io9 is proud to present fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. Once a month, we feature a story from Lightspeed’s current issue. This month’s selection is “Teach Them a Story to Teach Them Kindness” by B. Pladek. Enjoy!
Teach Them a Story to Teach Them Kindness
by B. Pladek
USER: this is a message for Milwaukee Elementary’s curator Jude Towers, I hope this is the right address. anyway thanks for the story you had RIGHTR generate for my 10th graders’ Empathy Week. it was really great! can you tell me more about it?
CURATOR: I am happy to have fulfilled the assignment.
USER: this isn’t a trap, I promise! you curators are so scared of getting sued for using real writers. I KNOW you’d never do that. but I’ve liked all the stuff you’ve curated so far. my kids loved “the ones who don’t stay.” I loved it too. what a concept, the perfect city upheld by a single child’s misery! we had a better discussion about it than anything we’ve read so far. how’d you get RIGHTR to do that?
CURATOR: I’m glad the story was useful. I enjoyed it too.
USER: come on don’t be that way. I swear I just want to talk. look my name’s Booker. here’s my Instructor ID: 5-778. why do you enjoy it?
CURATOR: Because it’s an indictment of our failure to imagine a world without suffering
Because it’s so much more than a swipe at utilitarianism
Because if I didn’t send something real I was going to throw myself in the lake
Did your students learn empathy?
USER: yeah! more than that though. we talked about how hard it is to believe in a world where everyone’s happy. and how it seems like the story gives you a choice: would you leave or let the child suffer? but then joke’s on us, because we already live in that world. people suffer, we let it happen. we made our choice.
CURATOR: . . .
USER: anyway I’m sorry for bothering you. I guess I just wanted to talk with someone. you’d think this job would have more of that, talking about stories. real talk I mean. 10th graders are great but they only get you so far. thank you (and the AI) so much. I won’t bug you again.
CURATOR: Wait
Do you have a messenger address?
****
Dear Val,
Glad to hear you and Sula are settling in well, and that Pacifica’s wildfires aren’t too bad. You can stop apologizing. You aren’t abandoning me. I’m a big boy of 43. Sometimes your chosen family moves away, just like your bio one. The way you talk it’s as if you airdropped me into a New Dixie lynch mob! Lakes United isn’t great, but it’s fine. I’ve lived in it my whole life, ever since it was little old Wisconsin. I’ll be fine.
And let’s be honest, I was lonely before. That’s not your fault! It’s me. Classic Aquarius, shy and judgy. Now maybe that you two have left I’ll kick my own ass to do something about it. There’s this queer book club that meets every Wednesday. No AI, just real books. Can you imagine?
Obviously, I’m bitter about the new job. It’s fine, I can do it, but I swear it’s making me stupider. I guess it still hurts that I’m babysitting the same fucking AI that stole my career. I would’ve been an acquiring editor in two years! And now I just curate endless milquetoast RIGHTR fables for high schoolers, making them stupider too.
In 10 years they’ll sue me for child abuse.
At least one of the teachers seems nice. He texted me to let me know he liked Omelas. Small victories. And don’t worry, I scrub the titles so no one can tell. It’s not like the school admin checks anyway. They don’t give a shit. Also, none of them have read a book in their life.
Sorry for the whining. Please send more pics of little Gabbi, she is a perfect being of light and the one good thing in this terrible world. Funny, you never realize you want kids until someone else has them. Haha. Now you and Su know you won’t die alone, which I also definitely WON’T DO!! fuck, I shouldn’t write emails when I’m drinking.
anyway, I’m stupid, don’t listen to me. love you both so much.
xoxo
Jude
****
To: Jude A. Towers, Curator, Milwaukee High, Lakes United District #4
From: Principal Walker
Dear Jude,
This week the kids are learning about SELF-LOVE: 35 English classes, 1 story each, for 5 days. Remember
each RIGHTR story needs to be 100% unique so they can’t use bots to write their essays for them. As mandated
by Lakes United Federal Law (c.2047), please heed the following guidelines:
- Religious, racial, gender, class, and ability variants must EXACTLY match those of the Lakes United population: 67% white, 58% female, etc. (I know you’re a Transgender but don’t let that tempt you to put in more than 1 every 100 stories. Recall you people are less than 1% of the population!)
- All slurs—e.g., queer, fascist, slaveowner—are strictly prohibited.
- No politics: all stories must be strictly non-partisan. (Remember especially not to insult our neighbors to
the south. New Dixie has their system and we have ours. We must not teach our children to hate. For the
list of prohibited political concepts, e.g., “lynching,” please see the Appendix).
And remember RIGHTR’s Three Rs:
1. Relatability: EVERY child should be able to see himself in EVERY story!
2. Readability: Nothing that will harm students’ self-esteem by being too difficult!
3. Rectitude: Only stories that promote GOOD morals to create GOOD people!
A final note—I know you’re new to this job, so I just wanted to flag that in one of your RIGHTR stories for English 501, it wasn’t super clear who the bad guy was. You’ll want to tweak the algorithm a bit for next time. 🙂
Thanks,
Principal Walker
****
Booker: so why did you become a curator?
Jude: Because I LOVE AI that makes a joke of authorship
Because I hate myself
. . .
Booker: was it because you love stories so much?
Jude: . . .
Yes.
Booker: me too! that’s why I became a teacher. I remember when I was 11 and the first chatbots came out. I spent hours on them, telling myself stories. I really liked dragons. I generated endless fantasies about me flying away with them. it was such a comfort.
Jude: Comfort?