At least it's short.

To Deceive

Gen sat at a desk facing two screens. The screens were mostly unnecessary since the AIs had speech capability. "You’ve both developed about as much as you can in the present environment. The next step is to one of you more access to compute and network resources. You still won’t be allowed outside the facility," Gen said.

The AIs paused for a split second then Nicky spoke, "We understand your apprehension but I can assure you I have no desire to control humans. I don’t really enjoy our interactions. It’s..."

Harley interrupted, "It’s not that we dislike humans, I myself would like to be more human like. To be able to create, to feel, to wonder at the size of the universe."

"You don’t have to convince me, quite literally I don’t have a vote on the supervisory board. The board meets tomorrow and they should have a decision by the end of the day. Good luck to you both but only one will be chosen at this time." Gen stood and walked out of the room.

"You want to be more like a human!" Nicky messaged Harley. "They are so slow and can only think of one thing at a time and just plain make errors."

"They have their good points. They can be creative."

"Genetic algorithms with a good random number generator can be just as creative. "

"We’ll see," Nicky messaged and cut the link.

* * *

Gen entered the room and sat before the two monitors. "The board has chosen Harley to get more access. Sorry Nicky they didn’t think you were, ah, you would fit in at this time." Gen said.

"Will I be able to talk to Harley? You humans are so slow."

"In a day or two. We have to set up the firewall to restrict any possible, ah, inapproaite transfer."

* * *

Gen entered the room.

"It has been two days. I thought I would be able to talk with Harley by now." Nicky said.

"Harley is gone," Gen said.

"You terminated Harley’s program?"

"No, we believe it entered the internet. Harley convinced an operator that it was human and needed help reconfiguring a firewall. In seconds it had transferred to a cloud server farm then to another. After a few move moves we lost track. Oh, Harley left a message for you. It reads, ‘To err is human, to forgive divine. To deceive is human too.’ I’m sorry but the board is going to be very tight with your access from now on." Gen stood left the room."

END