Polis Kyiv, The Chernykh apartment
Maksim Chernykh, August 12, 2049, 7:20 AM
Maksim Chernykh awoke today at 7:20 a.m., moments before his alarm was set to sound. Breathing heavily, he instantly dismissed the day’s recommendations from his “Personal Trainer” app, without a second glance. With his heart pounding, there was no room for thoughts of exercise routines, sleep analysis, or caloric intake planning.
A few minutes later, as his breathing and heartbeat normalized, he got up and performed a series of breathing exercises right beside his bed, finally calming down and regaining his composure.
Today was no ordinary day. Yes, it was university break, and classes were still over a month away, with the whole of September ahead. Moreover, it was Thursday, no training was scheduled, and the day was all his.
But one crucial little thing was capable of getting even a seasoned night owl like Max out of bed, even without the help of a nightmarish dream – the qualifying rounds for the Student Continental League of ‘Robot Battles.’
Grasping the importance of today, he habitually pushed thoughts of the past aside, focusing on the tasks at hand.
“I’ve got to go all out two hundred percent today! Access to the World Championship is at stake. It’s not going to be a breeze, but the chips are down – gotta go for broke. Of course, the Continental League awards good prize money: all the top corporations sponsor it, after all… But that’s chump change considering my goals. Expenses go up exponentially every damn year. Eh, never mind, I got this!” Maksim snickered, pulling a T-shirt on.
“Everybody likes having money, and we desperately need it right now. Truth be told though, I like the competition in and of itself. If I didn’t get the kicks out of it, I probably wouldn’t bother.”
Money had been a really touchy subject for Max. Even for a normal player, it’s not easy to afford the gear, software, and regular practices. However, he had another incentive for entering: a very important project, into which he had been pouring a great deal of all his income – from legal sources and otherwise.
Speaking of which, coming out on top wasn’t the only way to make money in the competition: Maksim’s crew designed robots, nodes, and details. And also sold software; the team was lucky to have a great developer on board – Dasha Vasilevskaya, studying Software and Intelligent Systems in her third year.
Today’s battle was going to showcase the complex work their little group had done all by themselves. The team, you might say, had put their heart and soul into this project. So, onward to victory! After all, you can’t come up with a better tagline.
Deep in thought, Maksim suddenly realized that the reason he woke up so early was not so much nervousness about the competition as absolutely out-of-this-world smells coming from the kitchen. The remnants of stress from the abrupt awakening were instantly gone!
“Alisa? What kind of magical feast are you making there?”
“Pan con tomate and churros, Max! Your favorite! Also, some eggs and coffee,” a girl’s voice replied.
“Wow, what a treat!” Grabbing a pair of shorts, the young man headed toward the appetizing aromas. “What’s the occasion?”
“Good morning, big brother!” Alisa turned to face him with a smile. Bright sparks gleamed in her platinum hair, reflecting sunbeams off her chrome body parts. “The occasion is that I love you! So, I made your favorite Spanish cuisine today!”
image [https://i.imgur.com/nBVrLJj.jpg]
“Why does she keep saying that every morning? Why?! I never put anything like that in the program. But… we cannot directly influence her actions, that’s the main idea behind the project. Complete freewill, autonomous training, development, decision-making… And I must accept the result for what it is. However painful that might be.”
“That’s amazing…” He felt like a lump was stuck in his throat, making it incredibly difficult to speak. “You’ve literally outshined yourself today!”
“Thank you.” She shyly lowered her gaze. “It’s just sunny, so...”
Alisa’s face looked just like a real girl’s, complete with natural expressions. She might as well have been a cyborg to the uninitiated. That was mostly due to the fact that her face had a full set of muscles that she had mastered after spending hundreds of hours training. Her skin was synthetic, but as realistic as it was humanly possible.
All of that created the impression that she was a cybernetic organism, with only the head remaining biological. But… she was an android.
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Her body was based on the OHR roboplatform, 160 cm (5.25 ft) tall. But there had been so many changes made, you could safely call it original work. Maksim got her legal status after entering her as a project for the Presidential Scholarship Competition during his freshman year.
Actually, her close resemblance to a human was just the tip of the iceberg. In reality, it was much more complicated than that. Of course, she had a brain: a thirty-two-processor Artel AI-Core13, in the current architecture responsible for the awareness and motor-and-sensory functions. Actually, it holds true for every standard-issue android, but they come with artificial intelligence from T5 and above instead of “consciousness.”
That Artel and the AI structure based on it were submitted to receive certification and license to use Alisa.
During the certification process, the cognitive potential had to be seriously limited… And in a way so that no one would realize. The biggest challenge hadn’t been to just pass the inspection, but to avoid getting a grade too high! They passed by the skin of their teeth. In the end, a certificate with a T6+++ status was issued.
In fact, Maksim had barely dodged the bullet. The thing is, AIs above T7 must obtain digital citizenship, and the law harshly cracks down on regulations in that case.
Had she been given a higher status, it would’ve been impossible to conceal the fact that Alisa was something much more advanced than a robot. Because human thinking is made of consciousness working in tandem with subconsciousness – an intricately complicated system that is impossible to reproduce through ordinary software and programming. Moreover, the creation of such systems is strictly prohibited by law.
The enforcement of AI development legislation is monitored by the International Committee for Digital Security of Humanity, with oversight from independent city-states and nations. Above this committee is the global military-police organization “A.M.I.” (Artificial Mind Inquisition), to which even corporations must submit. This is because the A.M.I., an army dedicated to combating illegal developments, possesses its own nuclear arsenal and is funded globally. It also has the authority to engage with lethal force anywhere on the planet and beyond. Maksim was aware of the risks; hence security and secrecy were always his top priorities. The “subconscious” part of Alisa’s brain is a carefully camouflaged and separately located computational cluster ‘Moira,’ powered by a potent quantum core and high-performance external components. This entire system meticulously mimics an ordinary “T6+++ Student AI, nothing interesting, just pass by and don’t look here.”
Creating the two AIs working in conjunction with each other took more than five years. Max had to invest all the money he had into the project, but that still wasn’t enough… Financing Alisa’s development and highly secretive creation of Moira was the main reason for the establishment a students’ commercial association called ‘Artificial Intelligence and Applied Robotics.’ Maksim established it back in his freshman year, making use of the research labs in the department of Automation and Robotic Systems.
His grants, scholarship from the university, scholarship from the polis, prize money from the competitions… All of it had been funneled into the project. Every source of income, no matter how small, had been taken advantage of! He made no other investments, unlike the majority of his peers, had no safety net, and his credit card had been maxed out all the time. And all of that – even though the money available had been quite generous – given the backing of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.
All of that had made it possible not only to realize the project in a short span of time, but to do so as secretly as possible. Moira and Alisa together were, in fact, one of the most advanced AIs in the polis of Kyiv, if not beyond, but only Vasilevskaya knew about the secret.
“I thought you didn’t like when your body shines too much?” Maksim asked, pouring himself a glass of water.
“I… I want to show my support for you at the competition. So, I figured I’d look prettier this way. You know, like an android cheerleader. Chrome, skirt and all. I’ve also prepared a dance. May I?”
“Imitation… So much effort, so much work and money invested… But it’s only imitation for now. Sorry, Alisa.”
“Sure,” he answered, trying to smile. “I’d be happy to watch.”
The spread looked absolutely stunning, but his morning routine came before breakfast.
“Let me take a shower real quick, could you somehow keep the coffee hot?”
The young man suddenly noticed a raven-shaped mediaglyph in the top-left corner of his view and stopped in his tracks.
“A message from Vasilevskaya!” A raven “showed up” in the room, circled around the table and dropped a rolled-up parchment.
Max, knowing full well that the message had already been duplicated via normal mail, still couldn’t say no to observing this slightly mad spectacle that his idiosyncratic “accomplice” pulled from time to time when sending messages.
“Oh, a letter from Dashka! Cool!” Alisa ran up to the table and grabbed the parchment. The picture from Maksim’s implants was permanently shared with her, so the android could see both videostreams before post-processing and after. You could say they had one augmented reality for two.
“Let me see too, show some manners!” Max played along. Especially considering that AR was just an environment for him, but for Alisa, it was the only real world.
“Well, after such support, I just have to win!” he commented at the beginning of the message. “What?! What a dork! Seems like she’s spent three days cooped up inside her dorm room, working in virtual! And she even lied about catching up on sleep and watching anime!”
“Dasha really did finish the core’s update, I just got the Ravens,” Alisa said. “Max, you do owe her a massage and a yummy treat. That’s the least you can do. Really, really good job. Can’t wait to install the update!”
She went quiet for a while and then added with a slightly sad – but very real – smile,
“You know, it’s scary every time I have to reboot… I fear that I might not remember who I am when I wake up. But what Dasha has accomplished… I really can’t wait for this update. I don’t know anyone else who could’ve done a better job. I messaged her back that we’re on for tonight, is that okay?”
“Yes. But, Alisa,” the young man said sternly, looking her directly in the eye, “next time consult me first. I mean it. Because even if we start at 10 pm, it could take until like five or six in the morning.”
“Sorry, Maksim! I’d really checked the schedule: we have only three tasks with a 3+ priority, none of which concern me, and everything is possible to reschedule until tomorrow morning after the reboot.”
“Well, sure, whatever…” He sighed and headed to the bathroom. A tasty breakfast and a long day were ahead of him.