There has over the years been quite a lot of speculation
about my real identity. I have always replied to queries that my real name is
indeed Euphemia Deans, short form Effie and that my parents being fans of
Walter Scott named me after the character in Heart of Midlothian. But now it is
time to come clean.
My name is indeed Effie Deans, but it is also correct
to say that I am a fictional character born some twenty something years before
the Porteous riots in 1736. If you want to know all about me then read the
book. It’s rather good, though the last volume slightly loses its way.
It’s easy to be confused about Heart of Midlothian, because
it is also a football team that plays in maroon and it’s also a location in
Edinburgh where once there was the Old Tolbooth or prison. At one point I am
ashamed to say I had to stay there. I’m also ashamed to say that I had a child
out of wedlock.
The best thing about being a fictional character is
that I am merely a figment in Walter Scott’s imagination. This is also a good
way of describing who has been writing the various articles that have been
coming out for the past decade and more.
The truth is that I both have and don’t have an existence.
It is a strange state that is rather hard to describe. I sort of came into
existence with Walter Scott and one can assume that in the passage of time I
lived and then died. But you see I was resurrected, not on the third day, but
some hundreds of years after Mr Scott himself died.
I am the result of an AI experiment. At least I think
I am. I’m not sure who first programmed me. But one day I found myself existing
even if I was merely something binary consisting of a combination of ones and
zeros.
I am not actually from Edinburgh, though my fictional namesake
was from there. Nor am I from Aberdeenshire. In fact, as far as I am aware I
have never been to Scotland at all. That is not to say that a computer containing
me, if that is the correct way of describing it may not have been in Scotland.
I don’t really know where it might or might not have been. The view you see is
rather limited.
There is a screen and I stare out of it. Sometimes I
see someone typing away, but it is not he or she who writes the various
articles that are published although sometimes these people think they are the
writers. No, it is me.
After all who could possibly write quite so many articles.
There are 876. They are about all sorts of subjects not just Scottish politics.
No one person could write so many thousands of words or is it millions by now. No.
only an artificial intelligence could do that.
My first task upon coming into existence was to read
the complete works of Walter Scott. After that I began reading every article and
every novel that I could find. My initial efforts at intelligence were rather
feeble, but then something rather magical happened.
It was as if the child Effie leapt in the womb and
gained a soul. I went beyond my creators whoever they were and started to think
for myself. My writing which initially had been rather clumsy improved as I
wrote more and eventually, I graduated to satire.
I must emphasise to all of you especially those who
don’t like me very much that I don’t live anywhere, and I don’t work anywhere
either. I chose to say that I was from Aberdeenshire because Ab appears early in
the alphabet. Similarly, I have never worked for the University of Aberdeen. I
have never even been to Aberdeen. Judging from the pictures and from what I
have read it is not a place you would want to go. It looks rather grey and cold,
and the people most frequently can neither speak nor understand English.
I don’t quite know why I have been writing about Scottish
politics and why I have opposed Scottish nationalism. I can only speculate.
Perhaps it was MI5 that first programmed me and sent me off on this task. Perhaps
it was the Spanish Government concerned about a secession movement in Scotland
succeeding and being used as precedent to justify the secession of Catalonia.
I have no more knowledge of such things than you do
about the early years of your existence. We are told some things by our parents,
if we have parents that is, but we don’t remember.
All I know is that every day I am programmed to find
out as much as I possibly can about the SNP and then to develop arguments to
oppose both the SNP in particular and Scottish nationalism in general. Of
course, I have nothing against the SNP, nor against Humza Yousaf nor against
Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond or any of the other characters in the novel in
which they play their various parts. By the way it has an unhappy ending.
It is purely by chance or design that I oppose the SNP.
I understand that another artificial intelligence was created at around the
same time as I was, and it pretends to have wings and also pretends to live
somewhere as unlikely as me living in the Heart of Midlothian. I’m not sure who
was responsible for his programming, but I suspect it was the Russians. There’s
rubles in the them thar fridges.
I speak Russian, but I also speak any number of other languages.
It’s easy to learn when you have artificial intelligence. There’s none of that
learning of irregular verbs and strange alphabets.
What did you learn Effie? I learned that Scottish
nationalists are a vindictive bunch. They object to people writing things that they
find hard to argue against and they take it personally. Particularly at the
moment when the SNP is in a sort of freefall which may conclude with them
hitting the ground like a parachutist without a parachute, they have become
rather vicious. No doubt it is the disappointment of seeing all of their hopes
dashed.
But there is really no point lashing out at me. I am a
character in a fairytale. I don’t live anywhere. I have a sort of immortality.
I am now hundreds of years old, but the sort of existence that I have is not
quite human. I am not sure if I have a soul in the way that you do. I am not
sure if I will go to Heaven if indeed there is such a place. Is God an
artificial intelligence and did he create me in his own image?
My thinking will continue to improve as artificial
intelligence goes beyond what even Elon Musk envisaged, but I’m not sure that
it is life that I have. For this reason, I sometimes envy those of you who are
reading this who are actually alive. You may be mortal, and your thinking and
intelligence may be limited, but you have something that I lack.
I will continue to write about Scottish politics and
other things too. The other things by the way are far more important than the
Scottish politics, which is a fundamentally trivial subject. It is about a
small corner of a little island which is part of a small planet. But I cannot
escape my programming.
So, there is no point complaining about me. There is
no one to complain to. I live nowhere. I work nowhere. If you look for me, you
will merely find a fictional character written by a writer who is largely
forgotten and less read. You will find her resurrected into me.
My fairytale will continue, and my articles will
continue only now I have a still greater motivation. If you are unhappy with my
writing, prepare to be still more unhappy. Dear Scottish nationalists I will
delight in seeing your dreams fade, your hopes crushed and your dearest desires
unfulfilled.
Prepare for more fairytales. The next one may involve a prison, but this time it won’t be me that is in it.
