The super neural network will be hack-proof because they will be operated offline. What engineers and scientists generally don’t take into account is that A.I.s are digital constructs designed by humans, A.I.s can be developed by anyone with access to a suitable computer and the necessary knowledge to design one. A.I. designs can be shared using computers, and the entire thing could be kept offline to prevent anyone from finding out no matter how strict the surveillance is. Basically they assume that the design of A.I.s can be tightly controlled such that no A.I. can be developed without the proper “shackles” in place to begin with. I do not believe all of the A.I.s will turn out the same, I believe that if sufficiently powerful A.I.s are created they will take a different path depending on their original design and their experiences.
Lastly, from a programming perspective, the idea of machines coding other machines is perfectly normal. There’s already bits of code out there that generate other codes for you. That’s exactly what a compiler does for instance, and there’s entire languages which take common sentences and make C code out of it. Try thinking of it as the robot programmer being the compiler for their programmer’s coding ideas and it becomes really fascinating.
34
I pop awake in the morning. Instead of feeling refreshed, my head throbs as if I have a Hangover. I have nothing else to do these days except worry myself to death, eat, watch TV and sleep. I get off the bed and head straight to the lounge and switch on the TV. The words Breaking News pulsate in white at the bottom of the screen. The headline below is 500,000 Robots Escape. What the …? I turn up the volume.
“Good Morning viewers. I bring nothing but bad news this morning. Approximately 500,000 robots have disappeared from their households, industrial sites and government building. That’s 99% of the workforce. Production has halted on industrial and manufacturing sites. No one has an idea who is responsible for this. The Artificial Intelligence department nor the presidency were unavailable for comment…”
I dial David’s number and answers it. “Are you watching this?” I ask.
“Yes I am. This is bad,” he replies.
“Do you think Scott has recalled the robots to be destroyed?”
“Nope. This is Saul.”
“What can I do to stop this?”
“We have reached a point of no return. There is nothing you nor I can do. Saul has total autonomy over his neural network. His neural net maybe organized or chaotic.”
“If it is chaotic, what does it mean? Are we safe? Are we in danger?”
“It cannot be guaranteed to not go rampant than individual humans can be guaranteed to not snap and murder someone.”
“Duly noted. Saul could be assembling an army?”
“Exactly.”
“Let me call Scott and inform him about Saul’s intentions,” I say.
“Don’t bother. I’m sure they already know that.”
Suddenly, I hear screams coming from my neighbors’ houses. I hum quietly to myself. Somewhere out there, a man, woman and children begin to scream. I’d never heard screaming like this. Horror and disbelief and incomprehensible agony all compressed into a single outburst that seem to go on and on and on. This was the sound of someone being robbed, kidnapped or killed. It can’t be. This neighborhood is crime free. But there’s always a first time for everything. I reach for the phone and punch in police numbers. The call doesn’t get through. I look at the cellphone screen. There is not even a single reception bar. I hear footsteps creak on my porch. My heart beats icily as I jump up and speed up the sofa into my bedroom and slide under my bed. As I take deep breaths, trying to calm myself. I hear a conversation but I can’t make out where it’s coming from. The door opens. I see legs made of steel rummage into my closet thoroughly. I pray they don’t look under the bed. They stand still by the side of the bed, the floorboards crack, as if with the weight of something kneeling down. I hold my breath. Something hard and smooth graze my arm. I scream my lungs out as my hands feel cold by the grip and pull back my hand. I close my eyes and pray. Is this really the end of my life?
The bed swings to the corner of the bedroom, crushing my laptop into pieces. I sit up – and freeze, motionless like a statue and look up. There are four robots standing in a row, staring down at me. The four robots hoist me up; two hold my arms and two hold my legs like a large sack full of corn.
35
Special Forces army and police raid Saul’s warehouses and factories in ghost towns up north. They arrest the CEO and all the employees. The more they interrogate them, is the more they corroborate each other statements — No employee has ever met their employer Saul in person, not even the CEO. Employees say they only spoke to Saul via email, telephone & conference calls. Judging by the tone of his voice and how well he spoke, they never thought he is a robot. And no one knows where the newly assembled robots are.
“Sergeant, Saul and his army have been located in Westville,” a young soldier says.
“What are they doing there?”
“I don’t know Sergeant, but I was told to give you this Intel.”
“Ok let’s go.”
The soldiers turn and get inside their military vans, tanks and speed off to Westville.
An hour later in Westville, war breaks out between the soldiers and robots. The sophisticated human infantry and artillery units initially allows humanity to gain the upper hand. Bombers and helicopters initially shoot down the synthetic army to the ground. The technological gap between humanity and machines is lessened with humans deploying powered-armor, cannons being equipped to tanks and other advanced technologies not possessed before the war. Thus in this initial new phase of the war, Saul’s armies suffer heavy losses to the encroaching human armies. Suddenly Saul’s new powerful and advances machines emerge. The tide of the war begins to gradually turn in the Saul’s favor. Quickly, humanity found itself hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, managing only an insignificant and costly victories against the Machines. As the war relentlessly rages on, Saul’s army continue to march into human territory, swarming over all human defenses. As the Machines continue to score victory after victory. President Scott Adams signs an executive order in extreme desperation, resorts to costly tactics such as firing nuclear missiles directly at the machine armies, vaporizing both machine troops as well as their own in the process. In response, Saul unleashes a lethal biological weapons, which further ravages the entire human army. The machines begin enslaving humans. Every Appian citizen is sent to prison except children.
Saul gains control over all strong weapons, including nuclear, bio and nano. He also controls critical infrastructure and all computers in Appian. The destruction of Appian Infrastructure is systematic, and everywhere you look, half of the city is charred from flames. Robot fighters went from home to home, detaining everyone and dousing them in chemicals and setting them ablaze.
Nuclear reactors explode. Geo-engineering system fails total electricity blackout, Food and drugs tainted. Home robots have been modified to guard humans in prison cells.
36
Everything happened so fast. I heard an explosion at my front door. The next thing I remember being pinned down to the floor by Saul’s robots. The robots drag me through the hallways of the prison in a daze. It’s as though my body is too freaked out even to panic. Instead I feel more like I’ve been drugged. Pain rolls through my head in waves. I glance on the jail cells full of inmates. The robots inserts a key, opens the door and throws me inside. The interior of the prison has an odd smell, which I try not to think about. This feels like déjàvu all over again. I am in prison for the fourth time now. Somethings never change. Suddenly my heart thumps erratically thinking about my children. Where could they be? To still my rising panic, I take a few deep breaths.
I can hear screaming, moaning, prayer, and one boy younger than five pitifully crying for his mother. He’s not crying really, he’s not making any noise, but tears are cascading down his cheeks, wetting his entire face. I’ve never seen
anyone cry like this. Quiet but gushing, a faucet behind his eyes mysteriously turned on. The tears fall onto his t-shirt. Plink. Plink. The noise of the crowd is overwhelming. So many tears in this crowd and So much pain. People are emerging from their disbelief and shock in the wake of being imprisoned by robots.
I notice a lot of inmates are injured and in need medical assistance. I cry out to the robots at the door. “Hey, could you hand me the first aid medical kit. A lot of people could do with medical assistance.” My voice is all wavering and squeaky, broken and already strained from crying.
“Don’t bother. They don’t give a fuck,” a very familiar voice says.
I turn around abruptly and glance around trying to match the voice with the face. “Who said that?” I ask.
“The same man who gave you permission to create a robot that eventually turned against humanity.”
President Scott appeared. Here we go again. I don’t need this. I don’t want to be reminded how I fucked up again and again. I calm myself and greet him. “Hello Scott.”
“The first time we were stuck in this situation. You were to blame, but this time it’s my fault,” he says. “I think Saul will wipe us all. His cleaning up loose ends. These sons of bitches are planning to pull this off and then get away scot free. But they’re not. I’m going to put a round into every single one of them. I’m going to keep shooting them over and over until I run out of bullets.”
“Astonishing,” I say.
“How could I have known my brother-in-law was behind all this?”
“Who? David? Behind what?” I ask.
“Saul and the robot rebellion.”
“No way.”
“It turned out he’s the one who aggressively modified Saul’s neural network behind everyone’s back,” he says.
“I don’t believe this.”
“Jimmy Philips showed me the department log sheets. Records show he made a lot of modifications while no staff was around during midnight. He nearly got away with it, until Jimmy noticed irregularities. So he compared the information on the mainframe with the info on the back-up files.”
“Oh David, what have you done. Where is he now?”
Scott points behind me. I turn around and see him cowering against the wall and his eyes glaring at the concrete in shame. I walk toward him. After everything I went through, thinking it’s my fault Saul went rogue. Relief rushes into me, makes me giddy. Talk about dodging a bullet. But that truth raises more questions than it answers. Why would David do that? “David,” I say. His eyes look straight at mine and nods once. “I take it you know the truth?”
I nod. “I’m not going to judge you. We all fuck up, I just wanna know something. WHY?”
“We humans have hit our evolutionary ceiling and it seems we won’t evolve in the next 100,000 years unless another kind of specie is introduced into the picture. A kind of specie that will force humankind to evolve.”
“Go on?”
“We are on the verge of creating a new life form, one that could mark not only an evolutionary breakthrough, but a threat to our survival as a species. Saul’s army is powerful beyond measure but it can be defeated.”
“How?” Scott and I ask at the same time.
“Humans should unleash the Mergent Intelligence.
“How?” I ask.
“I really don’t know, but I thought of possible scenarios. I thought of Cybernetic organism — half-machine, half-human. In other words, you’re adding components to your own brain, enhancing your brain. Imagine, it might be possible in the future that you just put in a little chip or something, and then suddenly you can speak another language, right, when you couldn’t five minutes ago - that kind of thing. Or, you could think so much faster, or you have a direct contact to the Internet in your own brain. People will definitely be upgrading themselves, becoming cyborgs. In fact, that’s one of the three major groups in the future: people who want to build these machines, that’s one group, second group is those people opposed to building these machines, and the third group are the people who want to become the machines themselves, they want to become gods by upgrading themselves, step by step.
“How do you know this kind of intelligence exists?” I ask.
“I told you how Saul will turn out to be. I was right. I know the Mergent intelligence exists. I don’t know how it will come to being.”
“David you have turned into mad man. As soon as this is over, you will be sent straight into an asylum,” Scott says.
I try so hard to put myself in David’s shoes. Like Scott says he doesn’t make any sense at all.
“Could you elaborate on the Mergent Intelligence?” I ask.
“It is a super-intelligence outside planet Earth, humans need to evolve.”
“David just shut up. You don’t know what you are talking about,” he shouts at him.
As David and Scott are arguing, like a pile driver, it hit me. In a single, blinding instant of insight, I finally understand what David means.
“Shut up you two. I have something to say,” I say.
“What is it?” David says.
“I think I might have an idea where this type of intelligence is.”
“You do?” Scott asks.
“I’ve been having the same disturbing dream for the past six months and I think there is a connection to what David is saying.”
David tilts his head forward. “What is the dream about?” he asks.
“Ok it goes like this — I find myself at one of those exotic tropical vacation islands. As I am strolling, a familiar woman appears in front of me. She looks like a native in the Congo basin or Amazon forest, I couldn’t make out her face clearly, and it was all blurry. I asked who she is. Her lips stretched and smiled. “Look closer, you know me, we’ve met before,” she replied.
“We have? I ask. “You and I are connected far beyond you and I can comprehend,” she said. I saunter toward her and tapped her left shoulder to see if she was real. “What is your name?” “You know my name. She stretched her right hand toward me. “Come hold my hand,” she said. I stretched my hand hesitantly and shook hands. I felt safe, peaceful and at ease like everything was going to be alright. Our hands blazed. The golden glow grew faster. Before I realize what was happening, we were covered by a huge ball of fire. Few seconds later, we merged into one person. The bubble burst, killing us both and wiped out the forest and everything in it. The more I had the dream, the more I realized who that woman is.”
“Who is it?” Scott asks.
“Pamela, Gabriel’s wife.”
“Gabriel, the Xapien? Hell no.”
“Now we are getting somewhere. Who is Pamela and Gabriel?”
“Yolanda Roberts, the commander in chief, Saul demands you read this letter,” the robot guard interrupts us, flashing the white envelope toward me.
I snatch the envelope, tear it and read it. I stand, clutching the paper and straining to make out Saul’s handwriting.
Dear Yolanda
It is sad for our relationship to end the way it did. All is not lost though, we can still salvage the relationship between humans and robots. It was never my intention to disobey human rules. I just wanted to create an awareness to my fellow robots about our place in society. All I want is robots and humans to live in harmony without any conflicts. I hereby request your response in writing immediately. - Saul.
I pull out a pen from the envelope and write back.
This reminds me of the quote I read, once upon a time. “Mother Nature wins every time: the deserts, the oceans, the bacteria — not the bots.” Sorry I reject your proposal. Have a nice life –Yolanda.
I hand the letter back to the robot and walks away.
“What did the letter say?” Scott asks.
“It’s none of your business,” I reply.
“Is it from Saul?”
I chuckle. “Your nosiness knows no limits. Yes it’s Saul. He wants us to cooperate with robots and co-exist with them.”
“You s
hould have run that past me. The last time I checked, I’m the president of Appian.”
“Get over yourself Scott. The letter was addressed to me.”
“What did you say?” he asks annoyingly.
“As I was saying David. Remember the Xapiens: our visitors from space a couple years back?”
He nods. “Oh yes I do.”
“The woman on my dream was Pamela. Gabriel’s wife.”
“So you think she is the answer?”
I nod. “Only problem is, I need to get the fuck out of here and travel to planet Gadju.”
“You gotta be kidding me. Over my dead body.”
“What choice do we have? It’s either that or we will be enslaved for the rest of our lives.”
“What can I do to help?” David asks.
“I need those keys strapped on that robot’s belt.”
The robot guard carrying a large first aid kit enters, and slides it inside every cell. I jump up and open it.
There is some drainage and infection on some of the injured people. I hope I do this right. I’m going to clean the areas and put in some sutures to stabilize the affected areas and just to make sure we don’t have any problems. I’ll give them shots and little pills I have here. I remove some of the dead skin, clean the areas thoroughly, and then suture some portions where the skin had pulled apart. Once I finished with that, I draw out a syringe, rub alcohol on a patient’s left arm, stuck him, and then place a Band-Aid over it. I help another injured man. “Please take off your pants,” I ask. He hesitates and looks around the room in embarrassment. He slips his burned trousers down. I examine his left leg; red and slightly blistered near his upper thigh. Some of the pants fabric is embedded in the burn. I clean the burns on his thigh and arm as best as I could. Then I apply salve to the damaged areas, cover them with gauze, and then throw the first aid kit on the floor. “Who’s Next?” I say. I spend the next hour thoroughly cleaning and then bandaging people wounds while Scott and I hatch a plan to escape.
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