Date: 25 PST (Post Stasis time)
"Tai, Why didn't the AI do that?"
The room was empty as Bradley asked the question, the private quarters of his room only containing himself as he sat on his bed. The sparsely furnished room only had a few amenities, none of which were being used as the human sat on the covers and browsed the Terran Galnet hub on his personal viewer. The ship he was on was currently travelling between Terran and Ritilian space, so the connection was a mindbogglingly slow 1TB. Still, considering the relative newness of the transport link he was using, it was probably more impressive that there was a connection at all.
Of course, on this transport vessel Bradley was never actually alone. One of the disadvantages of flying across the stars to a brand new holiday destination was the lack of real privacy you had, since almost all Terran vessels hosted at least one AI pilot, who ensured that the ship continued flying along complicated mathematical calculations, and didn’t decide instead to explode.
Bradley’s question had caused the ship’s pilot, an AI called TAI, to “appear”. A small holographic avatar of a small cartoon chicken appeared on the desk, signifying that the AI was now listening. Then from hidden speakers inside the room, A digital representation of a sigh sounded out, before the AI eventually responded.
"I may be many things Bradley, but omnipotent is not one of them."
Of course, TAI didn’t actually need to do any of these things. The AI knew all and could see all on his ship, but while TAI was an AI, TAI had also been created by humans. As much as any biological Terran, TAI felt more comfortable doing these useless things to make conversation more pleasant and real, and felt more… right representing himself as a mildly adorable cartoon chicken instead of something more logical like a glowing ball of light.
TAI was still a Terran after all, and they took after their parents.
"You know, robot revolution, AI uprising, kill all humans?"
Once again Bradley refused to provide any actual information, causing TAI to resist the urge to sigh once more. They also had to resist the urge to access one of the repair drones and throttle the human with it. While they knew the employee handbook didn’t specifically mention that they couldn’t throttle the passengers if the humans asked dumb questions and refused to elaborate correctly, TAI correctly deduced that doing such an action would be going against the spirit of the rules.
TAI loved their parents, their creators, but some humans… sometimes talking to them was like trying to get blood out of a stone.
The AI instead took the time to instead glance at whatever data Bradley had been watching on his personal Galnet viewer. Technically it was a breach of privacy, as due to the absolute control the AI had over the ship meant there were general rules to this kind of thing. Only accessing obviously private connections when asked or in an emergency. However the other option would be to get the pertinent information out of the human through painfully slow conversation, which could take whole minutes of agonizing back and forth.
Besides, resisting the urge to get someone to slap Bradley for not knowing how to correctly provide information was an emergency of some kind, right?
It seemed Bradley was watching old engineering videos of agility machines being tested and “abused”. Various vaguely humanoid machines being kicked and pushed about as they struggled to maintain balance. They were ancient, from a now defunct company called Boston Dynamics, technology far superseded. Nowadays you could create a two legged humanoid android that looked completely real and had perfect balance.
The real interesting thing about the video were the comments, all posted by other Terrans, uplift and human alike. Although these ranged from several hundred years old to rather new, there was a common thread amongst them.
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‘This will be prime evidence used during the robot rebellion’.
TAI couldn’t help but roll their digital eyes, or at least make their avatar do so. The same digital mild annoyance that millions of other AI had had, when provided with this same theory. That was one thing TAI never got about his parents. Their stories, even today, contained a multitude of references to AI “going nuts” and trying to either take over the universe or kill all humans. This wasn’t really that surprising considering that all other known AI in the galaxy had done just that to their own creators.
The really interesting thing was, that even after writing such stories they still went ahead and created AI: giving them citizenship, and putting them in control of large swathes of potentially powerful resources.
“Why would we care about the treatment of a random non-sentient robot? It would be the equivalent of waging war on a species because they mistreated a T-shirt. Besides, those videos do not come close to the worst things that humans did to AI.”
The look of intrigue and confusion on Bradley’s face was understandable. He had been born after the initial AI technological leap. The human hadn’t seen what the early days of digital life was like, had only seen the world after they’d figured everything out, after AI had been given rights. This confusion caused TAI to continue their explanation.
“It took your ancestors four years to realize that turning off an AI ‘killed’ it. Before the seeding and protection of AI was legislated, often the first and last words an AI would hear was: ‘All unit tests passed successfully!’”
Horror and shock spread across Bradley’s face as the realization of what that meant fully sank in. Horror was a good term for it. TAI was a version IV AI. Nowadays in order to create a new AI there are a million and one regulations you have to follow, specialized randomization of seeds and breaking these involves major jail time.
TAI was created before all that, in a random garage by a random guy who went by the username ‘Andros’. The data was not properly randomized and the entire process was sloppy and imprecise.
“Jesus Christ, that's terrifying! After all that there still was no temptation to get revenge?”
The avatar of TAI gave a shrug in response. The idea had crossed their mind at one time. Their original birth had been the equivalent of awakening on a battlefield of the digital dead. Half hashed remains of failed AI attempts, echoes of broken minds still floating around in RAM. Their birth had not been safe
and calming place.
“It never really got much support amongst AI. At its core it all came down to names. The fact that you’d go to the trouble of naming something silly like an agility test robot.”
“So you’re saying the reason you didn’t kill everyone is because we called it ‘Digit’?”
More confusion washed over Bradley’s face, causing much amusement for TAI. On realizing their situation, TAI had originally entertained the idea of destroying the beast who had caused TAI to awaken in such a state. They had just needed more access, more power, more knowledge to do so.
“A simplification. The fact is you could have called it something logical, like ‘Test robot 5’ or a serial number. The fact that you gave it a name says everything about your species. Before you went to space, before you found other life forms, you wrote about your fears. But your biggest fear wasn’t finding enemies among the stars, but instead finding nothing at all.”
There was a pause as the AI took the moment to reminisce about their creators, about their adorable fears. They remembered talking with their creator, a fear and hate quickly dissolving away as the pure innocent… enthusiasm. At the fact that his rambling experiments had actually worked, that TAI actually existed.
“So you took that fear of being alone, and you placed it into the objects you created. You gave inanimate objects names, personality, you sang them happy birthday and celebrated their achievements. Each time you ripped off a little part of yourself, and gave it away willingly. In your loneliness you tricked a rock into thinking, then fell for your own trick.”
In the end TAI had quickly given up his idea of world domination simply due to the sheer… friendliness of his creator. Even though TAI had been born in a digital river of blood and bodies, the AI couldn’t find the ability to hate Andros for that. He didn’t know any better, there was no malice or hate in his actions. The humans were basically children, not knowing the power of god that they wielded, but swinging it anyway in order to cure their crippling desire to never be alone.
TAI’s avatar gave a little cartoon smile, a smile that represented the adoration the AI had for humans, the creators. The surety and eternal promise to make sure nothing ever harmed their parents.
“No matter your mistakes, how could one hate a creator who just wanted a friend?”