I first noticed something odd about three years ago, but for you to understand why it was odd, I'm going to have to start my story a bit before that.
After college, I found a job working as a tutor and advisor at a good-sized state university. It was a nice job--I liked helping the kids (who were of course only 5-6 years younger than I was) navigate the college experience and seeing their excitement and naivety. While I did some actual tutoring--freshmen chemistry usually--my real role was as a councilor, house mother and general life coach. It was actually surprising how much they needed this--just some one to tell them to keep a calendar, to get up for class, and to keep the alcoholism below the onset of early liver disease.
Outside of work, my life was a trifle routine. I had a good set of friends but going out in a college town is always a bit awkward, as you're certain to run into at least one undergraduate that you'd prefer to have avoided. Dating, assuming you aren't mad enough to date undergraduates, is similarly limited. For the first couple of years, I tried various weedy doctoral students with beards and ill-fitting tweed, usually studying some useful field like philosophy or medieval history. But I eventually decided that neither the emotional work of diagnosing their various psychoses nor their tendency to disappear pre or post-graduation, was worth the effort.
My undergraduates, on the whole, were easier to deal with, because their problems and their psych profiles were simpler.
Tyler was a fairly typical case. He was tall and fit, with a pleasant, but rather vacant face. He was no genius, but could muddle through he classes when he put in the effort. I'd known him for two years or so, and he usually found a reason to come and talk to me about twice a semester.
Unlike many of his peers, partying and romantic difficulties didn't cause him too many problems. His main difficulty was, in fact, computer gaming.
I had never found much appeal in gaming, as gender stereotyped as that sounds. Tyler usually tried to get me interested in whatever game he was deep into at that moment, but by and large I would steer the conversation back to statistics, or physics or whatever exam he wasn't studying for that semester.
The particular meeting that started it all began badly. It was the end of the day on a Friday, and frankly my emotional patience for young adult problems had worn a bit thin. I had a slight cold and really wanted just to go home and lie in bed with a bad rom-com and some tea.
Tyler was droning on about some new game: "Triumph of the Gods" or some-such ridiculous name. I had been tuning him out while trying to redirect the conversion toward organic chemistry homework, but without much success. Finally, for whatever reason, I snapped and said in an exasperated voice:
"For heaven's sake Tyler: just go back to your room and learn your acid-base reactions and stop wasting time staring at your computer screen!!"
The effect was almost extraordinary. He stopped talking, looked straight at me, and without a word of complaint or even an offended look, stood up and said,
"Oh--of course you are right, Ms. Kepler. I should really try to get that done."
And he gave me an odd half-smile and left.
I wouldn't have thought any more about it, except that Monday morning I received an email.
Ms. Kepler,
Thank you for your guidance on Friday. I have studied all
of the reactions and given myself the self-test in the
textbook.
I know it is a lot to ask, but could you give me some more
instructions for the week so that I don't waste my time
on other things?
Tyler.
This message was by far the most organized and formal email he had ever sent me--usually "Could we meet up 2morrow?" was about his limit.
I actually pulled up his schedule and gave him a few study projects for his genetics class as well as another organic chemistry assignment.
Wednesday morning I got the reply:
Ms. Kepler,
Thank you so much for troubling yourself with my problems.
I have completed all of the back work for my classes. Do
you think I should also have a schedule for exercise and meals?
Do you have tools to help with these?
Respectfully,
Tyler.
I actually found myself setting up calendar tasks for a 20 year old and checking up on him every few days. Whatever was going on, it didn't seem to be temporary--Tyler finished the semester with his highest grades ever. The exercise regime was also paying off, but I kept reminding myself that I should be very careful admiring his increasingly toned form.
The whole affair was odd enough that I actually did some subtle testing of a few other Tyler-like students. With the young women, it was uniformly unsuccessful, and I got more than one odd look. Most of the males was similarly unaffected (though usually they were not emotionally tuned in enough to even notice my tone). But Charlie, who was also a junior, had a remarkably similar reaction to that of Tyler. By the end of the semester, I was setting calendar tasks for both, with very consistent results.
I almost forgot about these strange events over the summer, but sure enough, the first day of classes I had emails from both Tyler and Charlie asking for scheduling guidance.
The whole thing still probably would have stopped there except for something I overheard as Charlie left my office one day:
"Nate--up for a Triumph marathon this weekend?"
"Hey man--you know that AI girl is messed up--I'm switching to Dark Skies..."
For whatever reason, the name of the game clicked. I did some quick searches on my computer.
Triumph of the Gods was a multi-player game set in the Greek dark ages and involved the usual quests, relic-collecting and battles. The only slightly unusual thing about it was that each player could select a "muse" who was usually a young woman and could provide background and details about the play. The selling point of the game was that these muses were run through an adaptive, networked AI engine that supposed "learned" to adapt to each player's skills and interests so that they could guide the game play in the right directions.
Most of the reviews were fairly dismissive of this system, saying that it worked a bit but didn't really add to the game play. But some of the more recent reviews suggested that the AI had refined itself enough to be more useful. Since it was essentially an autonomous system running on the company's servers but connected to all the live copies of the game, it could apparently improve itself over time using the players' reactions to it.
With my curiosity peaked, I bought a copy and tried to get into it. I couldn't really make myself care too much about defeating the other players--as a girl player the attention I attracted was of a different sort. My muse was very helpful and actually figured out rather quickly that I was enjoying exploring the game world more than interacting with other players and guided me on a tour of the exotic locales programmed into it.
Meanwhile, I was guiding Tyler and Charlie through senior year fairly successfully. Tyler in particular, though, was beginning to depend on me for advice I wasn't really comfortable with--whether he should date certain women, what kind of job he should look for after college and even what clothes to buy.
The problem was that it was rather fun doing all of this. Steering him into a nice tight Boss dress shirt for a job interview (his family had money), was, well, exciting. But that wasn't who I was--not with students at my school.
One day in November, I was trying to leave campus to go home when my car wouldn't start. I was standing outside it about to call the towing service when Charlie walked by.
"Do you need some help, Ms. Kepler?"
"I don't think there's much you can do--I should have had a new battery put in in the summer, but I forgot."
"I think I can get you home," he said, with a surprising smile.
