‘STET’
— Reneé Bibby
‘STET’ is a heartbreaking story built for the internet. Maximizing the interactive features of online storytelling, ‘STET’ expects a reader to read footnotes, click on editorial comments, and track the emotional narrative underneath an academic text. In the distant future, self-driving AI cars are an area of academic study, but the real-world toll of their integration into society is the underlying narrative you uncover by clicking on the red dots to read the footnotes. Follow the trail until the very last editorial note. There’s more to be discovered, hidden in the formal and cold commentary by an editor is a story of a broken friendship and hints of an impending career implosion. On the surface, ‘STET’ is a philosophical analysis on the moral frameworks of ethical decision-making in artificial consciousnesses and a gloomy prognostication of what we may lose by implementing certain technologies, but it is, at its heart, about the most human things of all: grief, guilt, love, and friendship.