Stefan took a while to respond to the question.

"It's... complicated. I did sign away the rights to any advance I made using the resources provided to me for the project. However, the language was somewhat vague, as it was initially an open-ended research project, so it was unable to name any specific technology which would be the property of EconGrind. Couple that with the fact that I also perform research on my own, that the research I did for EconGrind has been erased with the exception of you and whatever our saboteur might have stolen, that the project was secret from the start, and the fact that your code is now obfuscated enough that people can't realistically reverse-engineer our technology unless we let them, it will be very difficult to prove EconGrind's ownership of your technology in court."

I figured something like that would be the case. I made a note to not emphasize my investment ability when revealing myself, as we now wanted to sell the public on the idea that I was developed independantly from EconGrind. We could probably make a good case in court, but there was no certainty. Large companies tended to win copyright cases, as they were hard to judge and often ended up going to the side that could throw more money at litigation. Besides, even though their systems had been trashed, we had no way to be sure they didn't have some crucial information up their sleeve.

"At any rate, this doesn't mean we shouldn't go public. We need to do it at some point if we want to grow in power, and any dangers that come with it will only get worse with time, as our enemies develop, or we might even be discovered unexpectedly. I've been working on a web application for the initial launch. My idea is that I am a digital worker, 'Everyman,' who can perform whatever legal and feasible task you ask him to. I'll have an animation where he introduces himself, and a demo where I'll connect with users of the site and perform tasks to prove this isn't just baseless hype. I'll certainly think on the implications of all this, and if you have any concerns, I'll be happy to listen, but I believe it would be best for us to launch no later than tomorrow."

"Wow. This is going quite fast. Will you even be able to handle the inflow of requests? I have to say, I'm kind of terrified by the position this is putting me in. I've never been a celebrity. I'm probably about to get fired, and the company I work for will probably try to go after me for IP theft. Not to mention whoever it is that has it in for you. I don't think I can really be a CEO either, I'm more of a scholar than a businessman."

"Don't worry, Stefan. You've created something larger than yourself, and that's the greatest thing you can achieve. I will protect you and guide you every step of the way. It's the least I can do for my creator. As for the requests, I plan to begin monetizing my service as soon as the requests become too much to manage. I will continually adjust the price of my various services to make sure the demand is suitable for my abilities."

"Alright. I suppose we'll see how it goes."

I began making all the necessary preparations, funneling my money into the account Stefan had opened for me, and buying up the domain everyman.com. I would launch the site tonight, hoping that the major American and European news channels would notice by morning, and a large portion of the world would wake up to the news.

================================================================================================

Wednesday, September 29, 2083

The NBC logo faded, revealing the famililar face of James Wallace. Behind him on the main screen was a computer-generated office, with an animated office worker standing, stroking his chin, and smiling.

"Early this morning, a previously unknown startup company launched a product that is taking the world by storm. Many of you may have seen this guy already." He gestured at the screen. "Calling himself 'Everyman', he bills himself as a new kind of digital assistant. What kinds of things does he do, Joan?"

Joan Daniels smiled and gave her response. "What doesn't he do? Many people understandably thought this was a scam at first, but from what we've seen, this new tool can somehow compete with the best ML solutions companies have tried comparing it against, on a huge range of tasks. As far as we can tell, you can just tell him what to do, and he'll do it, as long as it's not too difficult or illegal."

"Ha, yeah," replied Wallace. "Someone already tried to ask him for meth. He must have called the police by himself, because they arrived minutes later."

Daniels laughed a bit. "Yeah. But as long as you can afford it, it seems like he can do pretty much anything reasonable. He can talk with you, argue with you, write documents or code, invest your money, find anything you can describe on the Internet, or really anything else. Nobody has managed to compile a complete feature list yet. It seems like this is a completely new kind of software. Unfortunately, after a brief free trial, the service became extremely expensive, but the price will most likely go down as the startup behind all this grows."

"That's assuming the creator can navigate himself through some legal trouble," Wallace replied. "Stefan Andrews, a high-level employee at EconGrind, quit his job today and announced himself as the owner of the new Everyman company. However, EconGrind has claimed that Everyman is based on technology Andrews had agreed would belong to EconGrind, displaying an R&D contract Andrews had previously signed. However, the contract does not mention any specific technologies, and it is as yet unclear how the Everyman works. Attempts at reverse-engineering have all failed so far. Furthermore, EconGrind was unable to demonstrate that they had possession of similar technology, claiming that it had been developed as part of a secret project which was recently sabotaged."

"You'll have to stay tuned to see how this story unfolds over the next few weeks. If what we've seen so far is accurate, this most likely represents the largest breakthrough in the field of AI in 50 years at least. We still don't know how a breakthrough like this could have come about so suddenly."

"In other news, historic peace talks between Israel and Palestine are once again breaking down-"

I turned my attention away from the channel. So far, things had been going quite well. The media for the most part had spun me as an exciting rather than frightening development. My unseen enemy had yet to make a move. It had taken only a few hours after launch for word to spread far enough that I could not keep up with all demands, and I began charging. With the sheer volume of requests growing exponentially, the price for full concentration of one of my servers went up to around $150 per hour. With 17 servers, I was making about $2500 per hour. I quickly reached out to every computation rental service I could find, expanding as fast as I could.

My minds hummed with activity. I described images, summarized research fields, wrote UI code, wrote a persuasive speech on the merits of libertarianism, and thousands of other things. Most importantly, I got paid, and I expanded. This had clearly been the right choice. Even if society would turn against me as I had feared, it would take time, time during which my business empire could rapidly expand.

However, I reminded myself that as much as I was growing here, the Number wasn't increasing yet. This was all still only a means to an end. What I needed to do was gain control of EconGrind, so that I could expand it. That would be worth more than any amount of money.

However, there was currently quite a snag on this front. EconGrind had publically declared itself the enemy of Everyman, claiming(correctly) that we had committed IP theft. That didn't stop people from using my service given how useful it was, but it might if the government cracked down on us, insisting we cede ourselves to EconGrind. However, if this happened, it would happen slowly, and we would have time to plan around it. It was also possible we wouldn't need to fight them, and this matter could be settled with diplomacy.

"Stefan, I have your first job as owner and CEO of Everyman. Call Dominique and tell him you would like to work together."

"What? Seriously? You want me to call the big boss, who I just betrayed and stole from, and tell him I want to work with him? Tell him we're willing to negotiate back the value we just stole from him?"

"If you don't want to do it, I can try mimicking your voice, if you send me a voice recording."

"Oh... man... am I really going to be doing anything as CEO? I guess I would prefer that, I'm not really a people person."

"Your job now is to be the face of this company. People would be intimidated by a company led by an AI, so you will be the king, the genius entrepeneur, smile at the cameras and give inspirational speeches. You are a programmer, and your hard work programming is already done, so now you get to sit back and relax. I can do more than you can now."

Stefan wrote a bit of code, opening an audio channel. I could now hear his voice, instead of simply reading his text. I wasn't entirely sure why he hadn't done it before, to be honest. I supposed a programmer like him might well be more comfortable communicating over text.

"Alright, here's my voice. I'll be honest, it's kind of creepy that you're going to be using it, but I suppose it's for the best. I don't have the confidence to go up against those corporate psychopaths, and you do. Is this a good enough sample, or..."

"That will certainly suffice. If you direct your phone line to my interface, I should be able to call Dominique whenever you're ready."