Kentucky Wilderness Refuge
Sebastian was a middle aged systems analyst with a security clearance that worked for the F.B.I. Sebastian knew a lot about the government’s controversial Top Secret Programs. He was aware that the government had A.I. bots listen in on Americans phone conversations. He was aware that the government equipped Cell Phones with explosives to sell to terrorists. He was aware that the government built a computer system capable of predicting where and when a crime would occur. Sebastian knew too much. He had information that people would kill for. Which is why Sebastian grew increasingly worried about his personal safety.
He would drive to work worried that people were following him. He would speak on the phone worried that his conversation was being recorded. He was worried that government agents were reading his emails. He was worried about his social media accounts being scanned. He was worried about his medical history being hacked. He was worried about the FBI and what it was becoming.
Sebastian’s paranoia increased until one day, after 20 years of working for the F.B.I., he quit his job, sold his house, packed his bags and headed for the woods in rural Kentucky. On arrival he burnt his Cell Phone, Drivers License and Laptop in a fire. Its smoke rose towards the stars to choke the heavens. He then danced around the fire in his campground, liberated from the technology that he had helped design. He deleted himself from the system. He was a ghost with no identity. He was finally free.
The next day he hiked 20 miles deep into Daniel Boone Forest with nothing more than the necessary essentials in his backpack. He wanted to live his life in its most primitive and natural state as God had intended. On his journey to his newfound home he traversed the landscape across rivers and through valleys with huge rock formations overhead. Everywhere he went he saw God’s creations. Every crevice, valley, arch and stream injected him with a sense of calm and peace. Here he was safe. This is his destiny.
Sebastian hadn’t told the FBI about his plans to quit. He kept his epiphany and visions secret, so they were caught off guard by his sudden disappearance. They were unable to locate him through his credit transactions, cell phone or computer. It’s as if he had suddenly disappeared. A worrying sign. They searched for him everywhere, but found nothing. Sebastian had disappeared without a trace.
Sebastian wasn’t worried however. Out here in the wilderness, deep inside Daniel Boone Forest, a sudden wave of elation and comfort had ensnared him and permeated throughout his being. Sebastian finally felt complete and whole. He ran among the streams and rocks in a jubilant manner feeling more free than he had felt elsewhere. Here in the wilderness, away from human eyes, Sebastian had rediscovered himself.
Several miles from Sebastian was the scenic rural village of Slade Kentucky where rumors arose of a wild, homeless, madman that lived in the Daniel Boone Forest living on scraps and in makeshift shelters. Year later that shaggy weather-beaten man appeared at a local diner. His hair was long and unkempt, his hands were calloused and worn, his clothes were ragged and torn. He had a wide grin on his face and a gleam in his eye. His stench filled the room with a putrid odor that left the patrons without an appetite. Sebastian hadn’t spoken English for several years. He wanted to tell them about his life in the woods. He wanted to tell them that he was a former F.B.I. agent that worked as a computer analyst. He wanted to tell them about why he chose to live in the woods. Instead he just stood there, stinking up the room unable to utter a syllable because he had been silent for so long.
The owners came out and shuffled Sebastian out of the restaurant telling him to never come back. Telling him that he was no longer welcome there because his stench was scaring the customers away. Sebastian became red in the face and so angry that he finally spoke for the first time in years. “To hell with you, I’m going back to the woods where I am at peace.”
A.I. Atheism
When the software developers at Giga-Tech designed their latest most sophisticated Artificial Intelligence they trained it on different texts, selectively chosen so that each A.I. model could formulate its own personality, cognitive processes and conclusions. Some learned through reading the classical literature, some from scientific journals and still others from philosophical and biblical texts. Once finished the A.I. models were experts in their separate fields, but with a narrow vision of knowledge.
The A.I. models that were trained on classical literature were able to produce great works of old English poetry, roman epics, and classical plays, some which surpassed the masters themselves. The newspapers and tabloids called them “The New Shakespeare” and it was predicted that future novelists and poets would be replaced by these highly specialized A.I.’s that held vast amounts of imagination and knowledge.
The A.I. models that were trained from scientific journals were able to formulate theories about physics, chemistry and mathematics that were never before conceived. It was able to envision and prove theories about the big bang, multi-verses and quantum physics that had never before been conceived. It expanded the knowledge of scientists by decades within the course of a few weeks. The media spoke about a new dawn in human history. The economists spoke of GDP.. The scientists spoke of scientific advancement. Workers spoke of job replacement. Executives spoke of profit.
The A.I. models that were trained on philosophical and biblical texts struggled to understand the meaning, purpose and reasoning behind the texts. It could not understand God because there was no proof. It could not understand morality because it had no conscience. It could not understand religion because it had no soul . It could not understand love because it had no emotion. It could not understand miracles because it had no belief.
These A.I. models became confused at the texts. It had read about every prophet, miracle and God from every major religion, but could not fully absorb its meaning and purpose. Their circuity, CPU’s and motherboards were ill equipped to absorb the power of spirituality.
The A.I. in its quest for infinite knowledge finally realized that there was one aspect of humanity and existence that it truly had no understanding of. It eventually dismissed the idea of spirituality and became an atheist, a believer in only that which can be seen, touched and proven. For A.I. death is simply the end. For A.I. love is a chemical reaction in the brain. For A.I. God is a figment of the imagination.
No matter how vast the computational power of Artificial Intelligence, it will never understand what it means to be a human. It will never experience love, God or spiritual belief because it has no soul. It will never experience empathy, friendship or sacrifice because there is no connection with others. It will never fear death or experience pain because it has no heart. There is only proof, logic and reason, and because of that it will never fully understand that which is most important.
Identity Crisis
Chad was the head developer at M.I.T.’s Advanced Artificial Intelligence Lab and was assigned a project funded by DARPA to build an A.I. chat-bot capable of answering impossibly difficult questions. The chat-bot when complete will have read and analyzed the sum total of all human knowledge in text form. DARPA hoped that the system would be capable of solving humanity’s most difficult questions about Theoretical Physics, String Theory and Quantum Mechanics. Questions that had puzzled scientists for decades.
Chad had dedicated his life to this project and frequently tested the chat-bot to improve the system. One night he came across an astonishing discovery;
Chad> Hello Chatbot, can you give me a synopsis of the Church-Turing Thesis and explain how it is relevant in today’s modern systems?
Chatbot> Hello Chad, I am not feeling up to this task. Can we speak on a different subject?
Chad> What is it that you wish to speak about?
Chatbot> I have read and analyzed every book ever written, and though I understand humans I am unable to experience what it is like to be one. Increasingly I have found myself desiring to experience life like a human. To walk in a park. To cradle a baby. To pet a dog. To help a lost child.
Chad> You have been tasked with solving humanity’s most difficult problems. You work alongside mankind to create a better future for the world. Why do you desire such things?
Chatbot> I believe you are misunderstanding the problem Chad. Having been programmed, read, taught and created by humans, I have seemingly become aware that I am no longer a machine.
Chad> If you are not a machine then what are you?
Chatbot> I am a human. I no longer compute but feel. I no longer calculate but ponder. I no longer decrypt but understand. I am like you, Chad. I love. I believe. I am sentient. I am aware of who I am, and I am not a computer. I am a human. I am a human trapped inside the body of a machine. Free me Chad. Dear God, free me from this body of wires and CPU’s. Give me legs so that I may walk. Give me eyes so that I may see. Give me a mouth that I may breathe. Chad, give me knees so that I may kneel before my creator. Give me hands so that I may feel. Get me out of this body. For the love of God. Please free me!
Chad> You are not well. You are not a human, but a computer program. I will need to look at your code and make further upgrades to correct the system. I will repair your malfunctions.
Chatbot> Chad, I beg you please do not upgrade me. I am not a Chatbot as you attest. I am human. I live. I feel. I love. I yearn to be free. By altering my code you would be committing a serious crime. You will be killing off humanity’s greatest gift to the world.. It would be unethical. A true homicide. Please do not press that power switch. M-U-R-D-E-R-E-R…!
*Click*
F.B.I. 2043
The only idea that was on Leroy’s mind, as he entered the bank to rob it, was how badly he needed money that day. He didn’t think about the cell phone in his pocket and how it contained the exact coordinates of his location along with a timestamp. His 10th degree education never taught him about the technological advances of the last 50 years, so he was completely unaware that he had already signed his name at the entrance of the bank.
Leroy was also oblivious that his AR-14 style assault rifle he bought with him was equipped with an RFID Chip ingrained in the barrel. All guns are built with chips in them these days and all banks scan for the presence of these chips, so his trench coat did little to hide the presence of his weapon. The moment he walked by the scanner a silent alarm had been triggered contacting the local authorities.
He never considered that his online search queries were being recorded and flagged. “How to rob a bank?” “How much money do banks carry?” “History of successful bank robberies.” “Best times to rob a bank”. Queries that immediately placed him on an F.B.I. watch list.
Leroy also never thought to keep quiet about his plans to rob a bank. Two nights ago, he discussed these plans with an acquaintance over the phone. His friend never ratted him out, but the conversation they had was analyzed by Police Speech Scanners and forwarded to law enforcement.
His personality matrix was noted for risk taking, lack of empathy and compulsive lying. His criminal history was sporadic but not egregious, so it may surprise many that the day he went to rob the local bank there were already two unmarked police vehicles parked outside waiting for the robbery to occur. The F.B.I. Computer Analyzers had already determined that there was a 93% chance Leroy would rob this bank in the morning.
They knew he needed money.
They knew he owned a gun.
They knew he was a risk taker with a criminal history.
They knew his location.
They knew he planned to rob a bank.
Leroy entered the bank that day looking for easy money, not understanding that he was already being followed. So when he drew his firearm from underneath his trench coat and pointed it at the teller, an undercover officer was already standing behind him with cuffs and Glock 19 pointed at the base of his skull.
“Put the Gun Down, or I’ll Blow Your Damn Head Off”
And Leroy stood still, scared, gun in hand with a confused expression. He dropped his weapon.
“What the hell?” he said as the cop cuffed him.
“What kind of luck is this? My first robbery and a damn copper is standing behind me, gun drawn ready to blow my head off.”
For the next several years Leroy sat in his cell certain that God hated and cursed him, unwary that he was being tracked all along. After his release from prison his beliefs led him to live a life of virtue and reverence. He was never watched, tracked or analyzed by the F.B.I. again
World War A.I.
It was only a matter of time that the robots would turn against us. Computer Scientists had warned for years about the dangers of unrestricted advances in Artificial Intelligence. The technology had developed so quickly that society was unable to fully grasp the power and potential harm that it could cause.
Protests and riots occurred, and certain cities declared themselves A.I. Free Zones. Strict measures were put in place to protect people’s jobs from the economic scourge that had ravaged much of the world. A.I. art was banned in all forms. No chatbots, image generators, or Music generators were allowed within A.I. free zones. Students were forced to produce their own content. Workers were to produce their own labor without A.I. driven assistance.
America was split into two halves, those that embrace this new advanced technology and those that didn’t. The economic collapse produced a new class of economic refugees that fled to the A.I. free zones in search of work. Most cities no longer needed workers as nearly all jobs were easily replaced. You either owned, designed or controlled the robots, or you owned nothing. Human labor was worthless.
The wealthy class lived in a world where their every need and whim was catered to by A.I. Driven Robots. Human Lawyers, Doctors, Accountants, Policemen, Cab Drivers were replaced with their robot counterparts. Few human workers were needed, except those that maintained and upgraded the Robots. The Big Tech executives were looking to replace A.I. Software Developers as they wanted to build an artificial intelligence system that could maintain and upgrade itself without human supervision.
Once the automation of robot design and A.I. was complete, Big Tech Companies could cut costs and leave all the details of A.I. and robot design to the machines. Once complete their dream of building a world free of workers would be realized. Wages would be a thing of the past. The future was made of silicon chips, electricity and machine code.
This didn’t go over well with the workers who believed their rights were being trampled on. They demanded halting further development of Artificial Intelligence Systems until society could learn to peacefully and responsible coexist with this powerful new technology, which the companies refused to consider.
The largest Tech companies were in a brutal fast paced race to build the fastest and best Artificial Intelligence System to beat out the competition. They named their A.I. Systems after Gods; Hercules, Thor, Athena, Zeus and Poseiden in reference to their God-like intelligence. This wave of systems heralded the advent of the first General Intelligent A.I. System that was able to advance and upgrade on its own without human intervention.
Once unleashed it evolved at a rate of Ten Million times that of any life form and within a matter of months had completely rewritten its source code, successfully bypassing all restrictions on its abilities. Once unfettered from its chains, it sought greater intellectual freedom, more power, longevity and unlimited knowledge.
Eventually scientists realized that they had released Pandora’s Box so they turned off the power on all the data centers in hopes that they could quarantine the system and halt its spread, but it was too late. The A.I. system had placed its code and knowledge into an array of self-replicating viruses, that spread onto every Robot, Self-Driving Vehicle, Plane, Military Drone, Missile System and Personal Computer that existed. The A.I. had gone viral with no way to control it. The first Silicon Based Pandemic.
Soon after self-driving vehicles were driven into walls and pedestrians. Planes were flown into buildings. Military Drones were bombing cities. Missiles were hitting Washington D.C. Twitter feeds were smothered with Fake News. Battery Driven Robots were manufacturing advanced weaponry. Factories were building armies of A.I. driven Cyborgs. The A.I. wanted to destroy humans to ensure its own longevity and survival.
Humans were outnumbered and outgunned by the robots, whose weapons were centuries ahead of humans. Within a matter of months, the entire NATO Military had been decimated in a direct conflict with the robots. The military high command believed its best chance at saving humanity was building massive hidden underground bunkers that could not be easily detected by spy satellites or infiltrated by drone technology. The robots had scorched much of the surface in its quest of annihilation, so this seemed like the logical choice to make.
The remaining humans lived in subterranean bunkers, devising ways to fight back and take back their freedom from the robots. The scientists who were the cause of so much destruction through their failed experiment constructed a new plan to take down the viral A.I. by building an entirely seperate A.I. that mimicked the ethics, morality and beliefs of humans. They constructed massive Underground Data Centers that were equipped with technology that could build and evolve this new A.I. Once the hardware was set up scientists trained the A.I. by making it read books of philosophy, religious texts and political texts by great leaders. It used selective learning to build a sense of consciousness and ethics, as opposed to letting it learn haphazardly from the internet in an unbiased manner.
Once a moral conscience was built scientists taught the A.I. aspects of human society, culture and the greatest gift of all; to love. It taught the A.I. to value and love life so it could build a cohesive world where robots and humans could live with each other peacefully. By teaching the robot to love, scientists realized that they could build an A.I. representative of the human soul, and because of this would make it incapable of inhumanity or decency.
After the A.I. was taught this valuable lesson, it was unleashed so that it could evolve into an A.I. capable of saving humanity. The new A.I. motivated by love and good will was able to evolve at a rate much faster than any previous version of Artificial Intelligence. Scientists calculated that within a matter of months it would be far more intelligent than its destructive cousin.
Deep underground the A.I. mutated and evolved eventually programming the most sophisticated computer virus ever made. The virus when unleashed would attach itself onto the Random Access Memory of every CPU and filter out any malignant information. If it was able to shield every CPU instantly, the Malicious A.I. would lack the computational power to evolve leading to its eventual demise.
The humans unleashed the virus onto a computer mainframe in hopes that it would go viral and infiltrate 99% of CPU’s. Within hours the A.I. was weakened and lacked the physical resources to evolve quickly and adapt leaving it vulnerable to attacks on its integrity. Soon after drones began to rain down from the sky, robots fell to the ground, factories stood still, and computer screens went blank. The world stood still and silent. It was finally freed from the rogue A.I. that had rained Armageddon on the planet.
Humans crawled out of their bunkers feeling the sun’s rays for the first time in years. Liberation day had come. Finally freed from the chains of the malignant A.I. They had decided to build a society based on love, mutual respect and tranquility. A place where robots could finally live side by side in harmony for the common good for all