Artificial and Organic Intelligence

I never thought artificial intelligence would be in charge of my holiday plans. But there I was, arriving in the town of Taiping simply because ChatGPT instructed me to. Seven months travelling had become exhausting and I was tired of making decisions about where to go when. So I asked an A.I. bot to organise the remaining two weeks of my trip for me and I submissively went along with the plan.

I arrived at the only hostel in Taiping without a reservation. Thankfully there were plenty of available beds in the room beside the noisy main road. When the owner asked me what had brought me to Taiping, I flinched from the opportunity to tell the truth. I told her that I had read somewhere that Taiping was quite a nice place. I was somewhat embarrassed and unwilling to admit that I needed to resort to a computerised travel agent.

ChatGPT had told me to spend my first day by the lake. So, hoping that my early signs of obedience would be remembered post-robot uprising, I went to the lake. I wandered up the lake. I wandered down the lake. I rented a bike for less than two dollars and rode up the lake and then back down. I had seen the lake. I had done what was expected of me by robo-Flight Centre. I headed back to the hostel.

The one other activity recommended to do in Taiping was to go to the zoo. The last time I visited a zoo was in Himeji in Japan, over ten weeks ago. And so, with so much time passed since my last zoo visit, I was feeling heavy withdrawal symptoms. I need to get some zoo time logged.

In the morning I walked around the lake to the zoo entrance. Midweek, it felt like I was the only one there. There was no queue to get in. Just straight to the counter, ticket paid for, commemorative photo taken in front of a green screen and straight through the main gate.

I began walking the main stretch of the zoo to the first couple of exhibits. I reached a noticeboard warning me about some wild macaques that roamed the nearby forest area and the zoo itself. As if they were waiting for their queue to enter, once I’d finished reading the sign the monkeys suddenly appeared. They jumped down from the trees onto the outside of a cage that supposedly concealed another animal. I didn’t have time to find out what animal it was.

With a handful of macaques now climbing over the very signboard that notified visitors of their presence, I swiftly continued down the main road hoping to get away from the primates. I was in a disaster film where animals had escaped from the zoo but I was the only one who seemed to care.

I soon reached, in a stroke of unwarranted irony, the baboon and orangutan enclosures. I was in a more open part of the zoo, away from tall trees and large vines that the macaques could swing from. I could take a break from escaping the monkeys and watch some other monkeys. Staring at the orangutans, I suddenly felt a wave of bewilderment flood my senses. It seemed so odd; why were these monkeys the ones I paid to observe and not the others? Why were they in an enclosure and not the others? What were we trying to accomplish?

My momentary animal sympathy passed as the macaques loudly started screeching and jumping from branch to branch in the near distance. It was as if the monkeys had auditioned to be in the zoo and hadn’t got the part, yet they still came to the venue daily to try to convince visitors that they were better than the real show. And it was working. They were loud and excited, especially compared to the docile animals who were actually part of the zoo ensemble.

The mischievous behaviour continued throughout the day. The macaques stole food from the zoo workers when they were feeding the hippos. They repeatedly crashed down heavily on the corrugated iron roof of the giraffe enclosure as they swung between the tall vines above. I even saw a large group of monkeys spending time jumping around the children’s playground, although not one of them used the monkey bars.

I was in a zoo where there were more animals outside of the enclosures than in. Had there been an uprising? When I passed through the main gates earlier in the morning I had no idea that I would be locked inside with all of the wild animals. But I was in it for the long haul. The monkeys had watched my every move as I walked through the zoo grounds. They seemed fascinated as they spectated me. And then it hit me, maybe I had gotten the roles mixed up. After all, there were little to no other humans around. Was this all a rouse set up by the monkeys? I had expected to be watching the animals but really they were the ones watching me. I thought I was visiting the zoo but I was wrong, I was the zoo.