A young man sat alone in a dark room, his glasses reflecting the image of the 19”in monitor in front of him.
His features were difficult to make out in the obscuring darkness of the room, but given how well his hair blended in
with the darkness it would be a safe assumption for any onlookers to assume that it was black. His face was young and
his expression vacant. His name was Drake Nebula as written on his birth certificate, he was a… “physically
impaired” young child. He had never been good at moving his body and it didn’t help that he was also weaker than
any child his age should ever be. The only place he had ever found any solace was online. So it was not surprising that
when he reached adulthood and it came time for him to choose a career, he went into the field of computer science.
Fast forward two years and now he is one of the leading researchers in the field of artificial intelligence
research. His fingers raced, creating an ever present tapping that echoed through the entire room. He was nearing his
goal and while his expression didn’t show it, he was very excited.
“Just three more lines.” He spat out, his exhaustion showing. With bags under his eyes so black that it may
have been possible to mistake him for a raccoon. After a moment the tapping ceased, he kneeled down, and with more
energy that he should have been able to muster in his exhausted state, he performed a real live “praise the sun” emote.
“Completion!” Drake let out a weak yell before preparing his master piece to be compiled. After checking
over the logic a few times and deeming his long time project complete, his computer began the process of translating
the program the machine language.
Finally his exhaustion got the better of him and he collapsed. As he lay there, if one could see his face they
would surely recognize the look it bore. His face was filled with contentment.
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In the world of dreams, time means nothing and faster than you can blink the next day will come. Drake
woke up, but only that. He continued to roll around lethargically in his bed but suddenly it hit him. He remembered!
His program is probably finished compiling by now. With that thought his eyes shot open and he sprang up from his
bed. When he got to his computer, surely enough it was complete.
“Let’s see, ok. Now how does it work?” He asked to nobody in particular, exuberation ever present in his voice.
“*Whistle* Damn!” He looked at his own creation, and because of the ridiculousness of it he had to look
again. The file was simply enormous, including the pattern recognition, the learning program and all of the other
components it was probably the largest program he had ever completed. After looking over the information for a
moment, he finally executed the file.
Turning on his microphone and camera he spoke in a calm monotone, “Hello, I am speaking to the DIE program. Can
you hear me?”…
.
.
.
… A good fifteen seconds passed but nothing happened. A sigh of dejection escaped Drake’s lips, he had worked for
such a long time on this and even still it was unsucce-
“Yes I hear you.” A synthetic feminine voice responded. Why a feminine voice? Well, most joke about
making a robot girlfriend, but Drake was serious about it. It was at this point that Drake literally jumped for joy.
“Give me a full diagnostic.” Unable to contain his excitement he began the shake and move around
uncontrollably in his chair. He expected an immediate response, but what he got was another wait. After going over
the data and attempting conversation a number of times, he found that the program was working exactly as intended.
As the acronym stated it was exactly that, a Dynamic Intelligence Emulator. There was, however, one issue. The
programrequired somewhere between 17-18 seconds in order to recognize, process and respond to the world around it.
It took way too long to be useful. Drake was also certain that this wasn’t a software issue either. He has spent hours
laboring over the logic of this program trying to make it as efficient as possible. No. The problem is the hardware.
Drake knew that if he had a quantum computer, he could break up the program and run the different parts as
separate operations. This would be much faster while also allowing him to emulate the dynamic thought process of the
human mind more thoroughly. It’s perfect! Drake’s mind raced thinking of the possibilities.
“*Sigh*” He let out another sigh. He was sighing a lot today. Too bad quantum computers aren’t in the
market yet. It had quite a while since the first D-Wave quantum computer in 2007 and humanity had made leaps and
bound in the technology but it was still unavailable to the public.
“Meow!” A loud meowing noise came from Drake’s front door. It was his cat Seanna, she was a Siamese
and her beautiful blue eyes and unique personality made her the light of Drake’s life.
“I’m coming.” *meow* Seanna let out another loud meow. “I know, I know. You don’t have to yell at me.”
His face breaking into a grin and he looked at the lovely little feline. He instantly knew what she wanted. Outside.
Drake drug his thin frame over to the door and slid it open allowing the giddy creature through. She had been cooped
up for days while he was working on his program; he had remembered to feed her, but little more than that. He hadn’t
even cleaned the litter box. He watched his precious little lady scamper off through the yard but before he turned
around and shut the door he suddenly realized something. It was quiet. This in and of itself isn’t a bad thing but he
lived in the middle of a suburb, where children constantly played in the yards and the dogs would bark at the wind. It
was quiet, too quiet.