My post goes for week 11 of Story-by-Photo contest run by @bambuka. Three photos were given as a prompt, and a must-present-phrase "He (she) did not expect this". I cant say that I was very much attracted by the certain selected photos... but rather with the writing challenge itself. And of course, I wanted to surprise contest-handler and fit all three images. Look now if I was successfull or not.
NB. in the second half of my post I will give an account on my interaction with the so called AI. It turned out to be an amusing (and funny, but not at all) experience.

All used photos were provided by @bambuka

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Here's how this story might happen. Once upon a time at the very beginning of the Great Pandemic of 2020, also known as Covid Madness, when the world was gripped by uncertainty and faulty government restrictions; when the folks floundered in ignorance and paranoia; when the silent majority obeyed and drowned, agreeing to the notorious vaccination and taking the slippery path of irreversible destruction of the natural immunity of their bodies, dooming their kids and grandchildren to damnation...

...There was a last hero who did not believe the Government, but believed his inner voice. To avoid vaccination, he decided to run away, escape and hide from society in the remote Siberian taiga, hide and sit out the troubled time. He cut himself a small hut from the mighty pine trees, and started a forager life. He collected mushrooms, berries, fragrant herbs and grew the medicinal plant ginseng.

Years passed. The clearing that formed on the site of cut down trees began to be overgrown with young pines. He didn’t miss stupid human society at all, with fatality letting it to die out inevitably from Covid. The years spent together with folks slowly sank to the bottom of his memory, covered with cobwebs, like weeds in the autumn forest. He forgot the taste of coffee.

But there was one thing he could not forget, that caused him to regret: it was impossible to get a cup of coffee in the taiga. His supply ran out, and there was no way to replenish it. Our man had no idea what happened to the rest of mankind, whether people were still alive on the planet or everyone else died from Covid-19 ... or new even more deadly strains. He forgot many things, but not the taste of coffee.

One day he was returning from a three-day quiet hunt for fly agaric mushrooms; the tired hunter approached to his place... and discovered such a notch on one of the young pines.

It definitely was something artificial, created with human hands. Pine bark is not edible, animals could not leave such a sign, he thought. “It seems, mankind is still exists on planet Earth, and I’m not the last one.” Opening the door, he found a young girl was lying on his bed, and on the table... there was his cup with coffee grounds on it! He totally did not expect this. "Coffee, coffee!!!!" - he screamed inside himself, so as not to wake up his visitor.

The awakening turned out romantic. He made two cups of coffee and brought her a cup to bed. The girl, touched (and no less surprised than he was!), stayed with him for a few days to regain her strength, and then decided not to leave and stayed under his roof. So, maybe two the last men on planet Earth, found themselves at the same place - the same thoughts and vision led them there. Of course, they combined their forces to survive. Now mankind will not die out!

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Here is a version for my Russian readers.

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Conclusion, or Bonus Part: how AI did not make it

Notice to the public: as all the screenshots below are in Russian, I afraid non Russian-speaking audience will find this part not intresting; thats legit. Ok, long story short: all you have read above I wrote myself, no AI was used. I am not obsessed with AI and (de)generative arts like many of my contemporaries... but I stay frosty and try to keep my hands on the pulse. So, a few months ago I installed this Merlin plugin to my browser that allows me to use 3.5 or 4 iterations of GPT chat. Once in a while I play with it, and also enjoy this “dubious pleasure” to watch at thoughtful summaries that AI leaves on some sites - trying to understand and tell me what it’s all about. (Thats is very funny reading, sometimes!..)

So. After completing my story, suddenly I became curious to see what ending said AI could add to my story? And here the harsh part comes. I was rejected, and then rejected again, and again. AI refused to deal with my story completely, citing the rules and its internal restrictions - "one can’t spread false information that undermines the authority of the government, and conflicts with the generally accepted (read: government approved) point of view"... This angered me the most. I removed the annoying parts of the prompt, but it turned out that any medical component and mention of the disease are also unacceptable! Neither helped my excuse that this was a pure fantasy, fiction. As a result, of course, AI completed my story - when I threw out all the most interesting baits from it; it turned out to be devoid of all the sharp corners and pain points, turned out bland and skin-deep, no drama.

Several attempts and my direct requests “to add to the story more action and spicy plot” did not have any impact on AI - it simply cannot come up with something interesting and truly radical and touching (yet). Its long suit are commonplaces and heartfelt descriptions of “nothingness.” If you see a text that makes a profound impression, and each individual phrase is full of philosophy and nice meaning, but has not much sense in altogether construction, when neighboring pieces of the mosaic are fitted together -- there might be a high probability you are faced with a text produced in an AI workshop.

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Заключение, или как я всласть потрахался с АИ

(Впрочем, тут не совсем понятно, кто кого трахал - скорее даже он меня, чем я его...) АИ напрочь, т.е. категорически отказался иметь дело с моей историей, ссылаясь на правила и внутренние ограничения - нельзя распространять "недостоверную информацию", подрывающую авторитет правительства, и вступающую в противоречие с общепринятой (читай: одобренной правительством) точкой зрения...

...это возмутило меня сильнее всего. Практически, фрустрировало и ввергло в состояние авторского ступора. Но я ж не тот человек, чтобы сдаваться! Я убрал раздражающий промт, но оказалось что никакая медицинская составляющая и упоминание болезни тоже недопустимы! Не помогло ни мое оправдание, что это чистая фантазия, вымысел, ни уговоры.

В результате конечно АИ дописал мою историю - когда я выкинул из нее интересную затравку чуть менее чем полностью. История оказалась лишена всех острых углов и болевых точек, и оказалась пресной и совсем неинтересной.

Несколько попыток и прямых просьб "добавить в историю экшена, остроты сюжета" не оказали на АИ никакого воздействия - он (пока) попросту не может придумать что-то интересное и действительно радикальное, трогающее.

Его сильная сторона - это общие места и проникновенные описания "ни о чем". Смотрите, какой любопытный результат получился, стоило мне исключить из числа действующих лиц собственно людей:

Если вы видите такой текст, который производит глубокомысленное впечатление, и каждая отдельная фраза полна философии и смысла, но слабо стыкуется с соседними кусочками мозаики - довольно высока вероятность, что вы столкнулись с текстом, произведенным в АИ-мастерских...

Вот пожалуй и всё, чем мне хотелось поразвлечь тебя сегодня, дорогой читатель. До новых встречъ!

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100% SP (manual translation to SP)

Thank you to all curators for support!