The Lesson

Jason leaned back on the bench and whispered to Keko, “Looks like he accepted it. Told you he would. No one can tell it's not my work.”

“I don't get it,” came the reply. “No one else has gotten higher than a B minus.”

“You really want to know? Come over to my place later and I'll show you.” Jason's nervous voice hid his intentions and they had nothing to do with essay writing.”

“In your dreams came the reply.”

Keko wasn't the only one who wanted to know how Jason, possibly the one person who should have failed, had gotten the highest mark on the technical part of the course.

As chairs scraped and the noise level in the room became almost painful, the teacher slammed his hand down on his desk and politely asked, “I know it's the end of the day and Friday, but I'd like everyone to go back to their seats for a moment.”

He waited until the mix of bored and agitated faces had settled down before he continued.

“I know that technology is not my subject, but I'd like to ask what you think about how AI is going to effect your world.”

Finally, the class thought – a real issue to discuss, not just more boring stuff.”

“I love AI,” came the first to answer from the back row of the room.

“Why do you love it, Jorge ?” the teacher asked.

“Because people's fridges will be able to order milk before they run out. We're always running out of milk at our house,” came the reply.

“Okay, good point,” said the teacher. “Anybody else want to say anything?”

And, as the class was silent, apart from some laughter and murmurs of approval at Jorge's answer the teacher took the stage.

Sure it was risky, as it was more than possibly that he'd be seen as just old and stupid, but he' decided to give it a try.

“How many of you like the Blues, Rock, Thrash Metal, or folk music?”

A few hands slowly went up, as no one knew where he was going next.

He tried again.

“So how many of you like Taylor Swift?”

All the girls hands went up.

“So what would you 'Swifties' think if AI produced her songs without her being any part of them? Would they be just as good?”

“That couldn't happen,” came a voice.

“Why not?” he answered with more enthusiasm in his voice.” When I was a kid there was a period called the sixties...” he started and was interrupted.

“Yeah, all free love and drugs...” came a voice, and the room erupted into whoops and cat calls.

“Anyway,” he continued, ignoring the snarky, but accurate comments, “it was all homegrown and mostly came out of what were called garage bands. That was until the music companies saw how much money these long-haired amateurs were making and decided to take over the music industry and in the process, killed the spontaneity with bands like the Monkeys – and then came Disco.”

“Disco was great,” shouted a voice.

“Yes, some of it was great, but my point is that business always takes over whatever makes money, and art needs to grow naturally.”

He stayed on the music theme as it seemed to work.

“Delta Blues, rock-and-roll, country rock, folk rock, heavy metal, Punk, Rap and Techno all came from people not computers. Art and fashion is the same way. Styles change when new ideas come along. Stop the progression and everything will look and be the same. Don't be fooled into thinking that computers on their own can create anything new because they can't. Only people can create; machines can, at best, only copy.”

As he finished, he looked around the room and realized that now one knew what the hell he was talking about. They just wanted to pick up their smart phones from the lock box and go.

But no one had understood his point and he wasn't done.

He'd been too vague for a generation that only understood bytes and the obvious.

“Now, I'd like to talk to you about your essays,” he started. “Only one of them was very good, some were passable, and five essays were exactly the same, which was so concerning that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.”

As he continued to speak he picked up a small stack of essays and asked, “Miguel, Alysia, Noah, Sheshaun and Keko please come to the front of the class.”

Then, standing to one side acting like the judge, jury and executioner that he was about to become, spoke to the five as a group.

“I'm disappointed in all five of you for not putting more effort into not at least trying to hide the fact that you plagiarized your essays. And don't any of you think that I might ready for this? I feel quite insulted.“

He waited for the accusation to sink in, but again it was obvious that it hadn't, and wasn't going to.”

“ Now, what you say if I were to order each of you to wash and vacuum my car and mow my lawn and trim the hedges?'

“That's illegal,” yelled the girl with the shortest skirt in the school.

The rest of the room howled and whistled, but it wasn't in support of the young offenders. They were enjoying the low level blood sport.

“Okay, okay, that's enough. Quieten down and let's let those who raise their hands speak.”

“You can't do that sir. It's against the rules. We'll report you for abuse,” said Sheshaun.

The teacher asked Keko to go to the board and write the word 'plagiarism.'

Tugging at her skirt, in vain, to make it longer, she reached the board and asked in a plaintive voice,”What word was that again?”

The teacher repeated the word and the girl stared back at him with a blank expression, as if he was speaking Mandarin.

“You should know the word, Keko, as it was in big red letters on the first screen of the software that you used for your essay. Does that ring a bell?”

He repeated word-for-word the warning that came up in large red letters, saying what the software should not be used for, only to be rewarded with another blank look, and, as he faced the other four, three had the same expressionless stare.

“So Noah, it looks like you had the AI program write your essay and then you let these others copy it. If you are planning to go to college, I'd major in politics.”

And with that comment, he was starting to make himself uncomfortable, possibly leaving himself open to charges of malfeasance, so he told everyone that class was dismissed.

“Even me?” asked the at the board who was asked to spell plagiarism - her voice now brighter, as she realized that she was home-free.

“Even you, Keko” he replied with sadness.

The teacher's expression changed, as if a light had gone on.

“Hold on everyone, I've just thought of something that will benefit us all,” he started. “First of all, I want you to know that I care about each of you and want you all to be successful in life.”

He ignore the stifled yawns and a few muttered insults.

”So, as many of you enjoy talking during our lessons, I would like to give each of you your own personal voice.”

The pause that followed wasn't out of respect for what came next, but just dry insolence.

The last words came as the teacher stood in the doorway to beckon the class out.

“So, for the rest of the semester, all essays will be delivered orally, because memorization is wonderful for brain development and will help you later on in life. And, I recommend that you use AI resources as much as you like. Go now and enjoy your weekend.”

The muttering could be heard less and less, as the automatic door slowly closed.

“Jason, wait for me,” shouted Keko.

Jason stopped and knew what was coming next, so he struck a pose that said, what will you do to know how I aced the paper. But his obvious comment was ignored.

“He's such a creep. He didn't have to embarrass me like that, and he was staring at my legs again.”

Keko had never been to the side of tracks where Jason's house was, and she was surprised to see that there were no posters on the walls in his bedroom and no decorations other than a lamp and two impressively large monitors connected to laptops.

“So, you're a nerd,” she said without humor. “I always thought so. That's why you always get A's on his stupid hard essay assignments.”

“No,” Jason defended himself. “ I just like learning - comes naturally to me. Just lucky I guess.”

“I don't see any luck,” and the half sneer on Keko's face said it all. “Your family's rich, so you don't have any problems. She was using the big BMW and the Mercedes sports car on the driveway as her guide. ”Anyway, what does your dad do?”

He's a programmer at a government department. He doesn't talk about it much - it's a secret.”

“So you got his brain? My dad works at the school.”

“Yeah, I know, he's the custodian,” Jason hadn't meant to blurt it out, so he quickly changed the subject.

“So you wanted to know how I get the best grades?” And he brought up the plagiarist warning that the teacher had talked about. Clicking through the warning, he brought up another screen that said, 'Stealth Mode.' “I programmed the AI kernel to create unique content that is ten million to one to be duplicated by anyone else using the software,” he said proudly. “Have you heard of Open Source?”

“Eh, yeah, sure, so you did cheat, just better than Noah did?” Keko answered, dismissively, not understanding much of what she'd heard, other than she might have discovered a more reliable system than having to rely on Noah's identically produced work, at high prices.

Now she looked bored, so it was obvious to Jason that he'd better come up with something better, or she'd go home.

“Okay, how would you like to get your own back?” and as he spoke a monitor flicked into life, and an image of the teacher who'd annoyed Keko came on the screen.

“So?'' said his annoyed guest as she stood to go.

“So this,” and tapping out a key combination, the teacher did a series of back-flips across the school yard.

“OMG, How'd you do that?”

“Easy. I just added his face to Miguel showing off during gym.”

“What else can you have him do,” she asked, and her face lit up, but not in a nice way.

“Anything. There's nothing I can't have him do,” and he tapped out another combination to bring the teacher to life singing Taylor Swift's latest hit.”

Keko's expression was now tinged with evil and it wasn't pretty, but Jason had always liked her, and he was just glad that she'd come up to his room.

Again she asked, ”So you can have him do anything?”

“Not him,” Jason explained slowly. “The image or video has to exist first. All I do is just add his face or body to it. It's called a Deep Fake.”

“That's what I meant,” came the reply, which was a bit terse. “If I send you a video, you can you put him in it?”

“Sure,” replied Jason as he felt that his opportunity having Keko in his room for anything other than conversation slipping away.

Keko said nothing as she stood and left.

Later that evening, Keko's email arrived in Jason's inbox with a porn video that she'd sent from her father's computer, with a request. “Use this.”

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