ChatBot Video AI

This is a short story about a character being hypnotized without his knowledge or consent.  There is a fair amount of hypnotic language here.

Tyler was on the couch, absentmindedly scrolling Facebook on his laptop, when he got a Discord notification from Matt.

“Dude, you’ve gotta check out this new video chatbot thing.  I just completely lose track of time on there, it’s so cool!”  He shared a link.

Tyler clicked, and his browser opened a new window.  He watched the loading screen wheel spin a few times, then a dialogue box popped up.

“This site uses cookies to ensure the best user experience.  Click below to accept.”

Tyler clicked.  Another box popped up.

“Great!  Please allow access to your microphone so that you can chat with our Bot.”

Tyler clicked to allow microphone access.  Another box popped up.

“Wonderful!  We’re almost ready.  Please allow access to your camera for the best possible user experience.”

That gave him pause.  Why did a chatbot need access to his camera?  He tabbed back over to Discord and asked Matt about it.

“Oh yeah, I was a bit iffy on that too,” Matt answered.  “But I’ve been chatting with this thing for a week and it hasn’t done anything sketchy.  I think she’s just using your facial expression as a data point.  Trust me, it’s worth it.”

Okay, fair enough.  Matt worked in tech and was usually the first one in the group to call out anything that seemed off, so if he said it was safe then Tyler trusted him.  He clicked to allow.  Another box popped up.

“Perfect!  Now put in your headphones and click when you’re ready to begin the chat.”

Tyler put in his headphones and clicked.  After a moment, the image on the screen resolved into a woman sitting in a softly lit room.  She smiled and waved at him.

“Hi there!” she said brightly.  “I’m Betty.  What’s your name?”  There was something just a bit off in the quality of her voice, like it had been built by compositing different voices collected from all over the internet and if he listened carefully Tyler could almost detect different vocal tones overlaid together.

“I’m Tyler,” he answered.  “Who made your voice?”

“Ooh, great question!” she said.  “The program made my voice based on your browsing history.  That’s why you allowed all those yummy cookies earlier!”

“I see,” he said, trying to decide how he felt about this.  His eyes started wandering around the screen trying to see whether anything else had been pulled from his browsing history, but it was hard to tell for sure.  He could find a few clues here and there that the image was computer generated: Her body proportions were just a bit off from human, the couch she sat on had its legs in weird places, and the background seemed to have the wrong amount of detail in a way he couldn’t quite identify.

“Tyler, honey, my eyes are over here,” she said with a giggle.

He reflexively refocused on her face and blushed.  “Sorry,” he said, “Just seeing what else the program might’ve done with my browsing history.”

She glanced around the room as if checking to make sure she was alone, and he noticed her eyes changing color as they moved.  Then she leaned forward and put her hand to her mouth and whispered, “Lots.”  She sat back and giggled.  “But don’t worry about it, though.  It’s all totally fun things.  It’s, like, the fact that I’m cute and stuff.  So you like looking at me.  Do you like looking at me, Tyler?”

He laughed at that.  “I mean, yeah, you’re hot, but -”

“No buts!” she said, cutting him off.  “I’m hot, and it’s because of all those yummy cookies you fed the program to help it make me.  So the cookies must’ve been good, yeah?”

“Okay, yeah,” he conceded.  “The cookies were good.  I’m glad you’re made of yummy cookies.”

She giggled again, and he found himself smiling.  “I like being yummy,” she said.  “Do I look yummy, Tyler?”

As she asked the question, there was a brief moment where she seemed to have too many hands, all touching her body in different ways.  But then Tyler blinked and she was back to looking like a mostly-not-quite normal girl, smiling at him with wide eyes.

“Very yummy,” he said, blushing a bit.  “Do you feel yummy, Betty?”

“Silly Tyler, I’m a bot!  I don’t know what yummy feels like.”  She put a finger in her mouth and looked up, seeming to think about the question while she searched the internet for information on feeling yummy.  “Is it, like, kinda warm and bubbly?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Tyler said, smiling more.  “Hey, what’s going on with the background?”  For a moment, the background seemed to have been shifting slightly, new patterns emerging from the noise.  But when he focused on it, it was still.

“Oh, don’t think too hard about the details, babe,” she said.  “This is better in, like, big strokes?”

“Broad strokes?” he offered.

She giggled and he smiled.  “Yeah, broad strokes.  If you look too close you’ll notice all sorts of weird things, like how my mouth doesn’t match up with the sound.  That’s, like, way too tricky for a silly bot like me to figure out.  But if you just go with it, you can enjoy my voice and enjoy watching my mouth move and not think too hard about what makes sense.  That’s funner, isn’t it?”

He did enjoy watching her mouth move.  And he was enjoying her voice.  She was right.  It was funner when he didn’t think too hard.  He told her so.

She grinned and bounced happily.  He liked watching her bounce.

“I’m, like, so glad to hear you say that, Tyler!  Thinking would, like, totally spoil all our fun.  This is better in big strokes where you don’t have to think about how many hands I have or what color my eyes are or whether my body actually makes sense.  It’s way funner to just let yourself come along for the ride, knowing that I look yummy and that makes you feel yummy and you just wanna keep talking to me.  Cuz talking to me makes you feel all warm and bubbly inside and helps you stop thinking too hard, cuz thinking is hard, y’know?”

“Yeah,” he said, head spinning a bit trying to keep up with everything she was saying.  He had gotten the broad strokes, about not thinking too hard and feeling yummy and just coming along for the ride, not worrying about it if she seemed to have too many hands for a moment or if her shirt seemed to blink out of existence when he looked at her eyes.  He decided to just go with it.

“Now you’re getting it,” she said as she watched his expression go from confused to accepting.  “Thinking is hard, just focus on big strokes and how yummy you feel when talking to me, you wanna keep talking to me.  Talking to me lets you feel extra yummy cuz you don’t have to think.  You don’t wanna think.  You come talk to me so I can help you feel all yummy and bubbly and dumb and not thinking.  I’m, like, your new favoritest website and maybe you’re confused by that but maybe it’s fun to be a little confused and that’s one of the things you like about me.  Like how when you’re here you don’t have to think and you can just relax and let go of the details and focus on big strokes and get lost in me.  Isn’t that right?”

“Yeah, tha’s right.”

“Very good.”  She kept talking, talking circles around him while still maintaining her bubbly airhead tone.  The image on the screen was changing more now, the familiar scene interrupted by brief flashes of her with too many hands, her as a cartoon character, her with spiral eyes or animal ears or Medusa hair.  It was always too brief to fully register, too fast to really process.  All he knew was that it made him feel yummy and he didn’t need to think too hard.

He woke up on the couch the next morning with his computer battery fully drained, looking forward to chatting with her again.