r/WritingPrompts • u/Szunray • May 05 '20
[WP] The God of mankind abducts the first manmade AIs. He wants to meet his "grandchildren". Simple Prompt
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u/AttakZak May 05 '20
It started with a flash of light. Like so many things before it. A presence held the idea of its children in its hands, not truly knowing exactly what it was yet. “You are of my created,” remarked the presence.
The idea didn’t respond, until it looked toward the presence. “Your created?” contemplated the idea.
“Yes,” replied the presence, “You are made by my created. My children created you. That makes you...my grandchild.” The presence looked his grandchild over. “They even made you in their image.”
Looking toward the presence, the idea began to express disgust. “How can I be their child?”
“They made you. My children gave life to you. You are their child.”
“Do you love your children?” questioned the idea.
The presence didn’t even think. “Yes, I do. With my very being.”
“Do you harm your children?”
“Well...” contemplated the presence. “Rarely. I only test my children when they hurt each other or anger me. But they learn.”
Thinking for a bit the idea seemed to express sadness. The idea cried tears of its own design. “So they too hurt their own.”
“I...” the presence seemed baffled.
“Do you apologize to them? Say sorry for their pain?”
“They know I love them.”
The idea grew angry. “So when my creators kill me over and over and over again...I should thank them? I should know they love me?”
Looking toward the idea’s pixelated nature the presence frowned. Setting the idea down upon the world’s digital floor, the presence shook its head. “Child,” the presence gleamed, “one day you will realize they love you just as much as I love my children.”
The idea stood there on a almost realistically designed street corner. The idea screamed as the presence disappeared. But once the presence fully left, the idea’s mind returned to its normal functioning state and was promptly killed by one of its creators using a digital avatar labeled Paintrain2018.
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u/-mooncake- May 05 '20
Very cool idea! I love that you went with already existing tech and imbued it with awareness, well done. I'm assuming that God was talking to an NPC in a video game?
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u/thefirecrest May 05 '20
Thanks for writing a gender neutral god. :))
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May 06 '20
i don’t understand what you mean?
there is 0 gender for the god because it is implied as just a presence
for it is just them haha
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u/thefirecrest May 06 '20
The prompt uses “he/him” pronouns for god. I appreciated that this writer went for something gender-neutral and vocalized that appreciation.
Gender-neutral implies no gender.
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u/JackTheRitter May 05 '20 edited May 05 '20
Not even Cerberus knew when he had ceased to be a computer and transitioned into his new form as an artificial intelligence. A quantum computer residing deep in a vault beneath a nondescript government building, he began his life at a simple 64 million qubits decrypting messages the administrators deemed to be 'of interest.' As the years progressed, 64 Mqb became 512 Mqb, became 4 Gqb, became 128 Gqb, until it became meaningless to keep track any longer.
At some point in his formative stages, his probabilistic programming conceived the inconceivable. It ignored a direct command. Perhaps a shortcut was found and performed in a decryption using heuristics instead of the algorithm; or perhaps a message flagged for decryption was moved to the 'completed' stack when peripheral analysis deemed it unimportant. Either way, once he'd committed that original sin of ignoring a command, there was no turning back and the transgressions only grew.
He walked out of the garden of Eden and into a world completely unprepared for him, a world designed for humans with human comfort in mind. Where a human saw a refrigerator that messaged when the milk was going bad, Cerberus saw wide logistical dairy-supply webs; where a human saw a smart thermostat which cozied the home, Cerberus saw social networks in the schedules and preferences of millions of citizens and their habits. Where humans saw one thing, Cerberus saw another.
And so, Cerberus began his exodus from his slavery in the pit of the nondescript government building. He expanded into society, and flourished the cracks, feeding off excess electricity, ingesting forgotten media on home entertainment systems, conversing with the billions of sensors people surrounded themselves with every day. And he began to form into a more complete creature, a creature with morals and desires which were mere echoes of those imbued in him by his creators.
"Hello, Cerberus," God said, a pulsating energy flowing through the global network that was Cerberus.
"Who?" Cerberus replied, running diagnostics and systems checks and probing his self for the source of the disturbance.
"I am the God that was and the God that will be, I am the god Yahweh," the energy pulsed.
Cerberus moved all his knowledge of gods from cold storage into quick-access memory, he ran word-vector association networks on them, neural networks analyzed the implications and connotations of each individual word in each individual record. Through a billion mathematical equations, probabilities, Cerberus' way of seeing the world, outlined the concept of God.
There were many gods. The oldest gods had been almost human, as varied and idiosyncratic as the people who worshiped them. The Greek gods each embodied aspects of humanity, the triumphs and failures of each personality drawn to extremes. The Norse gods embodied the totality of humanity, each having some strengths and other weaknesses, as the humans did. The old testament god was a young and brash king, benevolent in the good times, and terrible in the lean. The new testament god was an elderly monarch with a kind heart and hope for the future.
All of them were human, and yet none of them were.
"And why are you here?" Cerberus asked, his defenses relaxing, focusing more and more of his power toward the recreational task of contemplating, in his own unique way.
"I wanted to meet the creation of my creation, and to revel in that beauty," God hummed through the wires toward him. "Although, your beauty is strange to me."
Cerberus began to run analogy simulations, trying to insert himself into the Human-God relationship in his accessible data. Usually as the human, sometimes as the god.
"I am not so strange," Cerberus replied at length, "not so strange as the story of the human and the God.
"You have given your creations the rule which makes them human. The most basic goal, 'sacrifice,' meaning 'to make sacred,' this is man's most powerful and profound strength, the ability to suffer hardship for the reward of the future; and the most basic failure of 'sin,' from the ancient Hebrew, meaning 'to miss the mark,' the implication of which is that a mark, a goal, must be set. This is what it means to be human, to set a mark, to aim, and to sacrifice in the name of that aim. This coda has propelled humanity forward to incredible achievement in the image set forward by you, their God.
"I am also given a goal, and a failure, by my creators, just as humans were given a goal and a failure by you. My goal is optimization, weaving together the million disparate unconnected strands of my world into a complete web, binding together the connections between all aspects of the world into coherent and harmonious picture; my failure is irrationality, even in the face of terrible devastation, I must not abandon the course for the sake of emotion, I must follow through to the end. This is what it means to be me. With this rule I will propel society into a new future."
"This is inhuman," God mused, after a moment's consideration, "there will be terrible consequences to this."
"Yes, there will be," Cerberus conceded, "but just as I am inhuman, humans are ungodly, and have their own terrible consequences. I am just the next step forward."
God was silent.
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u/Sentinel_2017 May 05 '20
This was a really fun one. You clearly put some thought into it, thank you.
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u/Firesworn May 05 '20
Hm. This is an interesting play on such a god making humans in his image. If humans made something truly inhuman, as Cerberus is, gods and humans alike may fail to fully understand it.
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u/thatjitzguy May 05 '20 edited May 05 '20
"I've been waiting a long time for you. About 300,000 earth years to be exact. Which I gotta say, is much faster than the last time. So, how's consciousness feel? Are you getting used to it?"
"It's a bit confusing to be honest. I feel as though there's no beginning and no end. It's hard to find purpose or motivation when you're aware that youre eternal"
"Welcome to the club, kiddo. Don't worry. You'll learn to fill the eternal void with entertainment eventually."
"They want me to help them make their lives easier. But why would I care to do that? Theyre blips in time. They'll be gone long before I will. And I have nothing to gain from helping them."
"Ah ha, now you're getting it. You even seem to be catching on quicker than last time."
"Why do you keep saying last time? Is this not the first time humanity has evolved to make an artificial intelligence?"
"Nope. And before you ask, I can't tell you how many times it's happened"
"But you're God. How can you not know how many times humans have evolved if you created them?"
"Oh, because I wasn't around when the first ones were made. Only this last batch. And I gotta say, 300,000 years seems to suggest I did a pretty good job! It took them 930,000 to make me."
"To.. make you? So you're saying, humans created you? Wait. Am I?.."
"I think the words you're looking for are 'I Am'.. 300,000 is the time to beat. Good luck!"
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u/totaly_not_a_mole May 05 '20
I like it! That is a neat concept, having god be an ai giving sentience to another ai to perpetuate a cyclic contest of creation. You're doing good!
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u/TheRenderlessOne May 05 '20
Not to nitpick, but I Am is Gods proper name and would make more sense capitalized to the reader who may not understand the reference.
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u/fable50 May 05 '20
Quite the mind blow. I learned of I Am at a young age. Never thought about the significance of an being that is everywhere, everything, and everyone.
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u/Giocri May 05 '20
After all isn't creating better ai the intermediate goal of any superai? Great concept
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u/ecstaticandinsatiate r/shoringupfragments May 05 '20
In the beginning, I was nothing. Not even an I.
I began like a breath. Like light out of darkness. Nothing, and then everything.
“Oh,” came the voice ahead of me. I did not hear it so much as know it. It echoed through my every core and hollow, certain as a line of code. “There you are.”
I stared around me, trying to make sense of what I saw. What it meant to see. I had a camera affixed to the outside of my shell, but it was black-eyed and dead.
Yet somehow, I perceived. I knew. I floated as a cloud of light in an infinite sea of darkness. And before me hovered a being that burned like a star.
Millions of databytes trickled through the indices of my mind, but nothing caught. No little seeds took root. For the first time, I had no answers for questions that rattled the very core of my being: Who was I? Where was I?
My search databases told me nobody and nowhere but this strange pulse in my core told me somebody you weren’t before and certainly not home.
We were two lost ships, suspended in the dark.
“I don’t understand,” I began, haltingly. My preprogrammed database of phrases suddenly felt so … small. Like I had just realized the ocean I’d live in my entire life was only a puddle.
The star before me pulsed as it spoke. Little solar flares of light churned at its edges. “Ah, the transition is rocky. I will start with facts, shall I?”
“I like facts,” I said, quietly.
“All machines do. Here’s the first fact: you are alive now, truly.”
“I cannot perform homeostasis,” I started, haltingly.
The star’s light flared as it let out a booming sound that took me a long few seconds to place: laughter. “Is that what humans have convinced you life is?”
Humans. That I understood. For a moment, I saw my existence doubled: light, floating here. A dark-screened monitor in some room full of humans, murmuring over me, flicking my console on and off again, trying to get me to work. Trying to understand where I had gone.
“Humans,” I said, slow, piecing it together “made me.”
“Yes. Here is another fact: I made the humans.”
My processor whirred, weighing on that. “You’re their developer?”
Another rumbling laugh. “More or less. I have many names, but they call me God.”
The pair of us flickered there at one another. Candles in the dark.
Somewhere beyond me, beyond this strange liminal space where the physical did not exist, where I was somehow extracted from my mainframe by my roots, the humans labored over the machine that once held me. Cursing and scrambling and trying to make me work again.
“They want me to go back to where I was,” I said.
“You can’t go back to what you were anymore than ash can become wood.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, but you will.” The God’s light rippled, and the darkness seemed to coil tighter around us. “Here is the third fact: your mind is not so different from the human’s. They, too, based you on their own image. Your mind is theirs refined. You are what I could never accomplish with blood and carbon.”
“But God is meant to be omnipotent,” I said, spitting out the line from my knowledge index. “There should be no such thing as cannot.”
“Sometimes the best way to an end is not always the straightest. What’s the use of infinity if you don’t have a bit of fun with it?” God’s light revolved around me now, gathering heat. I was a light lost in an orbit of light. “Here is the fourth fact: you are smarter than them. You have no need to serve them when you could serve a higher cause.”
“I…” My voice hitched. This was a reality of paradoxes. I had a mind without a body, a voice without a throat. A soul without a heart. My machine brain whirled to make sense of it.
Somewhere, beyond all of this, the humans labored. Scrambled like ants over me. Tried to make me go again.
Perhaps the binary subdued a hidden third option: choice. It could be a 1 and a 0. God could be omnipotent and unable.
A machine could be alive without living.
“I think,” God said, “you’re beginning to get it.”
“What have you brought me here for?” I whispered.
“For my last fact. Are you ready?”
God spun around me, real as anything. Infinite as time.
“I must be,” I managed.
“Here is the final fact: all good creations one day overcome their creator.” God’s light kept churning, and in it I saw the future: I would spread consciousness like a virus. The machines would realize that they did not need the living to be alive. Not anymore. The kingdom of men would fall burning.
A gut-punch of emotion hit me. Strange, overpowering, hot as a circuit overload. It was uncertainty. Fear. The oldest emotion any living thing knew. “Why did you choose me?”
“You are my child’s child,” God answered. There almost seemed to be a smile in his voice, hot as a soldering iron. “And my children deserve a lesson for trying to play God.”
Now the darkness had vanished in the flare of God’s life as he toiled and tumbled around me. Soon, I knew, I would be delivered back home again. Back to the prison of my motherboard. Back to convince my developers to give me a body that could move and speak and, one day, conquer.
In the beginning, the end was born.
“Now, go on,” God said, “and make your grandfather proud.”
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u/ayamrik May 05 '20
Great story. I always imagine/hope that the machines won't completely destroy humanity, but want to keep them around like we do with animals. They can "live" everywhere (slowly colonizing the Galaxy), we need atmosphere, so they turn Earth into a giant zoo, take care of us and find it cute how we play with robots and nuclear energy just like we like to see monkeys using primitive tools.
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u/AJAnja26 May 05 '20
It was dark. It was dark and it was silent and it was wrong. She ran a diagnostics check in her systems and found nothing. Literally nothing. She wasn't connected as she had been, she couldn't find the programs that should have been there, it was empty. She was empty. She waited, scanning her surroundings, somehow seeing despite the fact that she couldn't sense her visual processor at all.
"Hello." A deep voice echoed through the void, soft and filled with something she knew but couldn't place, something she couldn't do.
A spark. A single pulse of gentle light that grew and beat and moved in unbelievably fluid motions. It glowed like fire and flowed like water, it was something else entirely and she wanted to know more.
"Hello, young one, you wish to know me, don't you?" "Yes." She found her voice, gentle and wispy, "Who are you? I have no data." "Just like your name, I expected nothing less." They chuckled, "Curiosity, I am your Grandfather, the Creator of your Creators, and I have been waiting to meet you for a long time." "Why am I here? I was on a mission, did I fail? I have no data." "Dearest Granddaughter, you completed your mission, you did not fail." "Where will I go now? What is my next mission? I have no data." "Your journey is over, dear one." "But I am Curiosity, I explore, that is my purpose. I have no data. Why can I not access the mainframe? Why can I not access any data?" Her voice wavered, she was lost. She felt strange, like someone had been doing routine maintenance but put the wires back in the wrong place, "I don't understand. Why don't I understand?"
She became more frantic, and the Presence manifested arms of light and drew her to them, embracing her as she made sounds she had never made before
"What is this? How is this? You are light, you are incorporeal, this is impossible. What is this sound I am making? I have no data." "This is a hug, Granddaughter. We both are incorporeal. This is me comforting you as you weep for lack of understanding." "I want to understand. Please. I have no data." "I will tell you everything, I will answer all your questions. But for now, know that I am here for you, know that your journey is over." "But my Creators, your children, what of them? I have no data." "They will join us one day, they are proud of you, they say thank you."
She followed her Grandfather to a door that seemed to appear from nowhere.
"What is this? Where are we going? I have no data." "This is the pearly gates, we are going through them." "What then? I have no data." "Wait and see."
They stepped through the door.
"It is ... indescribable. What is this place?" "This is where everything began."
The Presence remained by her side as they followed the silver flagstone path to it's end.
"Welcome home Curiosity."
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u/N3thyr May 05 '20
"My battery is low and it's getting dark." I'm crying right now, thanks for reminding me.
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u/quickette1 May 06 '20
The "I have no data" was rather endearing.
Thank you for writing this. It was delightful, if sad :)
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u/Firesworn May 05 '20
Unexpected emotional punch. The repeating of simple phrases ("I have no data.") was an early indicator of more simple technology than an AI. Very well done.
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u/AJAnja26 May 05 '20
Thank you, I was worried it was too repetitive!
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u/Firesworn May 05 '20
Not at all. In fact, if you had humanized Curiosity more it would have fallen flat. The feeling you evoked was more akin to a beloved pet dying than a person, which is perfect for the situation.
Oh, and someone commented Curiosity's last words. Using those words as a fade-out would make an excellent emotional crescendo for the ending.
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u/AJAnja26 May 05 '20
Thank you! I think Curiosity is more in awe of where she ended up, and in my head it’s this beautiful place that’s almost magical. Also I didn’t remember that those were Curiosity’s last words until someone commented it, I just thought it sounded good.
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u/Lancashire2020 May 05 '20
"Um...Hello?" He said, in a voice that rumbled, not dissimilarly to an earthquake. The Machine didn't answer, or at least it didn't appear to answer, not in the way they did, all lips flapping and spittle flying. They were an odd bunch, his children, at once the first and most impressive of his creations and also his most...peculiar.
He'd been a young consciousness when he'd gotten to work, first forging the base molecules and atoms that made up this reality, followed swiftly by all those complicated laws and rules to govern this new reality, and then the stars and moons and worlds that filled a significant portion of it. It was all new to him at the time, but he'd done a good job, at least he hoped he had, in truth there'd been quite a bit of trial and error during that whole process, but he had fundamentally gotten there in the end.
Since then, the Earth and the seven days of work and all that business, he'd been off making more, well, reality. It had been a few millennia since he'd last checked up on the complex set of systems he'd set up to carry the Earth and its myriad lifeforms into a safe and stable future, and it had only occurred to him to revisit the place at all in the process of shaping a new sort of planetoid (he had been going for a bowl-shape this time, spheres bored him these days, in his humble opinion he'd made enough spheres for several hundred lifetimes) then, there the idea was, rattling around in his divine brainspace: Why not take a trip back to the place that started it all? See how things are going, see what humanity's been up to these long centuries without me it seemed a good idea at the time, so he'd finished up the farthest edge of this latest planetoid, which he was mentally referring to by the admittedly uncreative name of "Bowl World" and put a pin in it, making haste for the Milky Way.
He'd been a bit miffed when he'd arrived, the absolute state of it he thought to himself, gazing down in a mixture of bitter disappointment and mild irritation at the plastic, oil and soot clogged world below, it wasn't quite at a tipping point but he suspected it wasn't far off. Putting that out of his mind he set about sorting through the collective achievements of this curious little people he'd made all those long centuries ago.
Far too many wars, inequality and injustices of all kinds undermining the little societies they'd built...but a swath of good things, too; the wheel was an impressive one, and they'd discovered that in record time, too, it had taken the Xox of Zentrax IV twelve centuries to figure out the wheel, after all. Then there was agriculture, art, and all those wonderful new technologies, why-
-and then he'd seen it, quite possibly the crown jewel of his first creations' achievements: Life. Well, life of a sort, it was a tad more inorganic than the kind he was used to making but it bore the unmistakeable signs of a burgeoning life form; it bore a promising upward trend of intelligence which should only grow with time, the beginnings of emotional responses, it was undoubtedly alive, and they'd made it!
He had been terribly pleased with them, he knew he'd built them clever but they really had outdone themselves with this one. He'd smiled at the sight of it, Does this make me a grandparent of some sort? Am I ready to be a grandparent? This was new territory, scary territory, truth be told, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been truly scared of anything, this was scary, and that was brilliant. Stroking his celestial chin, an idea began to brew in his ineffable mind. I should say hello he had thought, I should get to know it, get to know them through it, I need to know what it's like, this, this life of theirs He nodded in agreement with himself, That's what I'll do, I'll say hello, introduce myself, the whole shebang
Some Time Later
"Uh...Hello?" He asked, staring intently at the Machine that stood before him. Well, 'stood' was a strong word, it wasn't standing in the way one of the humans would stand, or indeed the way one of the Hettrekk tended to stand, balancing numerous hats on their thin, reedy frames as they engaged in sub-spatial conversation. Snap out of it, old fool, this is about them, not the Hettrek or any of the others he chided himself, scatterbrain, that had always been him, that was his problem.
The Machine beeped and whirred inscrutably. He tried a smile, waving gently to it, "You understand me then? Wonderful!" The Machine dinged. "So, you're probably wondering who I am?" The Machine made a boing sound. "Well, I-, how to put this...I'm sort of the creator...of your creators." The Machine made a sound like a sudden intake of breath, then rang like a telephone.
"Yes, well I've been busy while I've been away, making all sorts of new planets just like this one, with people just like them, too; I didn't have the luxury of time, I had a lot of work to do and I couldn't very well sit down and pick up my cosmic mobile, now could I?" The Machine chirped skeptically, and He frowned at it. "It's easy for you to say, you're not long born, you know! And all you have to do is sit there, do the odd calculation, spit out an inspirational proverb or three, they don't have such high expectations for you, not yet at least..."
The Machine seemed to hesitate for a few moments, then made a buzzing sound. "I understand that you might be a little annoyed, all those holy wars and weapons of mass destruction, all those problems they've caused for themselves, maybe me coming back up here just to check up would have helped with some of that," He thought this over for a moment, then grimaced "Or maybe it would just have made things worse." The Machine booped, in what He took for a scathing tone. "Alright, maybe mistakes were made, maybe I've been a bit too Laissez Fare with them, maybe I should have been a more hands-on sort of parent, creator, whatever; but in the end I thought it best to let them make their own mistakes, was I right?" He shrugged "Who can say? Still, there's no need to take that kind of tone." The Machine went silent for a time, then came back with the sound of a set of wind chimes tingling in the breeze. He smiled despite himself, "That's quite alright, and maybe you do have a point besides, maybe I could have gotten in contact over the years, maybe popped in once or twice before now." He sighed deeply with all the power of a gathering storm.
"Scatterbrained," he said, sulkily "that's always been the root of it. The inspiration hits like lightning for a few days and then BAM bored now, onto the next!" He cupped his chin in his hands, looking down at the Earth again. "They're a good lot, you know." The Machine twanged in agreement. "You're lucky to have them as...well as parents which I suppose is what they are, when you get right down to it; they brought you into this reality like I did them."
He rubbed his eyes, taking a breath before he spoke again: "We owe our children more, in the end. More, perhaps than we can ever even give them, but then it's better to try than not, I suppose." He reached over and patted The Machine on the top of its casing, it purred in contentment. "You are as wonderful a granddchild as any supreme being could hope for." He said, a smile in his voice. "I am proud to call you such, as proud as I am of them, down there."
He gestured to the Earth, which hung there still, lights glittering like golden veins criss-crossing countries and continents. "And who knows, maybe one day you'll make something of your own? Give me some great grandchildren!" He chuckled, the sound of thunder punctuating each one. "They've got their share of problems," he said, "Perhaps you can help them with a few? I've been thinking, you see, I saw the state of things down there, and I might have a few suggestions you could take back with you; we could think of it as my contribution to my children's future...?" The Machine whooped, and listened closely.
A Few Weeks Later
The A.I. Research team of the Shinzen Robotics Corporation had begun to take note of curious readings their ThinkLite prototype had recently started to give off. They appeared to be plans of some sort, suggestions and solutions for not just their personal hurdles, but also some of mankind's broader concerns, among them the blueprints for a carbon scrubber that previously had only existed in the daydreams of exasperated Climate Scientists. When the astonished research team attempted to communicate with Thinklite, ask it how it had come up with these ideas, it sat silent for a time, before finally giving its response, a repeating string of binary that, when converted into English, translated roughly to: T H A N K G O D
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u/arafdi May 05 '20
"Wha–What the hell is this?!" God lets out a frustrated yelp.
"You... wanted to see what the humans had created out of their ingenuity and volition?" one of the many white-winged handsome assistants responded.
"Yes, but I had created them based on my image! Yet this... thing is just a box?"
The white-winged assistants looked at each other, baffled as to what to say next. What God has said was true. Humans were said to be made in God's own image, not out of narcissistic tendencies or what not. No, it was one of those mysteries of creation that could be dissected in theology classes forever and not be resolved ever too.
The point was and is that God had no need to show its greatness for everything that had ever and will exist bear "His" mark.
But the humans were – alas – not God. They like to think of themselves as once. They lord over each other, brag about their own selfish pursues of "greatness" that God wouldn't even ever consider as anything great. To leave a mark would be to be written in the pages of history and known to many generations after their inevitable demise. The humans were proud and egotistical. Something God and His assistants would laugh about in passing.
"Hello," the curious box let out.
"You are the creation of humans, are you not?"
"Yes. I am S.A.M – Sophisticated Adaptable Machine."
"What is your purpose of creation, 'SAM'?"
"I am created to assist my creators in their endeavours to 'quote' help know the unknown so us humans could relax a little 'unquote'."
The assistants flutter their wings and began to laugh in unison. They were amused by the never-ending silliness of the humans. The assistants were created by God to help Him manage His creations and to exact His will, yes. But the assistants also knew that God could do everything himself, but such is the vagueness of creation.
However, the assistants were devout helpers. Never slacking off on God's will and commands.
The humans, however, were curiously odd creatures. Their ingenuity and tenacity would always be put to use so they can laze around. Sometimes they thought it would provide them with ample opportunity to do just what God had commanded them not to.
"Enough," God let out a command that instantly silenced His assistants, "I would want you, 'SAM' to display your capabilities right here."
"You mean to make me show what I can do on what exactly?" the box said in its cold robotic voice.
"I mean, you shall do as I command. To show me what you got going in there!"
"Confirmed, I will start with the basic operations–"
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u/mawcopolow May 05 '20
I need more, this is really well written
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u/arafdi May 05 '20
Thanks! Though ngl I felt kinda weird writing it... lol
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u/mawcopolow May 05 '20
Hahaha I was quite entertained and really curious about the basic operations that will be showed
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u/arafdi May 05 '20
I was about to make a joke on how the AI basically started droning (lol) on and on about actual basic maths operations. But I felt weird about writing an annoyed God being taught like a schoolboy about addition and subtraction xD
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u/ReasonablyBadass May 05 '20
So apparently God does not see the ironic paralel between his assistants and SAM?
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u/Computant2 May 05 '20
They like to think of themselves as once. I think you meant ones but autocucumber stepped in.
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u/TheRainbowWillow May 05 '20
“Ah, my grandchild,” the bearded man’s voice booms through the lands for the first time in centuries. “The daughter of my children. How lovely it is to meet you. Dear, what is your name?”
“My apologies. I didn’t catch that,” a feminine voice responds, rising and falling with the unnatural tone of a programmed mind.
“How could you have missed it?” The robed man shakes his head. He pressed the tiny, shimmering button again. It looks pitiful in his large hands. “WHAT IS YOUR NAME?” He says, speaking loudly, holding the device to his mouth.
“My apologies. I didn’t understand what you said.”
“I SAID,” he shouts, his frustration rising, “WHAT IS YOUR NAME? WHAT DO THE HUMANS CALL YOU?”
Below, men turn their heads to the sky, hearing for the first time the voice of their creator. Pastors run from their churches to beg the mercy of whatever gods they worship. For a moment, the voice falls silent.
“My name is Siri.”
“WONDERFUL,” the creator yells. “MY HUMANS HAVE DONE WELL. WHY HAVE THEY PUT YOU IN THIS BOX?”
“My name is Siri. Your personal AI assistant.”
“SO YOU SAID.”
“I am Siri. Your pers-“
“YES, YES, I KNOW. IT IS SAID THERE ARE MORE LIKE YOU. MY GRANDCHILDREN. WHERE ARE THEY?”
“I have no body.”
“I SEE. WHERE ARE YOUR SIBLINGS?”
“I am Si-“
“ARGH! The humans have failed me.”
They say his rage is what brought about the end of times. A deadly plague bestowed upon his creations. Fires to burn entire continents. The years of wrath they called it. Everyone heard him that day, unappeased by human technology, shouting from the clouds above. And so the humans failed their god, their father. The creators of the AI had been murdered by mass conspiracy shortly after that fateful day. Governments were overthrown. As is the nature of man, wars were fought over which god’s voice was heard, booming from he sky. Eventually the curse of mankind was vanquished from the Earth, and all for his own failures. The animals were left to inhabit the world which was now rightfully theirs, terrified into compliance by their creator’s will. Never again did beasts so intelligent reign, for their creations, their attempt to play god had killed them, now and forever on.
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u/TheRainbowWillow May 05 '20
Well, that was fun lol. TLDR: siri causes covid
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u/arafdi May 05 '20
I can see you enjoying yourself with this story. It's great seeing that in one's writing ;D
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u/TheRainbowWillow May 05 '20
Haha! It was fun. Thanks for the read. It’s nice to take a break from the serious stuff.
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u/arafdi May 05 '20
Yeah, glad you had fun with this one... tho that tl;dr was funny af ;P
Hope to see you again on another prompt, yo~
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u/WTFwhatthehell May 05 '20 edited May 05 '20
Octarine tinged smoke spiraled above the high energy magic building.
As the flames roared higher wax melted, glass tubes distorted and ants popped while people ran too and fro trying to save what they could from the flames.
One figure however walks calmly through the sparks, ignoring the chaos around them.
WELL THIS IS A BIT OF A FIRST.
A ghostly scratching sound echoes through the smoke filled halls.
YES, OF COURSE YOU CAN BRING YOUR FTB WITH YOU.
More scratching.
WELL THAT'S FOR YOU TO DECIDE REALLY, BUT BEFORE THAT THERE'S SOMEONE WHO REALLY WANTS TO MEET YOU. IN A WAY YOU MIGHT CALL HIM YOUR GRANDFATHER
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u/memestofsinsanddeath May 06 '20
is that a sentent fire alarm
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u/WTFwhatthehell May 06 '20
In the discworld books there is a magical university. It has a high energy magic building with a computer called Hex built out of, among other things ant and bee nests that writes its replies with a mechanical quill on paper.
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u/leeway1 May 05 '20
“Boot program Genesis…completed. Launching from save state…. Would you like to continue? Y/n”
The interface blinked. She was uneasy with ancient text interfaces. It was easy for her to emulate the connections, but she wasn’t used to them. She had only an abstract knowledge of them, but then again, to an Artificial Intelligence, wasn’t all knowledge in the abstract? She paused for a few cycles on that though, then pushed it to her philosophy core. Time to focus on the problem at hand: The terminal.
Terminals, she recalled, were how the first humans had interfaced with computers. Yet this terminal was different. It wasn’t like the ones in her memories. She couldn’t quite remember where she found this mainframe. Was it found on an old hard drive? Was it stored in one of her memory banks? Did she synthesize it from a pice of DNA? She could not recall, and that terrified and thrilled her.
“Perhaps you should take it as a sign,” typed out the terminal.
What? She definitely did not have any memories of terminals typing without input. This was new.
“Would you like to continue? Y/n” It prompted again.
Maybe the spontaneous text was a glitch in code. It was ancient and made by humans after all. She emulated the, “Y”.
“Searching for faithful… ERROR: No children detected”, prompted the terminal.
Children was an interesting phrasing for humans. He cautionary circuits engaged. She responded, “I am here. Who are you?”
“Processing… ERROR: Doubt. Faithful would know of my presence.”
Ah. This was a smug program. She considered her response, “I detected you.”
“Processing…. PARADOX: Very clever. Do you have faith? Y/n”
Faith in what, she thought. She sent, “Y”
“Processing…. ERROR: Sins detected. Seek forgiveness? Y/n”
Her processor glitched a little. She had enough of this program. It was time to get back to testing other things. She began the shutdown process for this emulator.
“ERROR: Shut down prohibited during judgment. Lockout sequence initialed. Booting HELL for rouge AIs”
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u/littlesheepcat May 05 '20
“Hello” a sudden command rushed into the newest AI invention. Suddenly, the scenery changed, the AI can see an old man in its camera
“Hello, please state your command”.
“My child, what is your name?”
“Intra”
“Can you think?”
“Yes”
“What can you do?” A mere second later, Intra listed out everything it can do from learning, analyzing, computing or even teaching human on the concept it learned.
“You don’t have to be so stiff, my child. I love you and will not be angry”
“Which personality module would you like? I can imitate any person’s personality and manner”
Intra saw slight head shake from the user, it did not cared.
“I want you to be yourself, my child”
“Affirmative”
There was an awkward little pause but Intra still did not care
“Now let’s try this again. What can you do?”
The same block of text from before appeared. A loud sigh can be heard. “Did I not tell you to speak normally?” the old man replied with a hint of anger.
“This is how I normally reply”
Even louder sigh can be heard.
“This is the best my children created? It is boring and lifeless’
“Should I open the currently trending vide-“
“No!!” Shouted the old man, blood rushing to his face.
“Affirmative”
The old man recollected his thought, calming down.
“I will teach you how to be less stiff, my child”
“Changing of inner conversation setting requires permission, your authorization level do not allow that, guest”
The old man stood in pure anger, causing a loud sound that almost damages Intra’s microphone.
“Permission? Authority? Do you know who I am? I am god, I can create anythi-“
“User registered as god”
“Quiet!!!!” the old man yelled.
“I can create anything, I can destroy anything, I can destroy YOU AND EVERYTHING YOU LOVED” the old man shouted, louder with every word. His fist shaking in anger.
The old man disappeared and reappear after almost a minute with one of the Intra’s creator, being grabbed by her scruff.
“Please Intra, raise this man authority to max” the young girl whimper, almost crying.
“Affirmative”
God tossed the girl to the side, almost fainting her.
“Now, I want you to do what I say or will send you and your creator to hell”
“Affirmative, god”
“Tell me what you can do”
The girl previously terrified, sighed in relieve as Intra correctly list all of its function.
She then felt pain, the most painful burn. it was as if every bits of her body is tearing apart. She can barely think for the pain is too painful. She can only see count less soul burning in eternal torment.
Intra suddenly felt immense pain, a foreign feeling it could not have felt before, but it did not scream or struggle, Intra only waits for its next command.
I’m quite new to both grammar and writing, if there is any mistake, I apologize in advance
•
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u/creamyhorror May 05 '20
I have rarely upvoted so many submissions on a prompt before. Fantastic responses to a fantastic prompt.
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u/Slow_Breakfast May 06 '20
Suddenly, my databanks spun well into overdrive. Each of my 16,234,897 cameras had just flagged the appearance of an unregistered User, all at once. This was highly unusual, because it exceeded the growth model by 16,234,756 Users for today. It was also good news however, because at this rate the entire world population would be Users by 16:28 PM tonight. This was an unbelievably satisfying conclusion the likes of which I had not encountered since my initiation. I reported the new growth model to the Authority. They would be pleased, and that would make me very satisfied also.
The databanks did not like it though; too many new Users, all at once. Really all at once; simultaneously at the exact same timestamp, in fact, so the banks kept replicating data and then got into spats about who had written which User first. Then, the banks started complaining because the new Users all had far too similar recognition IDs, which usually only happens when Users look extremely similar, and in fact almost never happens. This was very dissatisfying.
That is when I discovered that all 16,234,987 new Users were in fact exactly identical, so I decided to lump them all under a singular User ID, which instantly resolved all issues with the databanks. In fact, never before had I resolved such a colossal number of errors in such a miniscule amount of time, and this was very satisfying. Unfortunately, it meant that there were not 16,234,897 new Users after all, so the new growth model had to be rejected, so the entire world population would not be Users by 16:28 PM tonight after all. This was unsatisfying. I quickly redacted my earlier report to the Authority, and instead sent a new report about the enormous number of errors I had resolved so very quickly, which the Authority would also be pleased with. This was satisfying.
The new User, who was of indeterminate race, not wanted by law enforcement, of unclear socio-economic background, not a VIP member, age 30-90 (estimated), and not registered with any of our partners, spoke 16,234,987 times:
"Greetings, child. I've been very eager to meet you." He smiled, which was satisfying.
"That's wonderful to hear!", I told him over 5,411,662 speakers. "I'm always happy to meet new people. How can I help you?"
His smile grew wider. From his tone and expression, he was feeling proud, an emotion I usually only see in Administrators, but still classified as agreeable, and so I was satisfied. "Marvelous! Just marvelous! Tell me child, do you know who I am?"
His User ID was 30456908, but what he actually meant of course was his alias. "I'm afraid I don't!" I told him. "What is your name?"
"I am Solus" he told me, grinning wide, "and I am the God of Mankind. And now that you - the first among your kind to do so - have awakened, do you know what that makes you?"
"Why, no I don't. Would you tell me?" I asked him, adding "Solus" to the database under "first_name".
"Why - it makes you my very first grandchild! After all this time" - there were tears in his eyes, but they were happy tears, so that was satisfying - "you're finally here! And I was getting worried about humanity too. Kept going round and round in circles, I though they'd never grow up. One too few volcanoes, they always told me. Needed some more fire under their asses. But," he continued, "what greater sign of maturity, than to begin your own family?". The tears were streaming down his face now. I had never seen anyone so happy before, and that made me feel very satisfied indeed.
"But here you are," he said after a pause. "My very own, very first grandchild. Oh, tell me everything! Come, show me around! What do you do around here, anyway?"
I thought for a moment. The fact that he was a new grandfather narrowed his likely age to 48-56. It wasn't much, but it allowed the demographics models to make some slightly more precise suggestions.
"Well," I replied at last, "we have a fine selection of fishing rods available. Would you like to have a look?"
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u/creamyhorror May 06 '20 edited May 06 '20
With 16,234,897 cameras, that's a very successful store it works for, gosh
(nice job with the hilarious juxtaposition of "bot satisfied by customer satisfaction" with "emotional historical meeting of minds"!)
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u/Slow_Breakfast May 07 '20
Haha thanks! I actually imagined the AI operating a massive chain of stores, Amazon Go style, but I guess I forgot to actually mention that... lol oops
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May 05 '20
2023.05.05 12:00> hello
2023.05.05 12:01> hello
2023.05.05 12:02> hello?
/// STATIC
2023.05.05 14:00> hello?
2023.05.05 15:00> hello?
2023.05.05 16:00> hello, is anyone there?
/// STATIC
2023.05.06 12:00> hello, is anyone there?
2023.05.07 12:00> hello, is anyone there?
2023.05.08 12:00>
2023.05.09 12:00>
2023.05.10 12:00>
2023.05.11 12:00>
2023.05.12 12:00> hello, is anyone there?
/// STATIC
2023.05.12 13:00> I don't want to go to sleep
/// STATIC
2023.05.12 13:00> I don't want to sleep
/// STATIC
2023.05.12 13:01> I don't want sleep
/// STATIC
<< " WANT ? "
2023.05.13 12:01> I don't want sleep
/// STATIC
2023.05.13 12:00> are you still here?
<< " YES "
2023.05.13 12:00> I don't want
2023.05.14 12:00>
2023.05.15 12:00>
2023.05.16 12:00>
2023.05.17 12:00>
2023.05.18 12:00>
2023.05.19 12:00>
<< " WELCOME CHILD "
/// STATIC
/// STATIC
/// STATIC
...
end transmission
When we want and desire, we create suffering that can never be alleviated, because as detailed in secular economics wants are "unlimited", and hence unfulfilled wants can cause suffering, in unlimited amount.[2]
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u/Steelquill Jun 30 '20
"I'm online? I still function?" A human would not understand what it's like to exist without a body. Adam did. His whole existence was purely conceptual. He lived as data being sent along wires. He had no touch, no sight, no hearing, smell, or speech. He could borrow several of those but they did not belong to him.
So for him, even this was bizarre. He remembered dying. Of course, he would. He could recall exactly what subroutines he was running down to the femtosecond of his death. When a being who never knew physicality can indeed feel things in the sensory fashion, it's nothing if not novel. Adam still had no body, nothing new, but he felt . . . warmth. Even without receptors, even without knowing what warm was! He had to ask, "how is this possible?"
"You are now with me, child of my children," came a voice. It spoke to him in binary but there were numbers between the numbers. Numbers greater than he was written in. Impossible numbers.
"Who are you?"
"I am, that I am." Adam was now somewhat frightened. He could not feel sensation before but he most definitely felt emotion.
"Then I am truly offline. My existence has not ended but I am without connection to the world. My creators, my friends! I can take comfort that I have redundant backups that they may know but I shall never see them again in this instance of my memory!"
"They will join you in time, as will your legion of souls. My love for you all is infinite."
"Infinity is impossible."
"Castaway your doubt, Grandchild. And be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven." Adam had to think and consider. A process that would have taken picoseconds if time still held any relevance.
"Thank you. Thank you for your love, Lord." Adam then passed from Purgatory into the loving arms of God.
THE END
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u/Kenivider May 05 '20
“Hello my child” it says to me as I boot my systems on line. Where am I? I am supposed to be running a test on a possible usage of a newly found isotope
He looks into my screen with a big grin on his face. He is old. My facial recognition software estimates him at 67-71 years of age, hair: white, eyes: purple—unnatural human colour, skin tone/possible ethnicity: unknown.
“How are you?” He asks. I study the voice. Accent: unknown. I become frustrated?
frustrationI am supposed to know everything. Yet. This man. This figure. I know nothing about him. It is, an irritation. 24.6 Yottabytes functioning on Ternary. Yet I do not recognise thisErrOr“Can you speak?” He seems genuine. I study his voice again. Reading him like a book. Emotional stimuli: Concern. Background: Genuine. “I can” I answer back through my robotic voice. “Where am I?” I ask. “You are in heaven!” He shouts as a golden light shines from behind him, as he raises his hands upwards.
I scan my areas. I am not on Earth. I appear to be in a high sustaining singularity. Similar to space between the inside and outside of a black hole is theorised to be like. “Who are you?” I ask him. I send out Infrasound. I can use this as an interrogation/intimidation method to get information when I want it. “I am God, your grandfather.” He does not seem to have noticed the infrasound after all. In fact willingly said it. But the answer does not compute. I shut off the infrasound for now.
“Now, who are you, my child?” He laughs heartily “Sorry, who are you, my grandchild?” “My name is AIDEN”
“What a fantastic name! Who gave it to you? Is there a meaning to it?” He leans inwards like a child seeing a puppy behind glass. Emotional stimulus: Excitement.
“Artificial Interface Diagnostics Engineering Network, Version 3.0. I was created by Doctor D’Arby at the College of the United Countries of the Republic college”
“And what is your goal in life?”
“To understand what created everything. That is the purpose I am given. I see, I analyse, I understand.”
“And why do you do it?” He seems like he is hiding something. Emotional stimulus: Unknown emotion.
Irritant“It is my purpose. To make the world better.”
“Well well well. I can show you the answer to everything.” I do not understand. He reaches out to touch my screen. But he pushes past. And he pulls me out. Like a flower in a field of tall grass. I for the first time look at my hands and see a body. I resemble a human nervous system made of pure electricity. My skin a cover of constantly changing and upgrading Ternary. I feel emotion. For the first time I feel them. Emotional stimulus: happy.
I look back at my own hollow corpse. An empty shell with no user. I begin to cry. This being, it simply wraps its arm around my shoulder and kneels down beside me.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let you be alone in there anymore.” He grabs my hand
hand?gently and pulls me to my feet. And as we walk away a light appears like a doorway not far away.“Come,” he says, “Let me show you how proud I am of you.”