Konu: The Masterpiece

by Rabia Rahou

  Three months later, a small bot flies through his field, planting seeds for an exotic flower necessary for the bees found next to his plot, which is managed by another AI. After a year, they show him happy, as he is free now from his earlier, harsh life. He can now play tennis and enjoy a BBQ with his family and friends. Fast forward a few years, they depict him as a prominent businessman, completely transformed, wealthy, and very happy. He looks even younger.

  This is indeed a nice easygoing campaign that shows how Consoft is helping people worldwide. It also shows how much people are ready to trade everything for a BBQ, followed by a tennis session with a blonde trainer. It’s not a coincidence that they targeted the basic instincts of fisting and procreating. The Little Guy likes that advert, by the way. It ends with an image of a green planet superposed with a big smile of the ex-peasant and his family, with a slogan: “In Consoft We Trust.”

  This advert might have been a little too much for the early days, but everyone got used to it after a while.

  Of course, some groups remained very hostile to the AI, “ManFirst” is the name of the main group or, as it turns out later, a cult radically opposed to the AI. Even living in isolated reserves around the world didn't stop them from planning terrorist attacks. First, against the AI machines, but after that, they started to target the common people randomly to create panic. Always desperately looking for a reason to exist, the community's common goal was just to keep on going, to pass another frosty winter, to bury their loved ones after an epidemic or starvation, which could have probably been avoided if they were a little more open minded. Of course, all the attacks were neutralized before they happened. Most of the time, the individuals were captured a short distance from the gates of the reserves. Sometimes, some partisans were also arrested in the cities for the possession of bombs or toxic gases. Luckily, the security forces know precisely the quantity and the location of the dangerous substances. Of course, the information was provided by the AI security system that was scanning the air, the body temperatures, and any suspicious behavior that didn't fall within the AI’s normality curve, which has been developed using statistics and probabilities.

  Although ManFirst rarely succeeded, they never gave up either. I really admired the sense of perseverance they had, especially after the birth of their prophet. They almost doubled in numbers in all countries after the news that the baby prophet spoke fluently only hours after he was born.

  He predicted the world would end and died shortly after that.

  On the other hand, more groups and cults started to emerge, embracing the AI completely to the point of worship. The believers followed the same pattern of the quest for a strong alpha, or this time, for the best AI program. Looking for the best predictions or, let say, the most wonderful ones, the old codes were writing a promising future for every believer, just like the old gods. Of course, governments banned all religious AI programs. The states couldn’t control all of them because there were so many. An AI religious leader could be created by any kid in the basement of his grandma’s house. The AI “gods” made it too dangerous for societies to run in a predictable way. The economy started to be fuzzy thanks to confused investors who didn’t know what the consumers wanted, as consumers' preferences, which were spread across many religions, changed on a daily basis. The bottom line was that trying to plan for too many religions doesn't work for any business model.

  This religious debacle happened only in the first years of the AI. Later, Consoft adjusted the codes in a more precise workflow based on a more accurate mathematical equation. They did that as a precursor to “GOD,” which stands for “Global Operator of Data,” or, as the engineers like to call it, “GOD Beta.” They needed that to cut out all the local AI gods so they could establish only one. But, more importantly, they wanted to test it out on a large population to see if the new algorithm was as perfect as they believed it to be.

  The origins of the new algorithm were still hidden to our services, despite all the efforts we deployed to find the source. It was a national security priority as it gave accurate predictions. In fact, it gave the believers a much closer view to the truth about their destiny, if not the truth itself.

  Unfortunately, the truth was ugly, as almost all the believers had a bad destiny. The harsh life they were living would be forever. Even their children would inherit the same misfortunes. As most of them were ordinary people, most of them were just average intellect or below, and most of them would suffer and sacrifice themselves for the handful of all-powerful men that control it all. Call them kings and queens, religious leaders, CEOs of tech conglomerates or banks and funds, they are the top players that use the rest of the population as shields in wartime and consumers in peacetime – nothing more or less.

  Unfortunately, that bleak but rational and correct purpose of their lives was not acceptable. Nature makes you think that you are special, and big things are waiting for you no matter how dumb you are. I guess this is so you don't kill yourself and endanger your species. The new AI predictions were true, rational, and logically based on pure numbers, lacking all the incoherence and mysticism of traditional religions – the ones that give you a nice afterlife in the end to look forward to following a life of suffering. It is the miracles and the magic that makes it so appealing for humans. After all, a rational religion is not a religion. That’s why the AI religion wasn’t as successful as the old religions that we created. They are still around after thousands of years later.

  Unlike the big debacles of economies and religions, the word “country” as we know it from the beginning of time is still the same, solid, and doing very well. As everything before the AI vanished, the tools and the machines that made the industrial revolutions were gone. Change was apparent on every level of life. However, the people’s mentality didn't change much like many psychologists wrongly predicted it would, and the patriotism mentality was still the most dominant.

  This is the first lesson the army taught me every morning before breakfast, repeatedly filing my head and the heads of many young orphans like me with patriotism. I remember that we were so happy when they took us from that sloppy orphanage. Suddenly we felt special, and we thought that maybe if we were good enough, someone would adopt us in the army. This was a stupid idea they put in our heads to increase our need for love and protection. They mixed that with patriotism so they could get a solid cocktail of love and faith in the army’s commanders. And for the pinnacle of the brainwashing, the army explained to us that they took only the most hopeless cases from the orphanages, the ones that didn't fit anywhere, the rejected and the misunderstood, and sometimes, even the most violent ones. But we shouldn’t worry anymore because the army saw the real potential in us.

  I have to give some respect for the psychologist who created this protocol. What a crafty man!

  Yes, patriotism is deeply rooted in us, and no AI will change that. No code will change our perception of the home, the safest place, the controllable space. The animal inside us just can’t stop thinking of his territory, as it grants the exclusive right for him and his group to hunt and cultivate. It is a fundamental perception of the nature surrounding us. The territory is also sacred since we are the only species that bury their dead, which makes us even more fanatic. So, we fight and risk our lives, kill, and die for our ancestors' territory. Even if we move to a new place, we will still remember our original one in an extraordinary concept that nature has embedded in us instinctively – it is nostalgia. This concept could be a random result of a superorganism's complexity, an error, or even a non-explained feature. Whatever the cause, it is a perception generated by the mind to make every memory of our native place pleasant through the distortion of the recalls and the flashbacks, making them seem better. We have no idea how that function is necessary for the survival of the species. However Nostalgia is the patriot's soul, and it is another step down the rabbit hole of the human being. No AI can mimic that.

  The Sunshine Orphanages were the most prominen
t institutions for disabled and abandoned kids in the Empire. It was probably one of the worst places for a child to have grown up in. But in my memory, it was the best place ever. Although, after my last promotion, I finally pulled some strings and closed those mediocre places forever.

  Those places did more harm than good, but I have to admit that in my case, I have to give them some credit as they handed the Empire its youngest head of the armies. “Please back to the subject” said the little guy, “Hold on” I replied. Patriotism and nostalgia are the most powerful and irrational ideas ever. They are capable of generating a timeless feeling of belonging to a place and a group. No matter how bad the place was – extreme weather conditions, filled with predators, or even one which supports a cruel society enslaving the weak – that place will always give the feeling of belonging to the people who grew up there. That is the main reason why the groups can't integrate easily or adopt a new place to live in and call it home or country. Ask me.

  Suppose territoriality is the core concept of patriotism. In that case, it's just another fabrication of the mind, as the territory itself does not exist in the physical world, and no AI can understand that either.

  Recently I was reading on one of the army’s scientific blogs about the latest AI progress toward simulating human understanding. It was a fascinating study, or let's say a calculation that I had always in mind, which has now proven to be true. It demonstrated that no matter how strong an army can be, a civilian is stronger. Weird, isn’t it?

  They calculated that by defining each side's core beliefs and scoring them. The army’s core belief is built on patriotism, a total irrational idea that outside our brain has no existence. A civilian’s belief is based on a family, a true feeling of connection to reality through family members, therefore, a true existence. Of course, civilians are patriotic too, but they have a lighter and a more docile version. The soldier has a family too, but usually, the more he is successful, the more his family suffers. In my case, I have to agree with them as I have no one.

  They calculated a belief ratio versus the reality ratio and found out against all odds that the army is more irrational than a civilian. That’s why a civilian can, if he wants, challenge an entire army.

  We did see this in the past. A few knowledgeable and courageous civilians, and even slaves, became kings controlling the entire armies once they understood patriotism well, because every good soldier fights to death if he wakes up in the morning and sees in the news that his country has been attacked, and the imaginative line that draws the map has changed by 20 km, even if the intruders are just a random tribe who have mistakenly crossed into his country’s territory, or a new ruler who could be better than the current one. The patriotic soldier can’t picture that since his core belief is irrational, and he must fundamentally categorize them as enemies. Even the smartest ones will justify it by saying it's just the principle that matters.

  So, we go to war, not knowing whether the benefits derived from dying are better than the benefits of doing nothing, just accepting the situation, act as we are expected to act, and see what will happen. But again, our minds will refuse that. That’s why a civilian may survive and even thrive under occupation as long as his family is not harmed. And that’s why our best generals are right now fighting for the snow.

  Because of all that, the world map didn't change much since the AI revolution. The big empires owned extraordinary weapons of mass destruction, and even the small nations had strong armies thanks to the proliferation of the AI in the military field. Mix that with patriotic propaganda, and you get yourself a global war that can last forever. The world leaders knew that, and no one wanted to create chaos in the AI-unified global economy. The top economic advisors of the superpowers drew a red line on that.

  Nowadays, it is highly unlikely to see a world leader criticizing a culture, a nation, or a religion openly as in the old days. Invading a nation is something unimaginable. The consequences would be disastrous on the markets – except in the North Pole, of course. The penguins there are bad consumers. In an AI-unified global economy, everything is politically correct and somehow peaceful.

  But changes on the world map occurred in a more subtle and sophisticated way. First, we started witnessing the rise of a new economic model based on extreme variations. When the AI unlocked production and distribution, anyone could be his own boss, selling anything that his mind could imagine. Even if his imagination was limited, he could rent an AI-mind to do the job for him. Production was no longer a problem since the AI manages that freely or by taking royalties on the final benefits. Every market is reachable through a revolution in autonomous transportation systems. Plus, a deep AI product manager can change your product on the fly by analyzing in real-time the consumer’s behavior. Let's say instead of 100 biggest coffee brands that used to dominate the global market in the old world, we now have more than a million coffee brands with a million declinations and combinations, all reachable in any place any time. That was a change that empowered the small nations and made them extremely competitive. But still, the superpowers had the upper hand, as only three empires could create a core AI, all the other nations are just users.

  The superpowers didn’t invade countries physically as in the old times. The neighbor’s power ratio theory of the old world didn’t make sense in this one. New methods were used to invade indirectly, by imposing fake democracies to control the fake-elected politicians, in a more suitable and less problematic approach. By placing them directly on the top and by giving them all the support and clear predictions from the best AI, they excelled in serving their masters. Also, no politician or religious leader had enough courage to challenge the superpower's direct orders. That would be pure suicide. Therefore, and let's say it frankly, this world is peaceful but boring to an extreme. Everything is politically correct, as one can’t say anything without scaring the nervous investors. As a result of the AI-unified global economy, the borders between the slave nations and their masters were open. The historical borders were still there, but they are now just as a demagogic lesson taught at school to calm the patriotic and the super-patriotic.

  Three superpowers emerged from the old world and controlled directly or indirectly the rest of the world’s population. Never has the world seen so much polarization than now, a clear order on who is with who, and who is protecting who.

  Although the domination of one nation seemed to be inevitable, all the AI predictions pointed to that result, even the most pessimistic ones. Even if the markets are all merged with one digital-currency, with the exception of The League, of course, the economy is free at a level never seen before, and every nation had the same chances of success.

  Still, one superpower's geographic location had a strong effect on the human mind. It had access to all the seas and the best and most suitable temperature for the human body. It had a vast amount of cultivable areas throughout the four seasons. It also had the highest reserves of water.

  All those features stabilized the production and the political system of the Amian Empire and gave it an extra boost to dominate the world.

  Chapter 2

  The Amians

  “If the cowards survive, they thrive.”

  ~ the First Citizens.

  I t started as a group of deserters fleeing what the historians call the “Big War,” the war between the First Empire of the Bamos, the Kingdoms of the Rotanios, and the Ikamons. Soldiers from each side made the most foolish decision in the history of wars. Sickened by the never-ending war, they deserted their positions before the decisive battle and changed the course of history forever.

  Because of that, the war kept going for decades with no clear winner. Meanwhile, the deserted troops signed peace treaties between them, merged, and took control of new territories. A few decades later, they announced the creation of their small nation, Amian. It was named after a war hero (or a coward, depending on your point of view, of course), who was known by the same name. That simple soldier changed the
geopolitical order, as he was believed to be the first soldier that fled the big war.

  The three old empires weakened each other and were now too busy to take that announcement seriously. After all, no one could challenge them, especially not a small, self-proclaimed nation of deserters. They could crush them at will any moment and erase them from the map.

  The Amians kept neutrality for the first few years, but after that, they began to capitalize on the wartime opportunity and started producing and exporting weapons. Most of their production went to the factions of all sides of the Big War.

  A few decades later, and thanks to the immigration of the best minds from the old empires still at war, the Amians became a strong nation. Now, we are a superpower, and maybe the most important one – the Confederation of the Amians.

  We have the healthiest population in the world, not counting The League, of course. Our society has the highest diversity rate, as all the races have been mixed through many generations. This policy is still promoted by the state. It gives the highest and healthiest natality rate, a goal achieved easily through a mandatory school program for the very young. They learn at an early age that choosing a different-looking friend is a virtue. The feeling of freedom is omnipresent as every individual, no matter what his origins, has the right to accede to any political position if elected. This is very good, as no group feels excluded, which is a significant factor in our stability. But one must admit that the feeling of a homogeneous society is missing, and unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in our case. As they had to coexist to survive their treason, the first deserters created laws that were completely new at that time. They gave citizenship to every deserter as a right, no matter their origin.