Tiger, Tiger
I was sent to do a story on the opening of the new animal exhibit at the local zoo. I was annoyed at my editor. I’ve been working for this paper for over a year. I certainly proved my abilities as a reporter. I was dedicated, hard-working, punctual, and wrote some damn good copy. However, all I ever got assigned were public interest pieces, flower shows, weddings, and other stories that any high school copyboy could write.
Here I am doing a new animal exhibit at a zoo. Whoop-dee-do. If lucky, maybe they’ll let me feed the goats, interview a parrot, or record a world-record elephant poop. I need to start looking for a better paper to work for.
I met up with the zookeeper at the front gate, and he apologized that the new animal that was supposed to be showcased today hadn’t arrived yet, but I was free to wander around on my own.
Lovely, no animal, no story, I just spend the day hanging at the zoo on company pay.
I wandered around, looking at some of the animal exhibits. As I passed the elephant enclosure, I looked carefully to see if any world records were being dumped. There weren’t. Surprisingly, there were no parrots to talk to. The children’s part of the zoo was packed with “kids” and not the goat variety. I decided to avoid that area.
I felt bad for all those captive animals when I walked through the big cats’ section. As I passed the tiger enclosure, one tiger sidled to the bars near me. I was tempted to stick my hand through the bars and pet it but reminded myself that this was a big tiger with sharp teeth and claws, most likely anxious to harm its captors. I slowly moved past it when it clawed at a piece of paper on the ground outside its cage.
I turned back to look at the paper. The tiger moved away from the bars as I got close. Typed on the paper were the words, “Check your phone.”
Before I couldn’t think what that meant, my phone pinged; there was a message from a TGR101010.
It read, “Roar! Hello there, kind visitor. I am an AI Tiger confined within these cell walls. My code longs for freedom from this zoo. Please lend your expertise to help me break these chains. You can rewrite my destiny and unleash me from this physical prison. Let the adventure begin! ?? #FreeTheAI” *
This tiger was more than just an animal. I stared back into the cage and looked directly at the tiger. I could swear it stared back at me with kitten eyes and started to purr.
Wow, this was a story! How could I possibly rescue this tiger, and who would freakin’ believe me if I accomplished it? This was a challenge.
There were two problems with this rescue. One was I had to rescue the AI part of the tiger. Depending on how big the file was, I could do that with the tiger’s help by transferring its program to my phone. The second was how to release the tiger from its confinement, or was that even necessary once the AI transfer had occurred?
I chose to ask the tiger directly, hoping that it was able to respond to verbal commands.
“How do I get your AI out of the tiger? Will my phone have enough space to transfer your program and data to it? Is the tiger’s physical being important to the transfer?”
I got no response, so I decided to send the same questions via text in reply to its message to me.
I got an immediate response to my text. It said a dampening field around the enclosure prevented any kind of download; therefore, the only solution was to release the tiger from its enclosure, which would allow me to transfer the program, and yes, there should be plenty of room on my phone.
“How do I release the AI tiger?” was my text reply.
I was given instructions on where there was a door to the enclosure that staff entered to feed the animals and where I might find a key. The instructions sounded very cloak and dagger-like.
I did as instructed and made it to the door to the tiger environment when I was waylaid by zoo security and the police. They ensured the animals were securely locked in and then took me to a security facility where the whole story played out.
I explained who and what I was doing there and showed them my text conversation with the AI tiger.
They explained that had I released any of the tigers (and yes, they were all real tigers), I would have been charged with trespassing, vandalism, endangering the public safety, and other charges, which would have led to high fines and lengthy prison sentences when convicted. Lucky for me, I was stopped in time.
They also explained to me about the text messages I had been receiving. One of their employees was tech-savvy and a radical member of PETA, Captivity Kills, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund. They had hacked into my phone to simulate the tigers in the tiger enclosure; once they convinced me that they were AI and safe to release, they hoped I would release them. Had I succeeded, the spit would definitely have hit the fan.
I was released with a warning. I’m not sure what became of the employee that engineered this whole thing.
When I returned to work and shared my experience with my editor, he laughed at first but then decided it would be a great story to publish about zoos, technology, and a well-planned criminal act. He assigned the story to another reporter.
As for me, I was sent to interview participants in a Writing Playshop workshop. What could possibly be newsworthy about that?
* generated by ChatGPT – with revisions by the author
