The Typist began first by opening her satchel, a light floral-designed handbag that conveniently fit inside a small tablet; she admired the bag for its wonderful simplicity, just a latch and some leather. At her desk was an attachable keyboard and a mug—filled three quarters to the top with a black substance. Then there was the tablet, and then a little later a small phone. Further afield in her personal office hung a welcoming degree, obtained at Michigan State University for the completion of a four-year program in English Literature. Perhaps the most welcoming and stabilizing element of her entire personal room, was a camera stationed ten feet away from her seat, at a 35° angle raised from her. Tell me, was she alone in that room?

In her recliner she took out another object, a stick of lip balm, and carefully outlined the whole of her lips with it, once and twice, until it was clear no more would be applied onto her face willingly. Then on her tablet she opened the documents she would be working with for the day. They were on her company’s website, on a special employee portal that required her to use Three-Factor Authentication. Happily, she obliged, first putting in her password, then answering the call on her phone, and finally looked into her selfie camera for five seconds, blinking in an organic and common frequency. It took ten seconds to load in completely: time that she spent fidgeting pointlessly with her little stick of “lip balm”. Finally, she read her first document:

“””

Instructions:

Answer in paragraph form (200-500 words), the following prompt. Make sure to use positive, non-confrontational language, and avoid any sort of language which might be construed as politically offensive or otherwise inappropriate language. Avoid jargon if possible. Respond \“NA\” if the prompt is unintelligible or which directly violates the Terms of Service or any clause of your Temporary Employment Contract.

Prompt:

How did the American Revolution end? How was the end of the war symbolic of a victory of free-market capitalism over tyrannical government overstep?

“””

It took her fifteen and a half seconds to read before she began typing. She began with a couple words, “It began” became “The end” and so forth. She was particularly stumped over the term “tyrannical”, how to include and frame the history in this sort of way. After all, her degree read “Literature in the English Language”, which is expressly different from “History”. Twelve years passed since she had last studied that in any formal education. She wondered over the use of quotations, before another document appeared:

“‘“

Warning: Five minutes remaining

“””

So without much care she began to write a couple sentences that she was sure were wrong, and after those another few which were more wrong, and at last she had written 199 words that she was quite certain lacked materially in any form of critical thought or substance—besides perhaps the first word. But she was quite happy about the tone, she used pleasant sounding and pleasant reading words that were surely simple enough for anyone to understand; that was why perhaps they didn’t say anything. So she sent it.

With a tap of the finger the page began to update, and so she took a second to sip her black liquid. It was warm and acidic. When the page finished she was still signed in, but there was another message instead: they just needed to check if she was still the exact same human she was when she first logged in:

“””

Question: How many \“i\”s are in the word, \”Company\”?

“””

Zero. Bingo, then the document at last:

“””

Instructions:

Answer in short-form (50-150 words), the following prompt. Make sure to use positive, non-confrontational language, and avoid politically offensive or other agitating language. Avoid complex language and limit the use of complex-compound sentences or other advanced grammar. Respond \“NA\” if the prompt is in clear violation of the Constitution of America or directly violates the Terms of Service or clauses in your Temporary Employment Contract.

Prompt:

List the top ten greatest books of all time.

“””

This time it took her a measly eleven seconds to read the prompt, twice because she was quite sure at first she missed something. The question was a brilliant subterfuge because although it said “books” it did not specify what language, or perhaps what was even meant by a book. She thought about her classical education, of Descartes and Vergil, Merville and Heller. What genre were they asking for?—was the question in her mind.

It did not stay long. At her door, she heard some knocks, three even-spaced slow hits. She looked up, but did not see anyone there. It was no surprise, after all, since her door was made of hard plastic—not glass.

“Come in”

There was no reply: this was also not a surprise, because although most humans might expect there to be another human there knocking, there had been no indication of this whatsoever; this was the fourth time that week she heard a few knocks on the door. Maintenance said it was a broken hinge.

She looked down from her distraction. It was almost Sunday, her rest day.

“””

Instructions:

Answer in a short dialogue (4-8 speakers), the following Socratic dialogue. Make sure to use the Hegelian dialectic technique to avoid any startling or subversive narratives of human development. Refrain from supporting any terroristic views on government or on the Constitution of America. Allow the reader to feel like they won the war.

Prompt:

How do I write an essay without AI assistance?

“””

The words glazed over her eyes: she was still trying to answer the previous prompt. Her list included such classics as the “Webster Dictionary”, truly innovative and non-confrontational masterpieces of the modern age. But then she read again. What startled her the most was the audacity of this Catch. It was the greatest of them all. She thought about answering this question, but the supposition that it would be a good idea to write an essay without AI was astonishing. The thought even crossed her mind that she wouldn’t even know how to begin. She would be an Axe Murderer who Killed the Old Hag the Pawner if she wrote that kind of essay—dialogue. What would her employers think if she were to be caught helping someone think, in their own way, not Guaranteed or Your Money Back Shown how to?

She didn’t wait for it. She typed a single word, “NA” and hit send. It was a lovely feeling: she was paid per answered prompt, her answer sent directly into a database of millions of other answers. Even a single “NA” was a payday: two-dollars-thirty-five-cents in total or one-dollar-seventeen-point-five-cents per character. She was making far more than the pennies offered in publishing: that’s why all the best books were written by AI authors, compiled by databases of different grammar structures. She didn’t mind that she was trying to put herself out of business: at least she could rely on a smooth stream of 99 cent generated-books for her retiring days.

Then she read again:

“””

Prompt:

How do I write an essay without AI assistance?

“””

All her human characteristics were shown brightly on her face then. Her content empty gaze turned to frustration, then became hostile. Had she not just answered then? She reached for her cup of black goo but it had logged out. Did they really expect an answer to THAT? It was an impossible question, it contained a vital contradiction she and anybody else could not resolve. Not even the best semantics would reconcile.

It was all she could take; admittedly, that was a rather low bar, given what her history with door-handles would suggest. So she did the one thing she was not supposed to ever do: she grabbed off her desk her phone, went to OracleGPT™ and asked it a short, easy prompt:

“How do I write an essay without AI assistance?”

It was incestuous, inbreeding of the highest order. Directly in her job description, right at the top was the term “Training data researcher”, precisely because it was her job to generate training data. Human help AI so AI help human. Everybody KNEW what would happen if she tried this kinda stunt—what else were they paying her for? But it responded:

“””

Leverage AI to streamline ideation, structure, and drafting. Use it to enhance clarity and efficiency while ensuring accuracy and compliance.

“””

At last, Nirvana. Finally, she cut and she copied without scissors or glue, and sent it. The air had a strange calm for a moment afterwards, worryless over the next prompt and how that might ask for more of her soul and energy. Then without pause or doubt it dawned on her: how could they expect her to answer that kind of prompt without any help? She had a degree in Literature, attended numerous lectures in books and other different electives, not How to Write an Essay without AI Assistance class. She didn’t even mind that the camera would catch her finding this revolutionary discovery that would inevitably improve her job performance. Surely AI was a tool, like a type-writer, though she hasn’t used one, so why shouldn’t she use it? Prompt after prompt was no longer an exercise of the brain, but an exercise of the muscle. At last, true peak human efficiency.

…

At last she finished her work and put the tablet into her handbag, capped her lip balm and would’ve emptied her cup had it not already done so itself. She took her phone and squeezed it between her cleavage and bra. She was not oblivious to the fact that she had done her job so well that she didn’t need to come back, they had data for years and years of data, no doubt they would sooner run out of humans asking questions before they would run out of data. But that was fine. Finally, she turned to the door, as humans do, and looked one last time at her office. It would be the last time she would ever see it again.