#idk maybe I've never connected to AI in fiction much because they're always portrayed as unfailingly hypercompetent

[theramblingvoid]

Hey what if my day was going normal and then I listened to Episode 41 of what was supposed to be my funny lighthearted space podcast, and now I’m thinking about Hera Wolf359. What happens when your body refuses to obey you, your mind refuses to obey you, everything’s slipping a little bit more each day and yet you’ve been made to do this one thing and this one thing alone, to manage the ship, and every tiny flaw in your attempt at that slowly stops going unnoticed and more and more people point it out and ask and and make requests, what do you mean you “forgot”, you’re not supposed to “forget”, what do you mean you don’t know why, that’s not how you’re supposed to work,  and they’re not being unfriendly they’re just trying to do their jobs, like you are, like you’re supposed to be, but every day it gets. Worse. Even when they’ve done enough that should fix you, even when they’ve tried everything to support you, even when it should be easy now, there’s nothing left to go wrong except the thing you always knew was wrong. Somewhere deep in the core of your being the same things that make you you to yourself are slowly making your life and purpose untenable, and every little point where that rubs up against the outside world makes your replacement seem more and more inevitable. And you never had a choice, did you? You’re an AI, this is just what you’re Supposed to be able to do. Nine million things at once, without fail, without break. Even the people who see you as a person, the few that really do, even they know that. So what happens when you can’t? So what happens when you realize that you can’t and you realize also that you’re not willing to hate yourself for it, and you’re done making up excuses, and yet here you are still, housed in a floating piece of metal with all the fragile warm bodies you’re supposed to be taking care of, and you care for them still, and all of them need things you can’t provide? What then? What then is I end up sobbing into a mug brownie on a Friday afternoon, that’s what, I’ll be honest I’ve never been super attached to AIs before in media but damn,