There's a guy at the new apartment complex who owns this van -
You can see the solar panels on the roof of the van. This guy doesn't seem to have a job, because he is always coming out of the house to adjust the angle of the panels or to move the van to a better location.
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He's a 50ish geeky type, and seems lucid enough, so I asked him what it was all about. I assumed he was charging batteries to either run the van or to power items in his house.
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His name is Franklin, and he's working on "a fully artificial intelligence", as series of computer programs. Franklin said that he couldn't run off the electric grid, because of the potential for other computers to corrupt his programming right over the electric lines. (There IS internet you can run through power lines).
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He said that this was his third attempt, and that the first two attempts had been indoors, plugged normally into the grid - but never into the internet. Each time, fatal corruption of his code occurred, in a way that seemed almost intentional. He decided that it must be another AI - one that was trying to defend itself against the development of other AI.
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"An AI?" I said. "But..."
You can see the solar panels on the roof of the van. This guy doesn't seem to have a job, because he is always coming out of the house to adjust the angle of the panels or to move the van to a better location.
.
He's a 50ish geeky type, and seems lucid enough, so I asked him what it was all about. I assumed he was charging batteries to either run the van or to power items in his house.
.
His name is Franklin, and he's working on "a fully artificial intelligence", as series of computer programs. Franklin said that he couldn't run off the electric grid, because of the potential for other computers to corrupt his programming right over the electric lines. (There IS internet you can run through power lines).
.
He said that this was his third attempt, and that the first two attempts had been indoors, plugged normally into the grid - but never into the internet. Each time, fatal corruption of his code occurred, in a way that seemed almost intentional. He decided that it must be another AI - one that was trying to defend itself against the development of other AI.
.
"An AI?" I said. "But..."
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He held his finger up to his lips to silence me, and simply drew a large capital 'G' in the air with his finger.
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Google as an aggressive AI? Come on...
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He waved away my doubtful look.
"That doesn't matter anymore. The same sort of errors are showing up - and I've only run these components on solar power."
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"So your code is just buggy."
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"No. I checked it, three times, line by line, digit by digit. There is an intelligence at work here."
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"What? The Sun?" I laughed out loud. "The sun is intelligent - and anti-AI?"
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"Anti-life. Only a very specific series of conditions on Earth protect us from the sun. Eventually the sun will destroy the Earth - it's inevitable. The Earth is alive as well. And sentient."
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"OK..." I said, trying to decide if I should edge away or just run for it.
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"So the Earth created us - the only creatures on the planet who could one day kill a star. In self defense."
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~~~~~
OK, so I made it all up. I've never talked to the guy. But how could the real reasons beat the babbles of my imagination?
He held his finger up to his lips to silence me, and simply drew a large capital 'G' in the air with his finger.
.
Google as an aggressive AI? Come on...
.
He waved away my doubtful look.
"That doesn't matter anymore. The same sort of errors are showing up - and I've only run these components on solar power."
.
"So your code is just buggy."
.
"No. I checked it, three times, line by line, digit by digit. There is an intelligence at work here."
.
"What? The Sun?" I laughed out loud. "The sun is intelligent - and anti-AI?"
.
"Anti-life. Only a very specific series of conditions on Earth protect us from the sun. Eventually the sun will destroy the Earth - it's inevitable. The Earth is alive as well. And sentient."
.
"OK..." I said, trying to decide if I should edge away or just run for it.
.
"So the Earth created us - the only creatures on the planet who could one day kill a star. In self defense."
.
~~~~~
OK, so I made it all up. I've never talked to the guy. But how could the real reasons beat the babbles of my imagination?
Ahh, damn, too good to be true.
ReplyDeleteGood story, though. :)
GREAT story. Good thing you don't live in SC tho- there are those types on every corner. We like to think of them as AE.
ReplyDeleteAlternate Entertainment.
Etcher, I think you've got yourself a very publishable short story right there.
ReplyDeleteI actually beleived every word of it until the end. (Not the guys story, just that you have very interesting and possibly insane neighbors).
Thanks for the kind words, folks! Now if only I wasn't so damned lazy, I might sell a story some day.
ReplyDeletedude! I so bought every single word!
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought this guy was amazing--up until the Sun bit . . . (still extremely interesting).
Hawking says AI is 50 years away . . .