Thank You for Consulting RoboDocto
by Ian Li
He pokes tender pustules on his thigh
and calls for his doctor. RoboDoctor
awakes, finest physician most can afford.
What disease causes star-shaped pustules?
The AI spits a diagnosis: Cynopox.
Transmission method: airborne. Other symptoms
include anxiety and fever. Fatality rate: 99% within 72 hours.
Anxious and feverish, he runs to his window. Agitation
burns on people’s faces. Buildings blaze with chaos,
harmonizing with wails of those in supposed final hours.
An engineer runs diagnostics at RoboDoctor HQ,
reports to her boss: The AI seems to conflate
deadly six-pointed cynopox pustules
with innocuous five-pointed ones. I’ll fix it—
But her boss interrupts: Before you do that,
can you check why ads aren’t playing on cynopox diagnoses?
Ian Li (he/him) is a Chinese-Canadian economist, developer, writer, and poet, who started writing in late 2023 after a lifetime of believing he could never be creative. Find his work featured in Nightmare Magazine, Strange Horizons, Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the Toronto subway system, among other venues. He is also a poetry editor at Orion’s Belt. Learn more at ian-li.com.
