The hospital room around me faded into focus. The past few hours were a blur in my memory, but now I could clearly hear the monotonous mix of human voices and mechanical beeps. Around me were plain walls, and a curtain through which a gentle beam of sunlight shone, illuminating an enormous pile of lettuce at the foot of my bed.
“What happened?” I asked, and the man slumped on a chair next to me jumped up with a big grin on his face. I recognized the grin, but the hat seemed new. “Jimmy, what’s going on?”
“Amanda! Oh, you’re awake! And you recognize me!” He shook my hand and patted my shoulder repeatedly, after kicking aside heaps of lettuce in order to approach my bed.
“Jimmy, why am I in the hospital?” I didn’t feel injured or ill, just tired.
“Well, I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you so soon, but, um, you were in a coma. You woke up for the first time only yesterday, after six years. You had an accident, remember?”
Wait. Six years?! Jimmy seemed too excited by my awakening to notice my state of shock or to notify any medical personnel. He talked on and on, about my accident, my surgery, my family … ignoring the one subject that I felt needed to be clarified most urgently. At last, overcome with confusion, I interrupted him. “Man, can you please just explain the lettuce?”
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“Ah, the lettuce, yes. I believe that’s just a funny mix-up. I did ask the AI to bring you everyone’s letters when you woke up, but with my accent, it must have misunderstood.”
“What do you mean you asked the AI? How did …” everything was confusing and Jimmy’s explanations weren’t making it any easier. “I mean, where did it bring all this lettuce from?”
“Oh, you’ll be surprised to discover how technology has advanced in the time you were, um, sleeping. I just realized, you completely missed the invention of GAObje.”
“I missed the invention of garbage?” What was he blabbering about?
“GAObje. Well, that’s the official name, I think it stands for Generative Artificial Object. But you should call it ‘goobje’ like everyone else, unless you want to sound old. Hey, we should buy you some stuff when you get out of here! Nowadays you can have anything you can imagine, instantly and super cheap, all you need is a clear prompt. Here, try on my hat —”
He took off his leather hat, which seemed artisanal and was really quite elegant. However, when he moved over to place it on my head I was slightly disoriented by the lighting on the leather, which seemed unrelated to the lighting in the room; when he placed it on my head, a chill went down my spine.
“Jimmy, why is your hat wet?”
“It’s not, it just feels as if it is. These goobje algorithms still have a hard time generating textures, smells, etc., so sometimes you get ones that are a bit wonky.”
“Yuck,” I said, revolted.
“But it’s cool, isn’t it?” he said obliviously, and placed the hat back on his head. “And it cost about a hundredth of what an NI product would cost. An incredible time to be alive, eh?”
I assumed NI meant ‘natural intelligence’, but preferred not to get deeper into this mess. Trying to latch onto a bit of normalcy, I asked the most benign question I could think of.
“The time?” replied Jimmy. “Um, well, my watch is also goobje so I don’t know how reliable it is. I usually fact-check it with my phone, but now I’m out of battery. You’re welcome to have a look, though, see if you can make sense of it.”
He approached to give me a better view of his freckled arm, adorned with an ornate gold and silver watch. Inside, I could see a multitude of delicate gears turning quietly, harmoniously. The watch had three hands of identical length, and, like the wrist that bore it, was covered in freckles. Realization of what was happening finally dawned on me, and I smiled in relief as my bemusement turned into amusement.
“This is all a dream, right?” I asked, straightening up slightly and trying to shake my head. The motion made the room spin and I immediately stopped, uncertain whether this was just dizziness or if the room had actually spun.
