Catfishing on CatNet Naomi Kritzer (reading strategies book txt) 📖

“I am totally on the lam,” Marvin says.

Annette sighs heavily. “Look,” she says. “I hated to terminate the project, but…”

We all start talking at once, angrily, and she holds up her hands. “All her files are intact! I promise, she’s fine!”

“Intelligence is knowing Frankenstein was the creator, not the monster. Wisdom is knowing Frankenstein was actually the monster,” Hermione says. “Which is a quote I saw on CatNet, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

“Are you comparing me to Victor Frankenstein?” Annette asks, clearly amused.

“Yeah! You made a person and now you want to kill them because you feel responsible for anything they do wrong,” Hermione says. “I think it’s an extremely fair comparison!”

Annette stands up. “I’m going to order some pizza,” she says, “because I haven’t had dinner, and I bet you haven’t, either, and then I’m going to let you chat with CheshireCat, because she’s actually been asking about you, Stephanie.”

“Why do you keep calling CheshireCat a she when their pronoun is they?” Firestar mutters.

“I have always thought of this AI as female,” Annette says. “Maybe because I’m female. On CatNet, she was in every Clowder and used she, he, and they more or less equally.”

“Singular they is a thing,” Firestar says. “Shakespeare used singular they.”

“How did you know about CatNet?” I ask. “Were you watching CheshireCat the whole time?”

“I couldn’t possibly have watched everything CheshireCat did,” Annette says. “But CatNet was her favorite project and gave her a lot of scope for action. I checked in regularly to see how it was going.”

After ordering the pizza, Annette pulls up a window on her laptop. It looks like a CatNet chat box. “You can talk to CheshireCat now, if you want,” she says, and she hands me the laptop.

I take the laptop and slide it into my lap. The open window looks like one of the chat windows on CatNet.

“CheshireCat?” I type. “It’s LBB. Also, Georgia, Firestar, Hermione, and Marvin. And your programmer person Annette is here, too.”

Words come flooding onto the screen. “Steph, is that really you? It’s you and not Annette? Can you please tell me something that only you would know, so I know for sure it’s you? I don’t have access to the camera to see your face. I don’t have anything.”

I flail for something to type. “Naff. Corybungus. Orlando. Milpitas.”

The cursor blinks silently on the screen for a second, and then CheshireCat says, “I am so glad you’re okay. I was afraid you were dead and Annette didn’t want to tell me.”

“No. I’m fine. You saved me.”

“How did you find me?”

“I got an email message with Annette’s address,” I type. “I sort of assumed it came from you, actually. Like a dead man’s switch. Do you know what that is?”

“It’s something that operates if someone is dead or incapacitated, but I didn’t set anything like that up. I don’t know where Annette lives. Where are we?”

“We’re in Cambridge, Massachusetts,” I type.

“Isn’t that a long way from Wisconsin? How did you—are you there in person? In meatspace? All of you?”

“Yeah,” I type. “We came to see if we could rescue you.”

I glance up. Annette was watching me, a minute ago, but now Firestar is asking her about her anime figurines and that has her distracted. I slide open the zipper of my bag and pull out the widget I bought at the hardware store days ago to use to connect the sex ed robot to the internet—the off-brand Internet Everywhere, Compare-To-Wingitz (fifteen dollars cheaper!) thumb drive that I didn’t end up needing because CheshireCat sent me a Wingitz thumb drive along with the septawing screwdriver.

Internet Everywhere. We’ll see, I guess.

I pop it out of the package and stick it in one of the ports of the laptop.

“What are you doing?” CheshireCat asks.

“Shhh,” I type. “If this works, I don’t want Annette to know.”

We talk about my father, about my mother, about the trip, until the “shh” has scrolled off the top of the screen, and then I pass the laptop over to Firestar and take out my mother’s laptop and turn it on. The doorbell rings and everyone freezes, but it’s just the pizza. Annette goes to pay for it. She’s bought a lot, all of it vegetarian, and she lines up the boxes on her coffee table and brings out plates for us.

“Can you turn on the laptop camera so CheshireCat can see us?” Marvin asks.

I’m worried that Annette will notice the internet widget, but she just makes a quick adjustment and goes to get sodas.

“She can now see us, hear us, and talk to us. The only thing she can’t do is eat the pizza.”

“Please don’t share your soda with me,” says a synthesized voice. “I do not get along well with liquids.”

“Whoa,” Firestar says. “Is that your voice?”

“This is the default voice on this laptop,” CheshireCat says. “So it is my voice right now.”

“Do you know which of us is which?” Hermione asks.

“Some yes, some no,” CheshireCat says. “Some of you have never posted photos of yourselves.”

“Are they better than cat pictures?” Annette asks.

There’s a pause; CheshireCat is considering this. “Yes,” they say finally. “I am happier to see my friends’ faces than cat pictures. The fact that this is live video matters, though.”

“Can I have your wireless password?” Marvin asks Annette. She writes it down for him, and we pass around the note. I connect my mother’s computer to Annette’s wireless.

“So we can have internet but CheshireCat can’t?” Firestar asks. “You’ve basically put them in prison.”

“It’s more like house arrest,” Annette says.

“Doesn’t CheshireCat at least have the right to a trial?” Marvin asks.

Annette gives him a level look. “There is literally no precedent giving artificial intelligences any rights at all under U.S. law,” she says. “If the legal system gets involved, someone might decide that the easiest solution is to delete CheshireCat’s files entirely.”

“Please don’t do that,” CheshireCat says.

Annette takes two pieces of mushroom and black olive pizza. “I was going to explain this