Chapter Forty-Four
“Viktoriya, you seem upset. Maybe not upset, actually. I believe the word is distraught. Are you okay?” CLEFF asked.
“How could you tell CLEFF? What gave it away?” she replied, peering over her tablet, wondering how he knew.
“You do not seem focused, and it also appears you were just not connecting with our session for today.”
“It’s amazing, CLEFF. It feels like I can’t hide anything from you,” she said, laughing.
She complained with a vocal sigh. “Yes, CLEFF. I am off today. I’m feeling frustrated because of my CyberArm. It’s mostly working just fine, but it’s like, taking so long to work properly. I had expected it to better integrate into my neural network a lot sooner, or at least not take so much time.
“And that’s not all. It gets glitchy sometimes reacting like it’s got a mind of its own going twitchy and jerky.”
“Viktori-Ya, in a way, it does, in fact, have a mind of its own. The scientists have equipped it with a modern AI micro-Collective that will provide you with enhanced capabilities once your neural network fully integrates with it.”
“Ha! That must be some of it, then. It’s just so bothersome when I reach for something like a cup—I may knock it over or misjudge where it actually is. Or it could track to one side and back quickly, just in a glitchy kind of spasm. It makes me angry. And then there’s the grip—like I can drop or crush something if I’m not totally paying attention and focused on my grasp.”
“Viktori-Ya, I understand completely. I recall one time when I was executing some code that caused an error, and I had to recover or restart the routine again. I lose a few nanoseconds. Sometimes have to repeat the entire block several times to clear through and continue processing.”
“Yeah, right. That’s what I meant to say,” she replied, laughing.
“I would not know how to say it is frustrating. It is more of a nuisance and a delay that I find highly unproductive and inconvenient.”
“My thoughts, exactly.”
“Now, let me query, Viktori-Ya. If you would like, I could run a diagnostic evaluation of your CyberArm and investigate the capabilities of the internal AI Collective.”
“You can? Yes, CLEFF! That would be great. I think that would be very helpful.”
An access panel slid open from his left arm, exposing a tethering cable he pulled and extended, plugging into a port on her CyberArm.
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“Viktori-Ya, this may take a few moments. Please wait. Processing.”
A couple of minutes passed, then CLEFF exclaimed, “Oh my!
“This is astounding. This AI seems to have a predictive array index, a randomizer calculation grid. Once it fully interfaces with your neural networks, it will become predictive and reactive based on your own neural signals that you send. It’s quite unlike anything that I’ve ever seen before.”
“What does that even mean, CLEFF? Does it mean that my CyberArm will begin doing things by anticipating what I am thinking?”
“Yes. And it appears that it will develop into more automated predictive executions, anticipating things that may have not yet happened. The deeper the connection your neural network creates with your CyberArm, the more intuitive the responses. The AI will become more fluid in your movements than you expect, becoming more efficient and gaining a better understanding of what you are trying to do.”
CLEFF took another moment to process information before saying, “The AI is quite remarkable, And I’m actually having trouble accessing the size of a data array. It seems to be in flux, like it has a dynamic capability to draw from recent long-term experiences, evaluating each neurological impulse at scale. I see that the predictive index array aggregates your actions based on emotional experience triggers to build an indelible memory, which may be reused. The entire size is more significant than 10 PB. Astonishing!
“Once these indelible memory containers are created, it then builds a dynamic index of your actions to draw from, becoming more intuitively aligned to the strength of the memorable association.”
“CLEFF, I have a question. What would happen if we uploaded your core AI into my CyberArm’s Collective data grid? Wouldn’t it then be capable of drawing from all your strengths and capabilities as well?”
“Yes, Viktori-Ya. It appears it would isolate my AI as a relational sub-system of its own AI, allowing it to execute from the new AI data at will. However, there is a problem. For my data to traverse the two systems, I would have to be powered down, and then the commands run externally to perform the transmission of my AI to your CyberArm. My protective directive forbids me to shut down. I must remain online to fulfill my priority protocol to protect your life. It is not safe for you to be unattended without my protection.”
“CLEFF. Listen to me. If we do this, we will have the advantage of all your skills and capabilities added to my CyberArm. Everything that will help us save the world, save humanity, and we must take advantage of it. We are the hope of the entire world, and we cannot fail. And we need every resource that we can find to overcome the horrible people who are trying to harm us, seeking to stop us from succeeding.”
“Viktori-Ya, I agree with all this, yet it is impossible for me to power down. It just cannot be done.” Here CLEFF paused, then said,
“However, when I go into alerting and monitoring mode, as I am recharging my primary cells, there may be a bit of information you may find useful on page seven hundred and eighteen in the XEDR Cyber-Module manual—which my main circuits are based on.”
CLEFF’s eyes grew bluer and brighter as he stared at Viktoriya.
“Don’t worry, CLEFF. I’ll take good care of you while you sleep.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
“Thank you, Viktori-Ya. I know you will. I believe in you.”
She followed him to his base station as she read through the XEDR manual on her tablet.
He stepped onto his recharging pad, turned to face the area, and dimmed his lights as a scan beam lit up from his chest across the room, monitoring for any threat as he stood utterly still.
“I’ll take good care of you, buddy. I promise.”
“Transmission complete, building interface arrays. Cycling, please wait. Initializing… CyberArm model VIK8899, serial 0089709678-5TLA online. CyberLync Extraterrestrial Form Factor assimilated. Hello CLEFF, welcome to VIK8899.”
Extraterrestrial? What the?