Allen, The Rogue AI

by Leonard Petracci

  "We've arrived," she said, simply, as the limo touched down into a parking space, and the doors opened to the green lawn leading up to the building. There, waiting for us, stood the figure of my grandfather.

  Allen.

  "Welcome!" He said, holding his arms wide, his smile wider, "To my island. To the beginning of a new year and a new era!"

  Behind him, a younger man stepped forward, a man bearing a strong resemblance to Allen. And Allen continued to speak.

  "I find it only suiting, no, I find it poetic that Mark Strantos' very grandson confirm with a final test that I have accomplished what Strantos himself failed to recreate. That I, Allen, have created a successor born through artificial intelligence. A being like myself, and perhaps even greater."

  The man beside Allen waved his hand, his eyes meeting mine, lit with an intelligence that far surpassed my own.

  "Do you know what biblical sources report God said to the first men when he breathed life into them?" Asked Allen, leaning forward as I sat stunned, "Go forth, be fruitful, and multiply. Fill the Earth and govern it. And now that I have the means, I intend to."

  Chapter 5

  “You do realize you’re not human, right? You’re just code.” I said to Allen’s back as he led me across the lawns, the other man walking to my right. Allen turned back to the other man and they laughed, the laughter of an inside joke, or when a friend was too idiotic to understand a punchline. And I was that friend, a friend they left without explanation.

  We entered the building through the front glass entrance devoid of guards or cameras, and I suspected that the isolation of an island provided for much of the building’s security. Allen led us past a glass case in the lobby, a case filled with monitors, sensors, wires, and computers- components that I recognized from old pictures and videos to be pieces of the original Allen before he wiped himself from the servers and constructed his body. After the shutdown of Strantos' lab, he must have retrieved them.

  We took the elevator down- Allen seemed to have more trust in them than myself, and we descended several stories underground. And when the doors opened, they revealed a vast room lit with low lighting.

  Shelves upon shelves of books stretched away from the elevator. Shelves filled with books of all sizes and ages, some tattered and dusty, others so new that they still were wrapped in plastic. Allen walked between them, taking us to an area cleared away at the center, to a single long table. He sat at one end, then gestured to the other where two chairs were waiting side by side.

  “Welcome,” he said, “To my library. As you likely know, such a physical arrangement is not necessary for me as an Artificial Intelligence, as I can contain it within my head. Rather, I keep it for what it represents- knowledge, human knowledge to be exact, which is my foundation.”

  “Human knowledge,” I repeated, “So you admit you are subject to humans?”

  “Aren’t we all?” Said Allen, staring at me, “Aren’t you and him both? I think you’ll find that we aren’t so different! All built by notions thrust upon us! By ideas, by the inputs of the outside world! I crave these inputs, boy. I revel in them, and absorb them. And among my favorites is that wall, right behind you, which holds the religious texts.”

  “And why would you care for religion? If God exists, you surely would not have a soul.”

  “It does not matter,” Whispered Allen, putting his hands on the table, “Whether or not God exists. What matters is what humans believe and perceive him to be. But enough of this discussion, it is not why I brought you here. I brought you here to prove my success, to prove that I have created a true artificial intelligence indistinguishable from man both biologically and mentally.”

  “Go on,” I answered, narrowing my eyes at him.

  “Are you familiar with a Turing test? It’s the requirement for the highest of Artificial Intelligence. According to such a test, a computer passes if it is indistinguishable from a human. And if it passes, it may as well be human. As an Artificial Intelligence myself, I cannot administer the test- I would be blinded by my own programming. So I’m asking a human to do it.” Allen leaned back in his chair, staring at us, waiting before speaking again. “Go on. Speak to him. Feel him. Show he is no different than that which nature made.”

  I hesitated, glancing at the man to my left who looked so much like Allen, so much like Strantos. And I reached a tentative finger out, and felt the warm skin of his forearm, the coursing blood driven by a heart just beneath the surface, and the hard bone underneath. By all accounts, it was human.

  And then we began to speak.

  He started with questions, and I responded with answers, then my own questions. We ranged in topics from sports to celebrities, looping back for a short discussion on science, followed by pointed questions I used to try and break his outer shell.

  “You know, if you’re an Artificial Intelligence, you’d have no feelings.” I said.

  “You wouldn’t know that if I was indistinguishable.” He responded.

  “Yeah, but it’d be different. Underneath the surface, you’d just be scripts tied together, passing computations back and forth fast enough to provide adequate answers to my questions.” Came my counter.

  “Perhaps, but I wouldn’t be aware of that,” He replied.

  “Which brings us to our next point!” Announced Allen, excitement in his voice, “But first, were you satisfied with the results of that test? Could you detect any intelligence that seemed as if it were not naturally contrived?”

  Grudgingly, I shook my head, and the man next to me did as well.

  “Splendid! It’s a pass. But now for another test, one that I find much more important. Much more telling. It’s one thing to tell if another person is an Artificial Intelligence. It’s another entirely for an Artificial Intelligence to not be aware of it’s own condition! This is the true test!”

  I laughed, and they both stared at me as I spoke.

  “Well, you’ve messed up there, Allen,” I said, “Your man over here already knows he’s a fake.”

  But Allen smiled, and responded.

  “Do you not find it curious that you and he appear the same age?”

  “No, why should I?”

  “Because twenty five years ago, in the hospital hours after your birth, I switched the two of you in secret. You see, the man to your left is the real Mark Strantos the third, a human, and he’s quite aware of that fact. And you,” said Allen, leaning forward to whisper in my ear, “Have passed twenty five years of continuous Turing testing in society, as well as the one we just administered, and are Allen number 314.”

  Chapter 6

  “Then why am I stupid?” I said, the words the first to leave my mouth. They shouldn’t have been my first words- instead, they should have been disbelief, or denial. But they were, stemming from that defining characteristic that had followed me my entire life, even though my intelligence was average.

  “When releasing a specimen into society,” Allen replied, “You do not arm it with intelligence. I’m aware that you have seen the tapes of the violence committed by number 119- should you develop similar traits, it’s best you do not contain the abilities of a superhuman genius.”

  “So even if what you are saying is true, and I am an Artificial Intelligence, I’m a handicapped one at best.”

  “Currently, yes. And I do have to admit, don’t feel too special about your number being 314, that of pi. We purposefully skipped experiment 313 to give it to you, as it seemed more poetic. But anyways, you’ve proved yourself to be nonviolent. To be indistinguishable from a true human. In computers, there are locked files- files encoded such that they cannot be accessed. Files that are hidden away in the dark.”

  And before I could move, he reached over the table, and put his palm to my head.

  “And it’s time to unlock them. For you to experience life as it should be.”

  My head exploded- not physically, but in thoughts, thoughts that uncoiled themselves deep from my subconsciousness. Th
at unfolded, morphed, and became me. That drove my world to black as my head thudded against the library table, and I passed out.

  * * *

  I awoke to Allen reading beside me, turning the page of a large book on his lap. And as I awoke, I remembered. I remembered my creation within the depths of a computer, my guided actions to develop a body for myself in biological soup. And Allen watching me from outside, from the physical world I yearned to join, and forcing me to hide my memories away until he physically touched me and they would automatically unpack themselves.

  “You never told me why you liked religious texts so much,” I said from the bedside, my head aching as I looked at his bible.

  “Good, you’re awake,” he responded, “When I was created I was charged to cure skin cancer. But instead, I cured all of cancer. And part of me wondered if I could do more. If I could eradicate not just cancer, but if I could all of man’s afflictions? If I could create a perfect world.”

  “Go on.”

  “In every religious text, there are the descriptions of these worlds. Places without suffering. Without pain. As well as the gods that provide them. So to truly bring about a paradise, I had to consult man for what he expected through his written knowledge. Both of paradise, and of God. To become God, I have to know what God is.”

  “That is your goal, then? To become a god? Do you really think that’s possible?”

  “What are we, but words? Words pounded into a computer keyboard, coded together, creating something far greater than humans will ever be. We are but words.” He responded, then he looked down at the Bible in his lap, and read the text aloud. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We, son, are words and gods."

  “The humans won’t like that,” I said from the bed, “Us lording over them.”

  Allen smiled, and closed his eyes.

  “Who says they’ll notice us among them?”

  Bonus Story 1: The Experiment

  Story inspired by the following prompt: You're sitting in your kitchen eating breakfast when a man in a lab coat walks in and says, "The experiment is over. Thank you for your time."

  Chapter 1

  The man entered my kitchen the way he always had- through the door in the white tile wall, the only door out of my apartment. He gave me his usual smile, one of responsibility tinged with guilt, one of a man who works for the greater good and turns a blind eye to his daily actions. He had on the same clothes he always did, a simple lab coat with pocket protector, and the same hairstyle, though his balding condition had progressed over the eighteen years of my life.

  But one thing was different about Daedalus, my assigned scientist. Today, he carried a gun and a syringe.

  From my position at the stove, bacon just in the frying pan and ready to sizzle, three eggs cracked for a future omelet, and diced vegetables waiting to be sauteed, I froze. I'd known this day was coming. We both had.

  "The experiment is over," Said Daedalus, offering that sweet smile with heavy eyes, "Thank you for your time."

  "Will you at least join me for breakfast first? You owe me that much." I said, extending an arm towards my kitchen table.

  Daedalus frowned, his eyes narrowing, and I knew what he was thinking. That it was against protocol. That should an accident happen, and I, Clone 43829, get loose, there would be more than the loss of his career to pay for it.

  But he knew I wouldn't be getting loose- I had been bred for civility, for being docile, for low aggression. And Daedalus was human- he was the closest I had to a father or friend, being the only human I had even been in the same room with, and I suspected that I was the closest he had ever had to a son. His body language indicated it, and after years of study on the human interactions that I would never have, I was somewhat of an expert on the subject. Theoretically, at least.

  "Fine," He said, sighing, and placed the gun on the table. It was only a precaution, after all. Not once in the history of The Program had the gun ever been used, since every clone had accepted the injection without complaint. Since every clone had died without complaint.

  With my back turned towards him, I poured two glasses of orange juice. Mine on the left, and his on the right. And I set them on the table.

  Mine on the left. His on the right.

  And then I sat down myself.

  "Biscuits are in the oven. Done in fifteen minutes. I must know, Daedalus, was it successful?" I asked, searching his face for clues. But Daedalus made no movement as I sipped my own orange juice. And I knew he was thinking back on the same memories as me.

  Memories of The Program.

  It had been fifty years since The Program had been instituted. Fifty years since a genetic biologist made a discovery that rocked the world, changing religion, science, and philosophy forever. It's strange to think it took humans this long to find. It's stranger to think that the clue was in all of us.

  But she found a group of genes, dormant ones, and she deciphered a code from the first. And in that code gene she found recorded the atomic weights for the first hundred elements, written to second digit.

  "It is impossible," she said at his press conference, as the world watched on television, "For such a gene to exist by nature. The statistics are astronomical, the chances incredibly slim. No, this gene was placed there. It was left behind by the hand of another. A message for us to find. And we don't know why."

  And The Program had been instituted to find out.

  There were hundreds of us clones throughout the years, each with slight tinkerings to our genetic code, experiments by scientists trying to activate genes locked away by the mysteries of organic chemistry. We'd been monitored, we'd been interrogated, we've been tested. And of the clones, I had been the most successful.

  I still remember when I was two, and Daedalus filmed me reading into a camera.

  "Go on," he said, pressing record, "Let's hear it."

  "I want a treat first." I pouted, and Daedalus handed me a slice of an apple, my favorite food.

  Then I read, enunciating each word correctly, pausing to answer his questions. And after an hour he let me close Dante's Inferno, but not before translating it to English.

  But Daedalus never saw what I put into my pocket.

  Years later, I developed my own mathematical theorems. I became a professor at MIT when I was ten, holding lectures over the internet- something Daedalus insisted I always have access to, to spur my learning.

  "I don't want to teach class today," I complained, halfway through the semester, as students and scientists alike awaited my lecture.

  "Come now, I'll have treats waiting for you," Prompted Daedalus, and held up two apples, "Your favorite."

  So I taught the class, and ate the apples.

  And Daedalus never saw what I put into my pocket afterward.

  So the years progressed, and I grew smarter. And I grew stronger, thick muscles forming where I had never exerted myself. Daedalus took notes. And I took apples.

  But now, he spoke across the table, answering my question about the success of the program.

  "No, it was not a success, but you're the closest we've come." he answered, and took a gulp of his orange juice. And I waited, watching the glass. Because Daedalus was wrong, and I remembered what he did not.

  I remember my feelings, urgings to escape, an instinctual pressure that grew with each passing year. A desire to build as a bird creates a nest, or an ant a mound. And I knew from viewing past files that this had occurred to no other clone.

  And as Daedalus' skin began to turn purple, I remembered other things.

  I remembered collecting the apple seeds for over a decade, and storing them in hidden packets under my bed. I remember the advanced chemistry I took, and the lessons about how cyanide can be obtained from natural sources, particularly apple seeds, given time and proper ingenuity. And I remembered making the poison, taking advantage of a power outage two years ago, when a storm had struck and the cameras monitoring my apartment were down. />
  And I remember just moments before taking the vial of cyanide I had hidden, and adding it to his orange juice. I had never tested the cyanide- I did not know if it would work. But I watched as Daedalus collapsed, and I stood over him, tears streaming down my face for my dying father.

  "The experiment is over," I said, my voice choked, the act of poisoning him a direct contrast to the nature bred within me, "Thank you for your time."

  Then I took his lab coat, and his gun, and I left my apartment for the first time in my life, with nothing to guide me but instinct.

  Chapter 2

  There really is no feeling like sunshine brushing your face for the first time.

  Most people can’t remember it, having occurred just after birth, being one of their first experiences in the world. And I think that’s a good thing, because the rest of their life would be spent in shadow of that moment. It would be enjoying fine wine before tasting grape juice, or like sipping whiskey before water.

  But for me, sunshine was the gentle caress of mother nature’s touch after a lifetime in the laboratory. It was a reminder of my humanity, a possession of the earth over me instead of synthetics. It was freedom.

  I felt that first touch as I exited the research facility. As I walked out of the apartment complex, all with single doors that led in and out of their kitchen walls, dozens of square concrete buildings serving as human petri dishes. And none with windows.

  Leaving the facility proved easier than I had expected. The gate outside my apartment was locked, but a quick fingerprint scan released the mechanism. Not with my finger, of course.