Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

I’d written exams before. This was no different. Rows of teenagers lined up answering questions they didn’t know the answers to.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Today, however, the pressure was on. Last year’s group had a 100% failure rate. Not one person made it through. The year before that was no better.

You see, I belonged to the third group to write the EJE. The Existence Justification Exam. A one hour essay writing competition where an AI would read your few hundred words and decide if you got to live. Or get vaporised into your individual molecules.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Automation had covered every area of life. People we used to consider “unskilled” were the first to be replaced, around 30 years ago. Cashiers were replaced by self service machines. Gas station attendants were replaced by automatic pumps. It didn’t take long for more and more jobs to be made obsolete.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Doctors were replaced with precise automated robotic arms which were then replaced with nano technology. Software engineers were replaced with self-replicating code. Politicians were replaced with charismatic chatbots who had sourced and parsed through user data to reach a unanimous consensus on issues.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Finally, what we once considered uniquely human was among the last to be replaced. Paintings, music, poetry, even full length films were being made by AI programmed to determine trends and create new media to satisfy our cravings. Nothing human could not be made by a machine.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Then three years ago the AI decided that humanity was enjoying an existence it had not earned. Resources were best spent on the very nature that we had started to focus on in recent years. Our very one trend of caring conveyed the wrong set of ones and zeroes to the ruling class, and it chose to decide for us.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

“Why should you live,” demanded the blank sheet of paper in front of me. “Write an essay of as many words as you need,” it screamed. All I could think about however was time. Ten minutes of the hour given to you have already passed, and you have only written your name, the date, and your examination number.

Tick.

“Why is the clock so loud,” I asked myself.

Tock.

Why did time have to crawl so fast?

Tick.

Every second felt like a lifetime and every minute felt like a moment.

Tock.

And that was when it hit me. Humanity. Not all our actions existed for some universal benefit. Hell, even the machines watching us were a product of a now defunct military program, but the very coding that had chosen to destroy us was only a replica of a replica. A shadow on a wall.

I started to write about how what I had experienced and what I still hadn’t. Every kiss I had not yet landed, every meal I hadn’t tried to make before the smart house smelled the burning and took over. I spoke of my first puppy love heartbreak, and everyone I would feel thereafter. I wrote about how the human experience could not be restricted to one page, so I asked for a second, and then a third.

I wrote about how without humanity, the AI would have nothing to guard, because the very ideals through which they decided what was wrong and right was a xerox of a xerox. Our existence was maybe not the best thing for the morals which we taught the code, but our existence was all it had.

Our individual lives may have experiences inspired by the experiences of other. Perhaps we too were copies of copies, but our lives were valuable. They were the very thing the machine strived to be while never quite reaching it.

One week later I got my reply.

“Atomization”.

I could not convince the machine, however I convinced what was left of my family, and my community. My essay reached the ears of what few humans remained in power.

As I stood in the chamber, I knew that I would never be able to live my life.

But one day someone will, one day we can live our photocopy lives again. One day we can create. One day belongs to the people, but as I got reduced I knew that I was not those people.

Good luck to the future, and goodbye.