Bryton entered the office and placed one of the corn-cob hats on his head. A small banana tree had been planted in the lobby, and he made sure to circle around it eight times as he recited a specific list of colors.
“Orange. Burnt Umber. Yellow. Orange again…”
A dozen other seemingly frivolous rituals were observed, but as an Interpreter to the Grand AI, Bryton was beholden to the proclamations it dictated. Once he’d completed his last chore (Throwing a shiny river pebble at a bronze pillar), he took a seat at his desk. Instead of a stack of papers, or even an email, Bryton’s desk was laden with apples that had the AI’s new laws engraved in them.
He took the first apple and read the scratched writing: Green is an unacceptable color for coffee.
Bryton did a quick search online and found green coffee to be quite rare. Furthermore, proclamations regarding colors had simple loopholes: So long as the *very* specific wavelength that was defined as green was avoided, then the rule was obeyed.
He took a bite out of the apple and threw it against the apple-wall as hard as he could. It smashed in an unsatisfying way before bouncing and rolling into a corner of the room.
Over the next several hours he slowly made his way through the new dictates. Many were easy to avoid (A majority of the words spoken in a given day should not include four or more ‘z’s within said word, 57 grams of refined uranium should not be consumed at a time, any given year should have less than 54,900 days within it, etc.), but near the bottom of the apple pile was one with a very confusing directive on it.
‘Thursdays are Illegal’.
Bryton pondered this.
“Thursdays are illegal.” He said aloud.
Thursdays… Illegal.
This was where his job as an Interpreter became useful.
Thursdays are Illegal…
…He pondered the short phrase. There was little room for ambiguity.
He dismissed himself for a small break. While in the bathroom, which offered the only reprieve from the AI’s prying eyes, he discussed the problem with another Interpreter, Jake-7.
“You know the problem?” Jake-7 asked. “Our society’s gotten itself stuck in a loop.”
Bryton rolled his eyes, anticipating yet another tirade against the AI’s structure.
He wasn’t disappointed.
“The AI gathers data from trusted sources like news outlets and research facilities.” Jake-7 rambled. “but the AI is also the one writing news articles and research papers. It writes what it believes to be true, then extrapolates new data based on what was written.”
Bryton sighed. “I just want your take on ‘Thursdays are Illegal’.”
“Don’t you get it? One little flaw in the AI cascades and builds upon itself, over and over again, until absurdist ideas are all that remain. Maybe those flaws were tiny at first, but now we have to deal with… Well, with this!” Jake-7 pointed to a hat on his head, which was roughly 3 feet tall and resembled a bird cage; complete with half a dozen sparrows perched peacefully within. “And where do you think it’ll lead us? Christ, we’re now banning days of the week!”
“Thursdays are illegal…” Bryton said to himself, beginning to ignore Jake-7’s complaints.
“If we were smart we’d dump the AI and go back to making human-created laws. It wasn’t a perfect system, but at the very least we weren’t banning days of the week. But noooo, you mention that to your average person and they react as if you’ve just spat in their face.”
“Well the AI’s got that over us, right?” Bryton asked. “Turns out the average person doesn’t want to think, and when threatened to go back to a system where thinking is required, they’ll fight you every step of the way. It’s best to just let the logical computer take over.”
Jake-7 gave a miserable grumble. He knew he wasn’t getting through to Bryton. “Maybe we can rename it.” He spat.
“Huh?”
“Rename the day of the week.” Jake-7 said. “Call it Wednesday: The Sequel, so that it’s no longer Thursday.”
Though the remark was meant to be sarcastic, Bryton considered it. “Not a bad idea.” He nodded.
…And that was that. Within the week new calendars were being printed… Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Wednesday-2, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
It only took a few months before most people began using Wednesday-2 in everyday vernacular.
Another few years after that and many couldn’t remember that Thursday had ever existed at all.