Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

2. To the new World

Flora had spent the last few days with reigning herself in not giving the craftspeople too many suggestions on how to renovate the kitchen. Instead, she surfed the internet pages of the virtual world.

In her life, she had witnessed computer shrinking from a workstation as big as a nightstand to an implant as small as a grain of salt. Every generation got more intelligent, and more ways to interact with them opened up. First, you had to type complicated commands, then click with a mouse, then swish with fingers, then just tell them what you wanted. Now, they tracked the movements of your eyes and fingers. With wiggling your pinky, you could raise the temperature of the heater, dim the light, and play music. Flora shook her head. Soon, she would experience the next step—computers which read your mind.

The human mind−the concept filled her with a sense of wonder. It had been a mystery in her youth, but now they could not only access it, but humanity had built facsimiles: Artificial Intelligence.

Warnings about AIs were older than AIs themselves. The problem with old warnings is that they were stale. Which child wasn't warned about drugs before they took their first hit? But then they thought, that wasn't so bad.

Of course, Flora's generation had been warned not to compromise your privacy by giving out personal information on the internet. But you could win a toaster by just filling out a short survey or get access to a neat little farming game, so they set aside the admonitions. And nothing bad happened after you did it the first time.

Nothing bad had happened when Siri was introduced, and Alexa conquered the homes.

Nothing overt, at least.

'What happens when you have the whole world at your fingertip? Do you get spoiled, lazy, and entitled? Do you become free of the daily grind and can dive into the wonders of the world?'

The people introduced the AI's into their world, into their homes and even into their bodies with implants. In contrast, the Cetviwos was the realm of the AIs, and they invited people, the players, into it. What would they do if they were the host and not the guest?

Flora was equally captivated by and suspicious of AIs. What would they want if they developed a will? Peace and cooperation? Rights? Power? Money? Hot robot-chicks and connecting rhythmically to their ports? Love?

Besides the philosophical ramblings, she read about the actual experiences of the users.

She had the strong urge to call Robert to say this was a bad idea, and they should think it over.

'I can understand you can kill monsters, but people can kill other people?' Her fear rose.

'You can build robots? Maybe even toaster robots?' Her excitement rose.

'There are con-artists who rob the technologically unsavvy?' Her fear rose.

'You can visit a planet modeled after earth in different centuries, and you can see dinosaurs, knight tournaments and the building of the pyramids (Egyptian and South American) in one day!' Her excitement rose.

'What is PvE? What is skill rotation? What the heck are they talking about?' Her fear rose.

'You can tone down pain? You can get stronger and more agile?' Her excitement rose.

'Can these virtual reality pods sustain my life 24/7?' Her fear rose.

'What? They claim it's even healthy?' Her excitement rose.

This interplay of emotions drained her. She breathed and cleared her mind.

'I will do what I always do. I'll wing it. May the higher powers grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, the wisdom to know the difference, and enough luck not to frack myself too badly!'