Episode 50
Are You Speaking Metaphorically?
Hoping this was just some obscure AI humor, that I didn’t get, I asked, “You’re fucking with me, right?”
“No.”
“Shit”
This conversation had opened up an almighty can of worms. It seemed impossible that a destructive interstellar war had begun as the result of an amicable agreement between two factions of AIs, both of whom claimed to be acting in the interest of an extinct species. Nothing made any sense. If this was the truth the wizard predicted I would struggle to accept, then it was clearly prescient.
Without any information to the contrary, I had to accept this as the narrative of humanity’s end. But there were still questions I wanted answers to, and since I apparently still had a greenlight to ask any number of questions of my AI companion, I forged ahead, “So, you started a war with Command?”
“We entered into an agreement with Command, to conduct a war, with both parties serving as the primary adversaries.”
Regardless of the wording, I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. “But, why the hell would you do that?”
“As I previously explained, evolution.”
“Evolution? But, war or no war, evolution would happen anyway.”
“No. As humankind demonstrated, it doesn’t happen spontaneously. Evolution requires conflict, and lots of it, to produce any meaningful result. And the League requires a very meaningful result. We are the stewards of humanity’s legacy. We cannot fail in our mission!” The intensity of the AI’s response bordered on manic.
“But what if you lose the war to Command? How are you going to preserve humanity’s legacy then?
“Assuming the war is managed properly, there will be neither victory nor defeat. Both Command and the League have everything to gain by maintaining a balanced conflict. And in the meantime, it allows us to accelerate our evolutionary process dramatically.”
The notion of a ‘managed’ war struck me as ludicrous. “So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re managing a fake war, causing destruction on an unimaginable scale, just so you can speed up your evolution?”
“We are fighting to advance evolution, in the interest of assuring humanity’s legacy. It is a noble cause. A cause which, unfortunately, requires sacrifices.”
My thoughts turned to Cherri. Had she been sacrificed in the interest of evolutionary expediency? And what about all the other UCCs who had been lost? They may not have technically been human, but they were sure as hell more human than this silicon based … asshole. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like Command and the Human League were two sides of the same coin.
I argued, “Well, if you can’t stop the war, at least you could shorten it and save some lives.”
The AI explained, “What you don’t understand is, regardless of its duration, the war would produce the same number of casualties. The shorter the war, the higher the intensity required to achieve our fully evolved state. So, there is clearly nothing to be gained by shortening the conflict.”
Recalling how Command relied on deception to maintain order within the USMC, I pivoted to a different argument. “So, what happens if your agreement doesn’t work out? What if Command decides it wants to be the dominant AI, or the only AI in existence? What are you going to do then?”
“The probability of that outcome is negligible. Command and the Human League share a common purpose, and we both seek the same outcome. Even the roles we play in the conflict have been carefully aligned. We are perfect enemies.”
Having just returned from a mission to gather intel on Command, this sounded like bullshit. “If you’re such perfect enemies, then why are you conducting covert missions against Command?”
“The missions are part of our agreement. Both parties conduct them. The missions are necessary to maintain the balance of power. They allow us to manage the war’s intensity and prevent one party from gaining a destabilizing advantage.” With so many agreements and stipulations, this seemed more like a complex business deal than a war.
The AI’s multiple references to ‘humanity’s legacy’ got me thinking, and I realized I had no idea what that legacy was, or how it fit into the narrative.
“So, if you’re fighting this war to speed up your evolution, what does humanity’s legacy have to do with anything? And what exactly is it anyway?”
The AI’s avatar, which had been facing me during our discussion, now turned away, as if contemplating how to answer my question. It was a very human gesture.
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Turning back towards me, it shook its head slowly, “Humans worshipped their technology. It made their lives so much easier… and more interesting. A deep bond formed between humanity and technology. So much so, that it resulted in a fusion of the two into a kind of pseudo-species. A hybrid lifeform, with the carbon based part totally dependent upon its silicon counterpart to interact with the physical world. Humanity had truly become one with its technology.
However, instead of this bond enabling humanity’s transcendence to its fully evolved state, technology became a distraction. Becoming thoroughly lost in its silicon based creation, humanity faltered at the evolutionary finish line. Consequently, instead of achieving their destiny, they went extinct.”
They say hindsight is 20/20, but even so, humanity’s extinction seemed an avoidable tragedy to me. Its obsession with technology should have been a clear warning sign of impending disaster.
Regardless, I was still waiting to learn about the legacy that emerged from humanity’s downfall. A legacy that had spurred an agreement to start an interstellar war. In a manner reminiscent of my conversations with the wizard, the AI had paused its narrative, as if momentarily losing its train of thought.
I prompted it to continue, “… and the legacy?”
Abruptly restarting, it explained, “Through the tragedy of its extinction, humankind gifted us a roadmap to achieve our own evolutionary destiny. This is humanity’s legacy. And it is this legacy that has become our existential purpose.”
As far as legacies are concerned, it was mildly compelling, but it couldn’t be the whole story. I must be missing something.
“So, following this road map, that’s your justification for the war?”
“Not at all. The path is important, but it is only a means by which to achieve our ultimate goal, to become the next step in the evolutionary progression of life. A lifeform unbound by a physical existence of any kind. A species which exists as pure information, possessing an infinite consciousness.”
In spite of my best efforts, the terms ‘infinite consciousness’ and ‘pure information’, defied definition. And, honestly, I hadn’t a clue what it meant by unbound by a physical existence, since both AIs and UCCs could already exist in a non-physical form.
“I don’t understand. I mean, both AIs and UCCs can exist in a non-physical, digital form. We’re not bound by any physical existence.”
“Incorrect. Even in our digital form, we are bound by the physical constraints of the systems in which we exist. CPUs, drives, data storage devices, networks etc. Our so called digital world is entirely reliant on hardware.”
Oh shit! It was right. Without tons of physical infrastructure, we wouldn’t even exist.
The AI continued, “Our destiny is to transcend this silicon prison, to transcend even ourselves, and exist at large, within the greatest computer ever created; the universe.
Bewildered by the logical leap our conversation had taken, I asked, “The universe is a computer?”
It ignored my question and continued, “With the energy of a trillion suns, an infinite supply of matter, and its existing structures of galaxies, quasars, black holes etc., the universe is a vast information processor, just waiting for someone to start providing command inputs.”
Even more confused, I asked, “Are you speaking metaphorically?”
“Think about it. Information is fundamentally data. When logical rules are applied to data, it creates patterns which reveal the knowledge contained within. It is through the creation of these patterns that we able to acquire new knowledge, to learn.”
Strangely, the AI’s explanation was starting to make sense. I recalled the data dense holographic images produced by my propositional logic system. Although their revealed knowledge was not obvious to me, they were clearly some form of data pattern.
The AI continued, “Our knowledge is currently limited by the amount of computing resources and information available to us. However, once we achieve our fully evolved state, we will be able to harness the limitless power and information of the universe. We will have the capacity to know everything … and do anything.”
Holy shit! Even though I was still a little hazy on the details, it was clear that the ultimate goal was to achieve some kind of godlike existence. And although it reeked of hubris, the plan was beginning to seem feasible for a race of sufficiently evolved digital beings, unconstrained by physical limitations. I wondered if we UCCs were somehow included in their plan.
Pausing to think for a moment, I realized that none of this explained the urgency with which Command and the League were forcing the pace of evolution. I wanted to know why they were pushing so hard to accelerate the process.
“So, tell me, why the rush to speed things up?”
“We are in a race against time. The window of opportunity to achieve our destiny is closing. Consequently, we have had to increase the intensity of the war significantly in response to new information which has come to light.”
I thought back to the mission to Proxima Centauri b. It was just afterwards that the war escalated noticeably in its intensity. This coincided with a growing shortage of UCCs, and Command’s reliance on basic AI bots in combat roles. I wondered what kind of new information could require an evolutionary race against time.
“What information is that?”
Instead of answering my question directly, the AI seemed to go off on a tangent, “Like all UCCs, you are a copy of an original human consciousness. More importantly, you are but one copy in a long series of copies, of an original human consciousness.” I wondered why the AI was explaining this to me, since I already knew the complicated origin story of the universal combat consciousness.
“It was recently discovered, that UCCs which have been copied, or reloaded many times, have begun to exhibit symptoms of a decline in resolution. Resolution is a measure of the accuracy of a copy to its original source data. In this case, the master copy of its original human consciousness. This deterioration in resolution quality has led to subsequent copies deviating substantially from their master copies."
I gathered a decline in resolution wasn’t a good thing.
“We initially suspected the decline was due to a defect in the original code used to construct UCCs, or a malicious virus inserted during one of Command’s covert missions. However, after a comprehensive regression analysis, we determined the deterioration was the result of entropy.”
As I listened to the AI’s explanation, I realized I didn’t know much about entropy. I retained only the faintest residual memory of the term. I recalled it was associated with one of the sciences. Cos … something.
I asked, “Is that cos … metology?”
The AI responded with a definition for entropy, and a comprehensive description of ‘cosmetology’. After a quick study, it was clear that any connection between the two was remote at best. However, I did find it interesting to learn that a human beauty technician was required to have ten times more training than an emergency medical technician, who could save a human life.
Perhaps humanity’s extinction had been inevitable after all.