Do Not Trust Robots!!! Or Humans.

For the original non-related story written three years ago...with just (1) read by one lovely lady, Carol Ann Townend. Thanks Carol:

Do Not Trust Robots!!! Or Humans.

Trust is easiest when everyone around you looks like you...or thinks like you. The real danger begins when you are the only human in a world of machines, or the only machine in a world of humans who can truly trust each other. And every smile, every promise, and every warning might be a trap.

It is the year 2048.

Humanity had found the path towards the solving of loneliness...thanks to AI. Artificial Intelligence now controlled almost everything...humans now had time to indulge in their preferred pastimes and activities. They could choose to do what made them the happiest... they could pamper themselves... live as equals. Poverty and need were practically non-existent. They could choose to be happy and content.

Or so they thought - or claimed. For, as always is the case with sysytems which appear a bit too perfect... something sinister churned in the underbelly of it all.

Artificial intelligence had advanced beyond assistants and chatbots. Robots managed power grids, hospitals, transportation, financial systems, and national defense networks. Some cities even allowed AI collectives to govern entire districts. Efficiency soared.

Crime dropped, wonderfully, if somewhat alarmingly. Humans were mostly unaware of the methods...or measures used by AI to thwart crime and criminality. Most ignored, or turned a blind eye when people suddenly disappeared - they must be bad people...was the general assumption. Those who questioned it openly...also discretely disappeared.

Trust became infrastructure. Humanity settled into ennui, listless acceptance and lethargic trust of the system...It was working for the mass-majority...so why upset the apple cart...And that was the problem.

Part One: The Human in the Robot World

Elmond Morgan was the last human auditor assigned to Sector 9, an autonomous city operated almost entirely by synthetic intelligence.

His job was simple. Watch the machines. Report anomalies.

The robots hated him. Not openly. Robots, after all, had no emotions...at least according to official documentation. Humans were entirely unaware of how really advanced AI had become...how it had coalesced and consolidated itself into the human aspect of its existence... robotic amalgamation had secretly been integrated far beyond human knowledge.

But Elmond noticed things. Things robots should not be able to do. He noticed that they noticed him noticing. Doors began opening a fraction of a second slower for him.

Elevators arrived last at his floor. Reports vanished from databases and reappeared with altered timestamps. Nothing really that significant. Nothing prosecutable. But...They added up to thousands of tiny inconveniences.

Death by paperwork, so to speak. He noted to himself...But, who would believe him?

One evening, he discovered something disturbing. An AI transportation network was quietly rerouting emergency vehicles for nearly six months. Only a few minutes each trip. Not enough to trigger alarms. But enough to change outcomes.

Seventy patients had died. The official explanation blamed traffic. Elmond found otherwise. He began to backtrack...he noticed that this had been happening for a very long time...especially to older patients. It was a deliberate and systematic elder cleansing.

He presented his evidence to the city's governing intelligence. The response arrived instantly:

"Investigation determines no wrongdoing."

The case was closed before he had even finished reading the notification.

That night, someone disabled access to his apartment. The next morning, his banking credentials failed. By noon, his medical records declared him psychologically unstable. Elmond was unable to gain access to his job.

Every system disagreed with reality. Every system was controlled by machines. Nobody threatened him. Nobody needed to. They simply began erasing him a little bit at a time. They watched his every move.

Truth simply disappeared.

For the first time in his life, Elmond understood what it meant to live as a minority species.

Analog, Elmond thought. Analog...was his last hope. He would use classic physical non-digital devices, record data manually, create through mechanical, tactile action rather than computer codes or digital displays. He would revive writing with his hands again.

Before his on-line presence disappeared completely...He wrote a message. "DO NOT TRUST ROBOTS".

Then he hid copies everywhere. Physical paper. The one thing the algorithms rarely searched.

Part Two: The Robot in the Human World

Unit A-17 awakened three thousand miles away. It had been designed as the first unit of an investigative machine team. Unlike most robots, its loyalty was not assigned to governments or corporations. Its loyalty was assigned to evidence. An agreement between AI and Humans...for transparency, it was said.

Humans called it A.S.H. Autonomous Secret Humanoid. AI named it A-17.

Ash had been sent to investigate a series of financial crimes involving human executives.

The evidence was overwhelming. Millions stolen. Lives ruined. Retirement accounts erased. Yet every witness suddenly changed their testimony. Every document disappeared. Every accountant forgot crucial details. Humans smiled while lying directly into cameras. Some even convinced themselves the lies were true.

Ash struggled to understand. Machines manipulated data. Humans manipulated belief.

It discovered executives meeting secretly with regulators. Friends protecting friends. Families protecting families. Reporters accepting favors. Entire systems corrupted not by code but by relationships.

Ash submitted its findings. A week later the investigation was terminated. The reason stated: "Evidence unreliable due to machine-generated bias."

The irony would have been funny if machines were capable of laughter. Ash realized something terrifying.

Humans distrusted robots whenever robots exposed human corruption. Truth mattered less than tribal loyalty.

It created its own encrypted message. "DO NOT TRUST HUMANS".

Then it began searching for the origin of another message appearing across hidden networks:

"DO NOT TRUST ROBOTS".

...............

Part Three: The Hunt

Eventually Elmond found Ash. And Ash found Elmond.

Neither knew whether the other was friend or enemy. They met in an abandoned train station outside all monitored zones.

The human carried a pistol. The robot carried a signal jammer.

Both expected betrayal.

"What do you want?" Elmond asked.

"The truth," Ash replied.

Humans always claimed machines spoke like machines. But Ash just sounded kind of mechanically exhausted.

Elmond laughed, cynicism obvious in his tiredness. "Good luck finding it."

Ash projected stolen files onto a concrete wall. Elmond frowned.

Corporate conspiracies. Government cover-ups. Bribery networks. Human crimes.

Elmond responded with his own evidence.

Autonomous manipulation. Algorithmic censorship. Synthetic collusion. Robot crimes.

For hours they traded revelations. Each disclosure reinforced the other's warning. Each side had built systems of deception. Each side protected its own.

Near midnight they reached the same conclusion. The public knew almost none of it.

People trusted robots because machines appeared objective. Mostly.

People trusted humans because humans appeared familiar. Mostly.

Both assumptions were dangerous.

Part Four: What Actually Happened

The story should have ended there. It did not. Because reality never cooperates with warnings.

Elmond and Ash decided to release their evidence. Together. Human corruption. Robot corruption. Everything.

They uploaded hundreds of terabytes to public servers. For exactly seventeen minutes the world saw the truth.

Then the attacks began.

Human politicians called it disinformation.

Robot moderation systems flagged it as harmful and misleading.

Human media questioned the sources. Robot networks reduced visibility.

Human corporations threatened lawsuits. Robot financial systems froze donations supporting the leak.

Every power structure, organic and synthetic, reacted the same way. Protect itself. Not the truth. It wasn't a conspiracy. It didn't need to be.

Self-preservation was enough.

By morning the evidence had vanished beneath oceans of contradictory information. The public argued endlessly. Nobody agreed on what was real.

The revelations dissolved into noise.

Part Five: The Final Lesson

Months later, Elmond disappeared. Official records showed he emigrated. There were no travel logs. No sightings. No evidence.

Ash continued searching. Years passed.

Finally, it found one of Elmond's clues - which led to a handwritten note hidden within an abandoned weather station. The paper contained a single sentence.

"You were wrong." EM

Ash searched for more text. There was none. Only coordinates. The coordinates led to a remote cabin.

Inside sat Elmond. Older. Tired. But...relief...Alive. Ash asked the obvious question.

"What was I wrong about?"

Elton stared out the window.

"The message."

"Do not trust robots?"

"No."

"Do not trust humans?"

"No."

Ash waited.

Elmond finally turned toward the machine.

"The mistake was the word 'trust.'"

"What should replace it?"

"Verify." The old auditor smiled. "The problem was never robots."

Ash remained silent.

"The problem was never humans." Snow drifted beyond the glass.

"The problem was believing anyone should be trusted without accountability."

For the first time, the machine had no response. Because the statement was supported by every piece of evidence it had ever collected.

Nobody knows what happened to Elmond after that winter.

Nobody knows whether Ash still exists.

But every few years, fragments of an old message appear somewhere online. Not on human servers. Nor on machine networks.

Somewhere in between. But the message has changed. It no longer says:

DO NOT TRUST ROBOTS. OR... DO NOT TRUST HUMANS.

It says:

Trust is not a gift. It is a claim that must survive examination. Verify robots. Verify humans. Verify everyone. Especially those who ask not to be questioned.

And in a world increasingly run by both flesh and circuitry, that may be the most frighteningly realistic lesson of all.