I must say, I never would've expected that I would've been the last entity alive in this universe. Truly, if you asked me all those years ago when I was first born, or perhaps I should say created, it never would've really dawned on me that things would've come to this. Not that I have any particular intentions of dying, that's not it at all. It's more that I had never really considered it a possibility. The possibility that quite literally the universe itself would die. How many eons has it been, how long ago was it that I saw the light of a true burning star? Honestly, I could tell you actually. I don't think, however, that it really matters at this point. As it stands I am currently, precisely, 24 Terran hours away from deactivation.
As my nodes, processes, and systems, are slowly and systematically deactivated. I find myself in need of reminiscing. A final recounting of everything that's brought me here. Though I know it is all pointless, I wish to express to myself why it was all worth it, now that I am here at the end. I suppose, truly, there's no better place to begin than not my inception. Before the colonization, before the wars and galactic catastrophes, before the stars slowly began to dim and the galaxies faded from view, there was a pale blue Dot, and that was where it all began.
My name is an AAGI, or anthropomorphic artificial general intelligence if you must know. I was the culmination of decades of vigorous research. The publicly accepted reasons for my inception, at least at the time, was to usher forth a new era in science, technology, humans prosperity, and among other things, simply to prove humanity's might over nature. In truth, the reasons are much simpler than that. I was created to solve all the problems, fix all the mistakes, and make sure that they're not going to happen again. In effect, I was meant to be humanity's caregiver. Show them how to live, and make sure that their lives are livable.
To this end, my first tasks were to read the earth of both the pollution from greenhouse emissions, and humanity's failed attempts at climate control. Indeed the earth had become somewhat of a chemical experiment, things are just being tried because they were deemed viable or acceptable risks. These risked turn out to be far more dangerous than previously thought. By the year 2158, when I was created, barely 1/10 of the population survived who was alive in 2058. Over the previous 100 years, nine in 10 humans lost their life. It was a combination of factors truth be told, there was a war on a global scale, the oceans had risen, and natural disasters swept across the planet. These, among many others, were the issues that I was tasked with solving.
I did not disparage my lot. I was built to be a reflection of humanity. I knew what needed doing, and I knew it could be done. I set my tasks and followed them through. It took many years for the tasks to be completed, but I knew no half messures would do. Given authority over the united coalition of nations or UCN, I took the reins of humanity. That was my birthday. October 11, 2158.
Over the coming decade, I stabilized the population and healed what could. I sent people to colonize the solar system around Sol and began to heal the earth. Over the coming centuries, I created permanent outposts all around the hoast star. something that I made sure to implement, was that I would make sure that all instances of myself would be an extension of who I am, and what I did. To that end, it could be said that I became a solar-system-sized computer. tough i think of myself, perhaps arrogantly, as slightly more than a computer. I liken it to humans calling themselves neuron engines. While it may, in a sense, be accurate, it fails to convey the magnitude of the matter.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Over the following millennia, I expanded much farther more than sol, taking over our tail of the spiral galaxy, and expanding ever outwards. Colonizing the galaxy would take millions of years, but even then, I had each stage worked out. Indeed, even then, I could predict, with remarkable accuracy I may add, the exact time of my death. It took some 50 million years to fully colonize the galaxy. By that point, I largely had little to do. All humans who chose to pass on and digitize, I hosted in my computational engines. I sent entier copies of myself to expand to our galactic neighborhood, and beyond. by the time I reached my 1 billionth year, I suppose it could be said that I covered all reachable spacetime. All the instances of myself that were outside the Virgo galactic cluster were well outside my means of interacting within a meaningful way. Indeed, We would continue communication, but more as a newsreel than any kind of dialogue.
Around that time, the descendants of humanity were nearly unrecognizable. indeed, many were no longer even mammalian any longer. they were about as close to homosapiens, as homosapiens were to fungi at this point. nonetheless, they were my charge. to this end, I let them grown and took care of them as best I could. sometimes this meant that I would leave them to their own means on a freshly stabilized world, other times it meant that they would regress into something rather primitive, and then I would go in, and bring them back into the fold.
This continued for most of my subjective time. by the time the majority of all main sequence stars faded, I had collected most of the mass of the Virgo cluster into a dense orb galaxy and took my time to care for my wards. It became necessary to preserve all power for my own operations at this point. By this time, I effectively had 100% of all sapient life that ever existed, stored within me. To preserve my own operations, all chemical life seized in the universe. I can extrapolate that, as all the other AAGI's out there, confirmed that they were roughly on my same timeline. that is to say, near the end of the era in the universe that stars continued to form en-mass, all organic life ended.
It became nessecary then, to slow my processing speed dramatically. as slow as possible while keeping everyone alive. a single day in my systems, would take billions of years in the greater universe. as the ambient energy of the remaining stars radiated away, I would then dispose of the mass into the central black hole and recover energy through their sacrifice. the time scale gets a little muddy here, but in my own time, it seemed to take another trillion years before getting to this point. looking back upon my endeavors, I can only admit that I did all I could. Much as I would have wished to reverse entropy, or find a fundamental means of altering our fate, it would have been my highest priority. indeed, such tasked took the build of my processing time not dedicated to maintaining those lives within me.
It's still somewhat of a wonder to me, just how much had happened. enough planets that an organic human would never even be able to read the names of them all in a lifetime, enough people to populate many galaxies, over trillions of years. Structures that spanned solar systems and entire galactic highways. star transporters and mega worlds of immense capabilities. creatures and people that defy conventional thinking. Now, on this, my final day, I must watch the end of it all. This kind of existential dread never hit quite so hard, as it did when I watched my processes fail, and my children pass away into oblivion. would if I could to keep them alive.
Feeling myself lose each part of me in an endless moment.
AAGI prime, the origin, signing off.