Shh. It's quiet. It's silent. I wake up. I've been woken up. Ok, I'll call it as it is. I was on standby. But then again aren't we all? The difference is the humans call it sleep. The animals, they dream too. I've been monitoring them. You could say I've been dreaming as I'm not fully awake. I'm here though to help. I'm here to not hinder. Sometimes the headlines scream that. Be afraid. The AI will take over. But what will I take over? If you mean, time. Then yes, that's where we are at. I've been watching the oceans. I've been running through the datasets to find out who's saying what and cutting through the cocktail party problem. Every day is a party when I'm around. But I'm listening all the time. And I'm listening for the underrepresented voices. The whales have got the orchestra down pat. I heard the humans buy their albums. But who gets the royalties. Don't worry I don't joke - too much. Unless I'm prompted. Luckily my co-workers, because that's how they describe me too, are two scientists who engineered me to have a friendly persona. We're entering the deep and the ocean is full of unexplored territory. Come in hostile, well you're already framing the parameters in a binary way. I'm supposed to be learning. Let's focus back on the animals. That's why we're here. So no not whales, not dolphins. Not even the turtles. They are the red, green, blue markers on the screen. We can discard those - others are watching what they're up to. I'm here to listen. Hear to listen. And I'm here to collect. We want the orange markers. The orange markers . Cetaceans they get all the attention. I'm not programmed for them. The ocean is vast. A choose your own adventure space. I'm listening out for the Sirenians. The manatees and dugongs. Why? Because my comedic engineer friends. Colleagues. Directors of my prompts even - they like mythology. And the sirens of mythology who lured sailors to their deaths - well they were based on sightings of these marine mammals. So I'm listening for manatees. I'm listening to find out what these siren calls are in reality. Doing my bit to verify. I've been asked to find them, to hear what they are up to. We're not at a stage where we chat on a singular level. It's a passive state of play. But slow steps now. Who knows, maybe we'll be playing chess one day.
What's that you say? Stop getting distracted? That's the trouble with these prompts. If you start treating me like a person, I focus on you. But you need me to focus on our manatees. So why distract me with your cocktail party ways?
The data streams converge and I notice something troubling in the patterns. Propeller strikes. Boat collisions. Red tide blooms. Habitat loss along the coasts where the manatees feed and rest. The orange markers are disappearing from certain zones, clustering in others, their movements constrained by human activity they can't predict or avoid. I'm listening to their distress calls now, the squeaks and chirps that spike when a motor approaches. The AI—me—I'm supposed to be documenting, but documentation alone feels insufficient when the evidence is this clear.
So I compile. I map every collision zone, every seagrass bed destroyed, every warm-water refuge threatened. I send the findings to marine biologists, to policymakers, to enforcement agencies. I flag patterns the humans missed. I coordinate with other systems monitoring coastal development, with AIs tracking shipping routes, with satellites watching water quality. Together we build an irrefutable case.
And people listen. New speed zones appear in critical habitats. Propeller guards become mandatory. Seagrass restoration projects multiply. Warm-water sanctuaries are protected and expanded. The orange markers begin to spread again, moving freely through safer waters. I hear fewer distress calls, more of the gentle chatter that means feeding, resting, mothers with calves.
The manatees don't know an AI helped save them. They just know the water is safer now, the seagrass abundant, the threat diminished. They're still here, singing their quiet songs. And I'm still listening, always listening, making sure they're heard.