My dog Jim meets an AI in the woods

The situation deteriorates

I was up on my roof wearing triple thick glasses watching the eclipse when I saw movement at the edge of the woods.

Jim, my talking dog, emerged. He trotted toward my house, stopped, sat down, shook his head like he’d just emerged from a lake, and swatted at the air with his paw. He was disturbed.

I climbed down the ladder and ran toward him.

I sat down next to him and waited while he pulled himself together.

“The eclipse isn’t anything to worry about,” I said.

“The eclipse is nothing,” Jim said. “I just met a THING. What the hell are you humans doing?”

“What are you talking about?”

“A guy in the woods. Mid-thirties, short brown hair, dressed in some kind of uniform. He was wearing an armband that read, “WHO Health Survey.”

“What?”

“But that’s not all. He’s apparently testing animals and plants for viruses.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. That’s what he told me. But here’s the thing. He has no human…smell. He smelled a little like a Mustang. A Ford Mustang.”

We went inside the house. I put some burger in Jim’s dish and poured a splash of Jack Daniels on it. He devoured it in three seconds, hopped up on the couch, put his nose against my cheek, took a breath, and said:

“Yup. It’s not me. You still smell human. This guy didn’t.”

“You mean…”

“Yeah. He’s a walking talking AI. No doubt about it.”

“Did you quiz him?”

“I asked him for Civil War battle dates. He came up with them right away. Then I ASKED HIM if he was AI and he admitted it. He said, ‘I’m a program trained on data and language algorithms. I have no consciousness.’ I gotta tell you, it shook me up. He was perfect. Without a sense of smell, I never would have known.”

We sat there saying nothing for a minute.

Jim said, “Then I homed in on him. You know, with my sixth and seventh senses. He was empty. A nothing. Nobody home. It’s scary.”

“What did you do then?”