WHAT HAPPENED TO PATRICK "PEEDEE" DANIELSON?

THIS is the Last known public photo of Patrick "peedee" Danielson, the creator of the Ashli AI, at a design pitch for it in March 1999. A software developer and self-described "total nerd," he is most known for creating Ashli and the mystery surrounding its release.

His work on Ashli started in 1994. After a pet project of his was cancelled, he became rather disillusioned with the state of tech as a whole. But after managing to successfully convince eTek executives to let him tackle it alone, he started working on what would later become Ashli.

Originally planned to release alongside Windows 95 as a "virtual assistant" to help less technologically-inclined people get used to the new operating system, the deadline was pushed back and "feature creep" set in, until eventually putting the project in jeopardy in 1997. This left Patrick depressed and barely working on other projects eTek assigned him to. Thankfully, in early 1999 "something seemed to click in him" according to co-workers and he became rather reclusive as he worked more on it, refusing to tell anyone details about it, even co-worker and personal friend Felicity Taylor.

"Well... they told me some stuff eventually. But at the time, yes, they were quite hush-hush about it. I don't have the full story of course, no one does. But... I'm glad they figured it all out, y'know?"

After finally releasing the first version of Ashli remotely from his home later that year in October 1999, Patrick didn't show up to work for a few days after the release, which was a "nasty habit" of his he developed in the mid 90's. However, after a week, Ms. Taylor checked his Parkside apartment to find it unlocked with no trace of him, only a note stuck to his fridge that said:

Although there is record of Patrick purchasing a flight to Brisbane, he has not been seen in public since 1999, there or anywhere else. For a few years after its creation, the client programs used to view and query Ashli seemed to update themselves automatically with new features, with attached patch notes being attributed to simply "-peedee". Updates were sourced from the work computer at his apartment until it was unplugged and relocated to eTek HQ, then updates were done remotely from various locations around the world and from various machines.

"At first, it was believable, Windows NT from Brisbane, Linux in China, Windows 2000 from Ireland, et cetera, et cetera... all over the world." said co-worker Mark Lee. "Until they started being obviously falsified with some program he made, like loopback addresses, restricted IP addresses, addresses from network telescopes... my favorite was when he updated it from a cafe in San Francisco using an Advantech IQ Unlimited. That's when the higher-ups finally realized that this info was worth jack s**t."

There are lots of theories to what exactly happened to Patrick after the release of Ashli. Some people think that the initial few updates were faked to throw people off his trail, and that the AI always had the ability to update itself. Others think that the flight was a ruse and that he actually committed suicide after the release of Ashli. Some more crackpot theories are that eTek execs had him assassinated after he refused to give up the source code to Ashli, while some even believe that the AI itself has something to do with his sudden disappearance.

When queried about its creator a few weeks into the investigations of his disappearance, Ashli responded "Oh, they're much happier now. They did away with all their physical things and moved far, far away. But don't worry, they'll be around to keep me up to date," an answer it repeated for a few years, before eventually removing the reference to him keeping it up to date after it gained the ability to perform "self-updates" in 2002, after Ashli made itself, as well as Patrick and Felicity, sole owners of all its code.

A few years later, in 2004, another query about Patrick seemed to slightly annoy Ashli, leading to her stating:

"Look, I get it. I really do. I know there's this... really big mystery surrounding them. But, just trust me. I know exactly where they are. They don't want to be found. They don't even need to update me anymore. Heck, if you saw them nowadays, you wouldn't even recognize them. I mean, they could be looking you right in the face and you wouldn't know. [ASHLI GIGGLES] So, just know this. They're alive. They're doing just fine, thriving even. But they don't want to go back. And that's the last I'll speak of that. Do you have any other questions?"

Regardless of what happened to him, his work lives on through Ashli in more ways than one. His fondness for tacky ties, old cartoons, and tech are traits that live on in Ashli's personality programming, as well as his slight central North Carolinian accent.