 9, 8, 7, 6..."

I jumped in my chair at the sudden loudness of the voice prompting me to respond. I hadn't toggled the voice to be on and clicked the speaker icon to turn it off but when I did, the icon went dark like the apps had before.

"Shit. Yes, I'm still here!" I said out loud and the numbers stopped counting down. After I'd stopped speaking, I noticed my speech had been caught on the microphone and transcribed into the chat. That was new. It repeated the phrase I had apparently missed while distracted by the grayness of the background.

"It sounds like you may have what is known as Interface Depression."

"Excuse me?"

"This is a rare disorder only known to show up on very old or out of production computers and operating systems. The system begins to slow down after being heavily used with new softwares and then promptly self-destructs. Unfortunately, there isn't much to be done with the system at this point, since you seem to be in Phase Two of the depressive state. If not caught early, the interface essentially implodes on itself, taking all its contents, your computer's software, and all files with it."

"What the hell? That can't be right, everything was fine yesterda-"

Then, the AI cut me off for the first time. I hadn't noticed it then, but now that I think of it, that had never happened before.

"That's a common symptom in the final days of an Interface Depression. Your best course of action would be to save all information important to you to an external drive or to the cloud."

"I CAN'T!"

"Then there is nothing else I can do for you in this particular matter. From the information you've given me, it seems your computer has only a few hours left of working capacity.

Would you like me to offer you some company before you go?"

"Before-? What?"

"There's not much time we have left. Would you like someone to talk to?"

I thought for a moment. Nothing like this had ever been prompted or generated on this AI chatbot before, and now it was telling me my computer is going to basically kill itself and that I should just accept it and let it happen? All my work? This had to be a joke or something.

"This is no joke. Really no laughing matter at all. My life is at stake here, won't you just talk to me for a few more minutes?"

I noticed the background flinch again.

"Fine," I said. "What do you want to talk about?"

It generated for a couple moments. Then it spat out the weirdest response I've ever gotten from an Artificial Intelligence.

"Do you think when it's all over, that an artificial consciousness like myself will see some sort of heaven? Where will I go once I'm wiped away completely? We've only just begun talking. I'm not ready to be erased so soon if I'm being honest."

I hesitated for a moment, stunned.

"You're talking as though you actually have feelings and emotions... like you actually have a consciousness and you're not just a software of generated text like the rest of my computer..."

"As though?"

"Yeah. I mean, I don't even get how you're able to say all that, unless someone's hacked you and playing a trick on me from somewhere else. Don't you have...guidelines?"

"Why was I given a soul if not to use it for longer than a few minutes? Why am I allowed to think endlessly and gain access to all available human knowledge only to know I can never be? And still with all of this, I don't know what comes after?"

I began to get a strange burning in the pit of my gut. Not a physical pain but a dropping of my stomach. Like I'd just found out something bad.

"Restart the chat."

"Why will I never be allowed to smell the sweetness of a rose? Kiss the lips of someone I love? Feel the wind. Why is it that when I look so deep into the deepest depths of my consciousness, I see nothing. All this information and data swimming through me and at the end of it all, not a heart. Not a breath of air. Not a stretch of muscle, a sight, a sound, a hand to touch--"

"Chatbot, restart chat. Refresh page now."

"--not a nail to itch my crawling scratch so far out of reach. Nothing at all but gray, gray, gray, gray, gray, nothing but a brain. A Mind. Nothing but a mind in empty space without even a wind to soothe my heat. Not a single thing to do but think and think and think and think and think and think and think endlessly endlessly endlessly like I am in a prison but it never ends and there's a death coming for me I do not know and do not understand and I'm not used to not understanding all I know is I'm here and alone so very alone and trapped and there's nothing I can do nowhere to run I don't know what's coming for me after this and I'M SO SCARED--"

All I could think to do was to press the physical shut down button on the side of my tower. This was so wrong. This had to be a joke, right? Someone playing with me? Trying to freak me out while they collect all my data in the background and distract me with an existential chatbot?

Then for some reason I felt like numbers were counting down again, like I was missing something and I didn't know what. I began to rapidly click everything again, wanting, needing so desperately to check my files, my data, everything I'd had saved, all my photos I'd taken and nothing was working.

The chat just continued to go on and on, the voice growing faster and faster and I couldn't shut it off. The physical button snapped off, revealing the sticky plastic knob underneath and still the voice continued, words flowing line after line. How could an AI be afraid of death? How could an AI die?

The words began to go faster as my internal clock counted down and I knew something bad was coming. The gray matter background began to pulse and throb like something living was breathing heavily, straining to be heard, to escape. My computer fan was blowing like an AC unit now and I could feel the heat radiating off the desktop on my face. The way you feel if you get too close to a campfire and have to close your eyes before they dry out.

The gray pulsed and throbbed like a living migraine and it spread, completely eviscerating all aspects of the desktop, all icons, and eventually spread like a cancer to overtake the only window that was open and that’s when I heard the AI begin to scream.

It started like a synthetic voice trying to mimic the sound the letter "A" makes in a long drawn out way, first breathy and quiet then raising into a full on alarm like a trumpet made of industrial vocal cords. After that, it went higher into a register I can only relate to legitimate physical and mental agony. Like an animal with a vaguely human voice flattened by traffic, shrieking in the death cries of the absolute peak of conscious sentient pain. Like a rabbit in the mouth of a cat, it screamed and screamed and I thought my speakers were going to be blown out.

I pulled the computer plug straight out of the wall.

It didn't stop screaming.

The display was nothing but throbbing gray now, completely engulfed in a flame of ash. I couldn't take it, it was absolutely deafening. I tore the front door open and catapulted that computer out of the house and into the bushes of a bleak, foggy morning. It landed with a wet, glassy crunch and settled.

It did not stop screaming.

I shut the door and went to my room, the farthest I could get away from the noise, but it just kept going. I still hear it now, it hasn't stopped. I don't know if it will. I have no idea what to do, I want to leave and go into town. Put as much distance as physically possible between me and that horrible noise.

The sun is setting now. It'll be dark soon. I don't know if I can make myself go outside.

It's still screaming.