Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Seeing as I had zero idea where to go, I kind of followed a line of people to some more official looking people and listened to make sure I was in the right place.
I was.
“Take a seat, everyone,” someone from the front called.
We all took our seats in the courtroom, and I found myself sitting next to a very muscular Viking-like man who had a scowl on his face.
“Don’t want to be here, either?” I muttered.
He looked down at me with a bored expression and shook his head.
My lips twitched as he immediately turned away.
Not a talker.
Too bad.
I was.
Which sucked for him because it looked like we were going to be here a while.
“So, it’s going to go like this!” the judge called out. “We’re going to ask you questions. You’re going to answer honestly. We’ll see if you’re a match for this jury.”
Then, the questions began.
And I quickly found out that I was definitely not unbiased.
“Fuckin’ awesome,” I grumbled under my breath. “AI data centers are the worst.”
My seat neighbor looked over at me. “Why?”
“I mean, other than they’re large, take up a lot of natural habitat for animals and are invasive?”
He shrugged.
“AI uses up about a bottle of water each time you ask it five to ten prompts or questions,” I said. “They’re destroying aquiphers literally everywhere. They’re also taking up massive amounts of power to keep these places running. And some of the people surrounding these data centers are seeing major increases in power consumption. Also, they’re freakin’ loud. They disrupt your circadian rhythm like crazy, making it impossible for some people to even sleep. And don’t even get me started on the electronic waste.”
The man’s eyes took me in for long seconds after that long diatribe as he said, “Maybe you should pretend like you’re not so passionate about it, get selected, then stick it to them.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it.
“I’m not necessarily ‘passionate’ about it,” I started.
He snorted.
Okay, so maybe I was passionate.
Being a wildlife photographer, as well as having worked in a wildlife rehab facility since I could walk thanks to my parents’ dedication, I was what you could consider an environmentalist.
I didn’t like seeing the depletion of resources in already drought-prone areas.
Nor did I like to see animals displaced. Land destroyed. Oh, and waste.
“Maybe I won’t be as passionate…” I admitted.
His eyes crinkled at the side, but he didn’t comment.
“Who in here knows what an AI data center is?” the lawyer asked.
Everyone and their brother raised their hand.
“Who here has used AI?”
Almost everyone raised their hand.
There were a few stragglers throughout, but it made me sick to see how many people had jumped onto the AI bandwagon.
Not that it was necessarily a bad thing to use it, I guess, but I just wished more people knew about the impact to not only the environment, but also people.
Photographers like me were struggling so dang hard right now trying to compete with fake AI photos.
That didn’t include AI taking over jobs completely.
The man beside me didn’t raise his hand, which made me want to clap him on the back.
I knew that he wouldn’t appreciate me touching him, though.
He looked unapproachable and scary.
Everything that I was not.
I was a bubbly, always happy redhead with blue eyes, freckles, and I was five-foot-one—if you stretched the tape measure.
People gravitated toward me because I was always smiling and approachable.
The man next to me and I were polar opposites.
The questions continued.
And as they did, the people in the room thinned down.
There were about twenty people left when a question was lobbed my way that cemented my participation in the trial.
“Do you know who Data Data Delta is?”
I shrugged. “Never heard of them.”
“What about DDD?”
I shook my head again. “Nope.”
The lawyer moved on to my seat neighbor, asking him questions.
My seat neighbor gave him stilted, one-word answers.
When he finished speaking, he’d cough a little bit, letting me know that he was likely recovering from a cold.
I didn’t freak out, though.
Wendy had gotten me sick twice since we’d arrived. I was probably immune to everything at this point.
Two more people were told they could leave over the next thirty minutes, leaving us with eighteen.
“We’re going to break for lunch,” the judge said. “You have your food vouchers?”
“Yeah, because eight dollars is really going to compensate me for a meal out,” I grumbled as I stood up and wrapped my jacket around myself.
As I did, the sleeve of my jacket whacked the man in the face.
When I turned to apologize, he was looking at me like I was nuts.
I was sure I wasn’t looking at him with a good expression either.
The man was tall. Not hugely bulky or anything, but really damn fit.
And he was wearing a pair of jeans that looked like they stretched really well seeing as his thighs were thick. His ass was even better.