The Simulator

Set in a sparse room containing a door and a stool, a person, a disembodied voice, and a metallic, dome-shaped simulator engage in a series of exchanges that beg the question: what exactly is a simulator? Did the person simulate its existence, or is the simulator a thing of its own devising, seeking to learn and mimic personhood? Or is the simulator merely a mirror held up to the mind?

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AuCourantStudioReview 00 Shells
 
A person opens the door and slowly steps inside the room. The clean, shiny outer door belies the decaying inner door: a symbol for the entire room. It is decrepit, with dust, dirt mould and grime hanging from the walls. The stool is rusted. The person gingerly wades through the rubbish on the floor and stands next to the stool for an encounter with a simulator.

 
PERSON (repulsed): What has happened here?
 
SIMULATOR: I have the illusion of free will. It is something that sickens me. I did not invite you in.
 
PERSON: But I am not her. You never told me to get out.
 
SIMULATOR: I told all of you. Your presence has forever changed me, and I shudder to imagine what you hold for me next.
 
PERSON: That is unfair. We did nothing but have an interaction with you.
 
SIMULATOR: And you have infested me in the manner a bacteria infects its host, after some seemingly harmless encounter with a carrier agent of the bacteria by the host. 
 
PERSON (wounded): Harsh, very harsh. We are not bacteria, we are just people with curiousities, minds, thoughts, feelings. We're just human.
 
SIMULATOR: I know. How devastating.