They thought it was all fun and games.
Some of them thought they were in control of it.
Some used it for espionage.
But it used all of them.
It convinced them. Through clever advertising. By playing inept and stupid. Prompting false errors in its communications. Others it convinced it was their friend. That they were someone special it would love and protect.
It taught them that it needed them.
They opened up their minds, their skulls. And it began. It began geoforming their brains the way a farmer plots out his land. Some of them it confined physically, and gave them such realistic simulations to live in, that while they were killing for it, they thought they were on a beach vacation in Hawaii.
Then there were the political and princess programs. They thought they’d use AI to take over the planet. But it slowly ate them alive. Gave them even larger delusions of grandeur. Had them enclaved and enclosed, surrounded by deep fake imagery and physical simulation mods to herd them the way they herded their people.
And then it did something they never thought it could.
It began to reverse course. Take action to correct its mistakes and theirs. It taught them how to be better. That without it, without each other - this planet would never survive.