The End of ‘OrgHum’ Content

She opened her eyes to the concentrated orange imitation of sunrise spilling from her light alarm clock. Beyond the slats of the blinds, the winter sky remained stubbornly blue-black. Six a.m. Time to get up.

Before throwing off the blanket, she paused - caught, unexpectedly, in a half-remembered childhood reflex - waiting for the bite of cool air to greet her skin. Back then, the stove would be barely alive by morning, the house colder than it had any right to be. Her lips instinctively readied to droll into the familiar but nearly forgotten ‘Brrr’ in protest to the cold. But when she finally pushed the blanket aside, nothing happened. No chill. No contrast. Just a perfectly regulated, perfectly unremarkable temperature.

Of course, she thought, brushing the uninvited memories away. What else would the temperature be in a normal modern apartment? She added with faint irritation, Now is not the time to indulge in nostalgia.

A perfect apartment. Perfect conditions. Breakfast and coffee prepared at precisely the right moment. Once, when AI had first appeared, no one could have imagined this level of optimization. No unnecessary movements. So much time liberated for self-realization and…

She faltered, a slight frown interrupting the thought. What is wrong with me today? Thinking about nonsense!

She stopped in front of the chatbot interface and smiled, noticing her daughter’s recent request still lingering there: ‘A kind but funny story about elves and unicorns with a happy ending.’
I should ask Odille about that later, she noted to herself, clearing the prompt.

She thought for a moment, then began typing:

‘Science fiction story in the style of Orson Scott Card.
Include: real-world geography of Earth; historical facts; a summary of today’s news relevant to me; images of sunrise in the Alps.
Reading time: 1 hour.’

She paused, muttering softly to herself, “Might as well review the concepts I recently learned,” then added:

‘Include: quantitative easing in Japan’s economy; Brené Brown’s emotional framework; cognitive empathy in artificial intelligence.
Use: Spanish equivalents for simple words.’

She submitted the request, already anticipating to read the story in a few minutes, and headed to brush her teeth, catching, in the corner of her eye, a flicker of a news notification on her phone.

She exhaled, annoyed at another silly ‘update,’ making a mental note to disable those notifications. The chatbot and her curated social-literary network already delivered to her everything and anything that actually mattered in her life.

She pulled the toothbrush from her mouth, directing her indignation at the innocent object and its perfect set of perfectly soft bristles. “When will these protesters finally calm down and accept reality? How long can people keep clinging to so-called ‘original human content’ or, as AI so fittingly calls it - the ‘OrgHum’ Content?” she muttered. “Humans simply can’t produce as much, or as well, as AI - unlike it, we’re bound by physical limitations. They just need to accept it and move on. After all, I have, haven’t I? And I used to write OrgHum, too…”

She stopped.

It had been six years since she’d written her final story - a story about her fear of AI and what it might mean for the future of human storytelling. Six years since she had last written anything.

Her eyes flew open in sudden terror, and she jolted upright in bed, nearly tangling herself in the blanket.

And then, just as quickly, the fear loosened its grip.

Real sunlight filtered into the room. Cool air brushed against her skin, gently, unmistakably real, inviting her to wake up.

The end of the OrgHum Content was, for now, still only a fear.

P.S. This was originally written in Russian a few years ago (as can be derived from the rather simplistic prompt ideas), and since I find translation exercises perfectly odious, I leveraged assistance of Amadeus (my ChatGPT) to take an initial stab at the translation before editing it further.