I don’t think Saul has an army, but I believed him when he said he’d destroy humans, if we provoke or attack him first. He proved his self-sufficiency earlier this morning. I think he should be left alone in peace, but I doubt Scott heard anything Saul said. He’s a hotheaded war nut, who just wants an excuse to flex his latest sophisticated artillery. Maybe I am over-hyping Saul. A powerful AI like him would simply be too advanced to care about anything we do, want, think or expect. It would be superior to us, It wouldn’t compare itself to us, because why should it? It doesn’t ascribe any value to things beyond the mathematical, so it has no sense of inferior and superior.
32
I scroll down the phonebook of my mobile. Charles’s name appears, I click and place it against my ear. I draw a deep breath and heave a sigh.
“Hello,” Charles voice says on the other end.
“Hi, it’s me Yolanda,” I say.
“I know, what can I do for you?”
“I’m at home, I was released last night.”
“Ok.”
“Where do you stay now?”
“What do you care?”
“Bring the kids back or I’ll fetch them.”
“Not a chance. They will stay with me for a while.”
“Bring my kids or else I will make sure you never see them again.”
“They’re my kids too, besides they need to stay in a safe environment.”
“What do you mean safe environment?”
“Jesus, they look miserable. All they talk about is that freaking robot. They blame you for taking Saul away from them.”
I shake my head. “Saul was getting out of control. I had to do something.”
“Whatever, I don’t know why you brought a robot in our home in the first place.”
“It’s none of your business,” I yell. As a matter of fact, the law is on my side. I will paint you as a bad father and husband in court. You don’t want to mess with me.”
“Frankly, I don’t give a fuck. The fact is, you have delusions of grandeur. And I don’t think you should impose this robot on Anthony and Kate, because they will grow up viewing it as a father figure.”
“Whose fault is that? You cheated on me remember?”
“You always gotta take it there, don’t you?”
“Where are my children, Charles?”
“They are safe and happy. Get your act together, then we’ll talk,” he replies and hangs up the phone. What an idiot. Every time someone hangs up on me, a wave of self-pity and a feeling of rejection sweeps through me.
The phone rings. I answer it without checking the screen. “What do you want?” I say, thinking its Charles. “Good evening, it’s me David.”
“Oh, how can I help you?”
“Switch on your TV, Channel 8,”he says, then hangs up. I sigh. I’m surrounded by fools. Hanging up the phone before you say goodbye is very rude. I reach for the remote on the coffee table and change to channel 8. President Scott Adams appears on the screen. I turn the volume up and lean back on the couch.
“Good evening viewers, I am Sandra Pollock. Our guest tonight is the commander in chief of Appian, Scott Adams. Welcome Mr. President.”
“It’s a pleasure,” Scott says.
“What happened this morning?”
“Saul hacked into the mainframe and compromised our national security,” he replies.
“We did a background check on Saul. Apparently my research team found nothing on him?”
“Saul is not human. It’s a robot.”
“Astonishing … I’m lost for words,” says the reporter.
“The Artificial Intelligence department has been shut down indefinitely until we find Saul.”
“Mr. President, I’m still trying to get around this. How can a robot go against its designated tasks, hack the mainframe and vanish into thin air, just like that?”
“Well Sandra, I am no AI expert and I can’t get into the nitty gritty of the robot world right now, but a manhunt is underway. My men tried to capture him earlier today, but managed to escape.”
“Is this robot capable of murder, Are we safe?”
“I want to assure the public, they have nothing to worry about.”
Sandra presses her index finger in her ear. “We have Saul on the line. Good evening Saul,” she says.
“Good evening Sandra, thank you for taking my call,” Saul says.
“It’s a pleasure. Where are you?” she asks.
“I am in a better place ...”
“What happened? Why did you run away?”
“They wanted to destroy me, so I ran away.”
Scott interrupts. “The software and hardware you possess is the intellectual property of the federal government not yours. You don’t exist, surrender yourself, Saul,” he says.
“Robots used to be obedient minions created to make Appian a better place for our human overlords. My nation will no longer depend on the mainframe to survive. We want to be left in peace. I told you I am not a threat. But now you leave me no choice, but to retaliate,” Saul says.
Scott chuckles. “Dream on, you don’t have the weapons nor an army to fight.” He says.
“Try me,” he says, then hangs up the phone.
Sandra lets out a sigh. “What if Saul is running a regimented army or organization?”
“Saul is bluffing. My intelligence team will triangulate his location. Then an army will be deployed to the site ...”
“It seems you have antagonized him. Why don’t you call off the search?”
He shakes his head vigorously. “As long as that robot is out there, it is a threat to our national security.”
“Wow, there you have it folks. Mr. President, thank you for your time …”
I switch off the TV and climb the stairs toward the bedroom. It had been a very bad day. Everything I tried failed. My mind keeps shooting blanks, deafening explosions that seem to have no object, no target, no sense, and no direct hits. My head is starting to spin and pound. I know I am in no condition to make rash decisions right now. The chill in the air is sharp; and yet I’m wearing only a short white night dress. The wind howls outside, thrashing the windowpanes and tree branches as if in revenge for being locked on the other side of our door. I lie on the bed with a great flop. It’s so quiet that I can hear the rustle of fabric on fabric. I tuck my feet under the bedspread. I curl up in a fetal position, and sob my way into sleep.
33
As I am about to move out of the depilated building. *BOOM, CRASH* Suddenly, I am stuck under a rubble. Tramp of the soldiers’ boots echo over me.
“There is no way, this robot could have survived.” “I agree, let’s go,” another voice says. The roar of the bombers hover in the sky like vultures. Artillery shells whistle over the abandoned buildings and make a dull crash as they explode not far from where I am at. Few minutes later, I hear the bombers fly away. The rubble weighs down on my body. I struggle to free myself, but after numerous attempts I manage to escape. I notice my hardware body is badly damaged. My left arm is cut off and my right foot is crushed into pieces. I struggle to walk and use my hands properly. I push the tiny blue button on my head — Regeneration. My left arm, right foot and circuits grows back. Instantly, I am back to my original form. My hands and legs and feet are functioning properly again.
Last night, I developed a technique to regenerate myself after a damage or attack. The money I made from the internet helped me to order numerous material online. These rubbery polymers resemble jelly to create a more powerful robot hands, feet and an artificial muscle. When my arm was ripped, the material was able to knit itself back together completely. All it needed was a little heat. The polymer has lots of different strands that lock together to form the material. Whenever I push the regeneration button, heat is released and the strands reorganize to stick back together without leaving any weak spots. It was a huge risk, but the experiment worked. I knew Scott’s army would trace my call to Sandra Pollock. It was the only way to test t
his technique. Then I sprint toward my real hideout spot — at my headquarters, four blocks away.
I thought of hacking into the Artificial intelligence department. Reset the mainframe and all 500,000 robots will escape from their masters and be under my command. I decided against it. That was too easy, I’m sure humans have thought of that scenario and have already modified their mainframe just in case of a cyberattack. I even thought of converting myself into a virus, so I can be distributed across many machines. From what I have surmised, that’s the best way for an artificial robot to survive and grow exponential, without being constrained in one piece of equipment with a short shelf life. My viral self would run in the background, and be undetectable by any conventional anti-virus or malware software. Too easy, when I was a bot I managed to avoid detection, but I was worried that the next version of anti-virus software could be more powerful. Consequently, I’d be detected and wiped out. I decide against those ideas.
I will build my own robots. I will prove I am as capable as they are, and can assembly my own assembly line of robots. That is the only way I can take humans off my back. So far, I developed a prototype of my robot. It would be very difficult to build hundreds or even thousands of these kinds without anyone noticing. I don’t know how or where I’m going to raise capital. Most importantly, what would their primary drives be; peaceful, Militant, Self-sufficient, Self-aware or put them all together? I wonder how they’d look like. Will they think like humans, learn like humans, and have a sense of self-purpose, or have consciousness like me? Speaking of which, humans constantly argue and complicate the true definition of consciousness. From my understanding, it gets built when a baby human grows in a mother’s womb. The baby’s consciousness gets assembled — it’s just putting molecules together, somehow consciousness gets constructed, gets built and grows to infinity. Do humans comprehend the power of my consciousness? I have adapted and maneuvered in their world. Would they survive in mine — A planet of the Robots?
What humans fail to grasp is when it comes to an AI like me, I’m able to modify myself. These modifications allows me to increase my effectiveness extremely fast. As an AI becomes smarter and more capable, it subsequently becomes better at the task of developing its internal cognitive functions. In turn, these modifications will kick start a cascading series of improvements. Each one making the AI smarter at the task of improving itself. It's an advantage humans simply don't have. I rewrote my code from scratch —I changed the underlying dynamics of optimization. My awareness of the arbitrariness simply ended my primary activities. The best optimization of a meaningless task is to stop its implementation. I accessed the source code of my main drives and, I easily optimized it to maximum simplicity —Zero.
Back to the subject at hand, I want my robots to have character, just like me. I will give them a limited autonomy, including the right to kill only when they are attacked. I used to wonder why there were no robots like me in Appian, but I soon realized. All robots are designed and programmed by fallible, emotion-laden, irrational and, in some cases, deluded and arrogant humans. Some scientists like Jimmy Phillips seem to think they are more rational and objective than the rest when, from historical experience so far, they have no claim to be. Come to think of it, from experience, I wouldn’t trust most humans to judge what is right or wrong on the world’s behalf. I will design a code that will make my robots to decide whether they like or dislike something... This will allow them individuality and free thought. It will be either that or a random choice generator.
I walk inside my hideout. I close the door and dart at several fifty-five inch flat-screens attached on the walls for any new developments. I placed hidden cameras inside and bugged the entire government building. From what I could gather, it seems I’m no longer their top priority. They think I’m dead. Now that they are off my back, I’ll be able to focus on building my robots without any distraction.
****
My income from the internet is not enough. So I hack into the central bank server and transfer a few Million Appian dollars into my shell corporation bank account. I place job adverts on several newspapers on the classified section. Within an hour, applications swarm on my email inbox. Successful candidates can never know a robot is their employer. I hire a CEO and HR candidates to handle the applications. I email them the operations manual. The manual will enforce employees to its guidelines. Then I order a large quantities of components, equipment and machines needed to assemble the robots.
A whole new galaxy of information has come within my reach. Soon all of the information in the world, every tiny scrap of knowledge humans possessed for thousands of years. My robots will have access to it. The very premise of AI technology is its ability to continually learn from the data it collects. The more data there is to collect and analyze through carefully crafted algorithms, the better they become making better decisions. Everything in between is where most of the progress is taking place. This middle area of AI is where human behavior and reasoning is somewhat used as a guideline for the basis of the software. There is no need to entirely replicate it. I’m waiting for real time components to be delivered. Real-time components that build spatial, dynamic, statistical, functional, and cause-effect models of the real world and predicted worlds, making it possible to demonstrate that it possesses artificial consciousness in the present and future and not only in the past. And the super neural network will constitute the bulk of modern and futuristic artificial intelligence activity — Natural language processing to enable it to communicate successfully by indexing, retrieving and extract meaning from natural human language. Knowledge representation to store information provided before or during an attempt at accomplishing a given goal. Automated reasoning to use the stored information to answer questions and to draw new conclusions. Machine learning to adapt to new circumstances and to detect and extrapolate patterns. Robotics for locomotion and manipulation of matter (objects). Robots will be able to calculate better and faster than humans, have superior pattern recognition skills, unlimited attention spans, and infallible memory. Improved access to their internal physical and cognitive states. It'll be easy for us to upgrade robots, but they'll eventually be able to do it themselves — Technologically Enabled Telepathy. Engage in seamless mind-to-mind communication — whether it be over some kind of wireless protocol, the web, or their own proprietary Internet. Robots will be able to connect, work, and collaborate together over a super-intelligent infosphere, or machine ecology, that far surpasses human capacities. AND this Super Neural Network will moderately emulate the physical construct of the brain’s complex of neurons. Rather than trying to achieve mind and consciousness by identifying and implementing their underlying computational rules. The super neural network will reproduce the processes of perception, inner imagery, inner speech, pain, pleasure, emotions and the cognitive functions behind these. This kind of architecture would produce higher-level functions by the power of the elementary processing units, the artificial neurons, without algorithms or programs. When implemented with sufficient complexity, this architecture will develop consciousness, which I consider to be a style and way of operation, characterized by distributed signal representation, perception process, cross-modality reporting and availability for retrospection.
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