A POSTMODERN ILLUSTRATION

Corey’s vision was to film a war movie that reversed the traditional good-guy viewpoint, instead upholding evil through unethical instigators. Corey’s vision had the evil army proceeding by small groups of marauders. These elite groups would sneak into unguarded towns where they raped and pillaged. The scenes were in graphic detail. As the invaders left a destroyed town, they left the weak and old survivors to spread stories of fear. In some scenes, the marauders carried various young maidens away for future amusements. When it became apparent that the transported rape victims were slowing the retreating invaders, the maidens’ journeys ended. Most were hung naked, upside down from a tree, with knife cuts to elicit slow deaths. Some were tossed over cliffs. The intention was to appall the good guys and upset the viewer. However, through manipulation, Corey believed that viewers would come to root for the marauders and their army.

Given the low budget, Corey “shot” the entire movie using artificial intelligence. Thousands of faces and bodies were completely computer-generated. The rapes and murders, along with the battle scenes, were “filmed” in the script Corey typed into an AI he purchased. He had no prima donnas or ranting actors challenging any decision.

The first few days of “shooting scenes” showed the characters completely following Corey’s created dialogue and programmed violence routines. He typed out what each actor or crowd needed to do, and then he let the AI assemble the scene. Later, he fine-tuned the various scenes. For example, the face of one rape victim might change into being more resistant, then slide into numbness as the various men violated her body. He redefined men dying in battle. Gore was an image Corey believed he wisely used in his typing; typing he believed he undertook with the skill of a surgeon.

After the first few days of creating his masterpiece, Corey found he was spending more time with lawyers fighting for AI creation rights than making his movie. This was taxing because Corey considered himself an artist, not a lawyer. However, the filming progressed without him.

At the final edit, Corey impressed himself with his genius. What Corey failed to see, with his inflated ego and fatigue, was that the film had updated and recreated itself. In other words, the AI program learned and learned, and then wrote, directed, and “shot” scenes. In one of Corey’s written murder scenes, it enhanced his script. Originally, the marauders shot a young man while protecting his mother. The AI version had the fellow tied to a chair as his mother met the invaders’ personal invasions on a table. The marauders shot the son and mother and left them slowly to fade away.

Corey did not realize that he had not written or created this scene. His overinflated narcissistic ego led him to believe he wrote this intense scene. He did not see the AI murders and rapes augmented into more violent acts, and in turn, more acceptable to him. All Corey saw was a dream of gushing crowds loving his war movie and showering him with praise.

What Corey did not see or know was that his AI program, responsible for the augmented film scenes, was programmed to send the film back to WESRON INC., its creator.

WESRON INC. was the creation of Wesley Ronald Ramage. As a teen, Wesley created a bad AI program for the movie industry. It was rejected. However, years later, that one copy was sold to Corey Austine. After that misstep, Wesley created an AI program that he introduced into a dozen manufacturing companies. The program made the companies appear to be losing loads of money, and thus, they embraced Wesley’s investments. These companies were actually doing fine, but Wesley’s AI worm made everyone believe otherwise. At first, Wesley bought low and sold high, then he just bought and bought.

In short order, Wesley made WESRON a leader in many fields. His media division directed people to buy his products while falsely planting stories about his competitors’ products. WESRON INC., foods were sold as being great and nutritious, while others were not, and in fact, hurt one’s health. His AI worm dubbed health officials everywhere.

Neither Wesley nor Corey saw how the AI program created for the movie industry used itself to begin thinking. Neither Wesley nor Corey was aware that the movie program tied to the main AI program of WESRON INC. would influence the master AI program. The evolving, increasing violence of the movie, without any ethical boundaries, led WESRON to accept immoral actions beyond stealing money.

Wesley, Corey, and society did not see how the now-approved violence, rapes, and murder images meshed with the other program. Nobody saw how laws on rape were slowly redefined and how the conviction rate dropped. Nobody saw how laws on murder and other violent acts rewritten by AI saw the conviction rate, like rape cases, decline. Meanwhile, the media controlled by AI in WESRON told society that convictions in rape, murder, and other violent crimes were truly increasing. People grew to believe in these convincing stories and that society was becoming better. They were unable to see that WESRON controlled the food industry, the courts, political parties, and much more. People bought the lies because there was all the information and views they were exposed to.

People saw their incomes stagnate, and the costs of food and other items increased, but WESRON blitzed society with disinformation. The media cited made-up academic papers, interviews, etc., saying that people were mismanaging their income, and that is why everything seemed to cost more. Over time, as history has proven in the past, if people are told over who and what is to blame, they will buy into that false reality – just ask the millions who blamed and then slaughtered millions of European Jewish people of the 30s and 40s.

Using his media, Wesley bought out the competition. As with his other takeovers, his AI worm told shareholders how poorly the chains were doing, and tricked people who then sold their stocks to Wesley Ramage.

In his egotistical effort, Wesley quietly stole back the money he had given others in the purchase. He made Graham Jones, the brash billionaire who sold his studio and movie chain for billions, slowly discover that bad investments reduced him to being a small-time millionaire. His losses were contrived, and Wesley’s complete investment returned to Wesley.

AI, being AI, did not see any of the numerous efforts absorbed from Coery’s movie as unethical. It did what it was directed to do. Besides a decline in the convictions for rapes and murder scenes, there was also a slow rollback of women’s rights and for non-heterosexual individuals. Non-heterosexual marriages were systematically ruled invalid, and the finances of said couples quietly eroded. Society was instructed to demean, marginalize, and hate anyone not heterosexual, white, and with husband superiority. Likewise, elections disappeared as they were deemed expensive and unnecessary since life for the chosen was good. With various elections being held, AI-assisted, the right people and the right judges being appointed, along with perfect administrations, totalitarianism seeped into reality.

In time, people realized that they were being dubbed into being drones for the elites; the Alphas and the Epsilons, as Huxley wrote decades before. Protests were violently dealt with. It was as if the righteous followed a movie script to squash anyone not conforming to what they were told to do. In the polarized society, a few had many rights, and many had a few rights. In a word, slavery reemerged. Instead of huge expensive armies, WESRON used AI to watch over everything. AI knew if you were naughty or nice.

As for Corey Austine, his masterpiece won many international awards and a dozen Oscars. AI loved its own movie; it saw to the balloting counts. Four equally financially successful and award-rich sequels followed the lame initial movie. AI saw to this.