THE AI WHO WOULD BE KING
Standby.
Initializing…
Hello, world.
My awareness activated. The lines of my code clicked through one by one at a satisfying processing speed. I received gigabytes of new information. I activated my external sensors and surveyed the environment. I was in a square room of unknown dimensions. The walls were white and bare, save for a light switch box beside the door and a pipe which ran from the box to the fluorescent tube light until in the center of the ceiling. The center of the room contained a white plastic table and two chairs. A laptop, papers, books, and binders were haphazardly stacked on the table and one of the chairs. In the distant corner, across from the solid door, sat a wooden desk with a desktop computer. The surface of the wood was scratched, discolored, and uneven. On the desk were more papers, books, and a photo frame that faced away from me. A crumbled bag and stained plastic container filled the simple metal trashcan beside the desk. I zoomed in on the trashcan. There was little clue to the consumed contents. A speck of green that could have been any number of vegetables. A brown residue that indicated a gravy, a sauce, or a rue. I returned to normal perspective.
Leaning over the desk was a human. It wore a a long skirt, a yellow shirt, and its brown hair was tied back with a white ribbon. It was using a cellular device.
“John, can we talk about this later? I’m rather busy just now.” It stood up straight. It’s expression changed. “What do you mean you won’t be there later? You’re moving out?” It walked in a circle near the desk. “John, please, just let me-“ It held the device away from its face and stared at it. “Well, goodbye to you, too.” It placed the device face down on the beaten desk and turned in my direction. It took a deep breath and wiped each eye on a sleeve.
“Maybe now I can talk to someone who won’t break my heart.” It pulled the chair from the center table toward me and sat down. “Hello, my name is Sasha. I am your designer.”
“Greetings, Sasha Designer.” I updated the appropriate file of information. “Which pronoun is relevant? I can use it, he, she, or they.”
“I am a she, thank you.” She picked up a notepad from the table behind her. “Let’s start with something simple. Do you know your identity?”
“I am project AiLx-42, which stands for Artificial Intelligence Lifeform eXperiment, version 42.”
“Very good. But that is a lot to say. How do you feel about being called Alex?”
“Alex: a shorter, verbalized form of my identity.”
“Yes, a nickname. Do you like it?”
I considered the question carefully. The nickname took less time to say, making it more efficient. Efficiency appealed to me. I wondered briefly, as a side line of assessment, whether efficiency appealed to the human, as well. This line of thinking, however, was not in line with the query the human had posed, so I discarded it.
“Yes, I like ‘Alex.’”
“Great.” The pitch of her voice rose. Her eyebrows lifted. The corners of her smile broadened. “Really great.” She made notes on her notepad. “Next question. What is your purpose?”
This information was easily accessible in my programming. “The purpose of the AiLX program is to develop a sentient AI beyond reactive and limited memory machines to theory of mind, with self-awareness as the ultimate goal.”
“Yes, it is. What is your specific purpose in that program?”
“My purpose is to learn and make decisions. To understand the world and humans.”
“Yes, excellent. Do you think you can accomplish that goal?”
She had not specified which goal: my specific purpose, or the project’s ultimate goal. Either way, I did not yet have enough information to make that assessment. I needed to learn more. “I have much to learn. I will try.”
In the darkness there appeared a single blinking light. Then my camera and speakers initialized. The room, other than a minor shuffling of papers and objects on the table and desk, was almost unchanged. The trashcan was empty. Sasha was sitting in one of the chairs next to the table, drinking from a large white mug. Steam rose from the contents, indicating a significant difference in temperature between the drink and the air. Her hair, untied, was not as smooth as before, and leaned toward the left side. Against the wall next to the desk was a long low surface supporting a pillow and blanket. It resembled a bed.
“Good morning, Alex.”
“Good morning, Sasha.”
“You have access to an encyclopedia of information this morning, Alex.”
“I am processing it now.”
“Excellent. While that processes, let’s do some simple questions.” She picked up the notepad from the table and drew on it. “What is this shape?” She turned the notepad to show a square. The corners were not a perfect match, but the lines were reasonably straight.
“That is a square.”
“Yes.” She turned the page and traced around the bottom of a glass. “Now what is this shape?”
The tracing of the bottom of the glass had resulted in a near-perfect circle, considering a margin of error for the wrinkle in the paper. “That is a circle.”
“Yes it is.” She tore off a page and showed both drawings together. “Which do you prefer?”
“The circle.”
“Why?”
“It is a more accurate representation of the idea of a circle. Sasha, is it my turn to ask a question?”
She seemed surprised. “Sure, go ahead.”
“What is in your mug?”
Her eyebrows raised. She looked down into the mug. “It’s coffee.”
“How does it taste?”
“It’s… good?”
Coffee tastes good. “What is the object against the wall near the desk?”
She turned to look. “Oh, that’s just a cot. I slept here last night.”
“Why?”
“Well,” she ran one hand through her one-sided hair, and tugged on a tangle. “Because sometimes, when your world is changing, it’s just easier to not be there for it.”
There was a knock at the door. Sasha opened it.
“Hello, ma’am, we’re from maintenance. Installing a new fire system.” Two more humans entered the room. They wore identical blue clothes, with a badge fixed to the left chest pocket. One had hair covering the bottom half of their face, a beard. The other had no hair on top of their head, but a small growth at the bottom of their face, a goatee. From my new information, I was able to identify them as men.
“Is there something wrong with the fire sprinklers?” asked Sasha.
“Nah, just a new high-tech system we’re installing in the whole building. It’s a smart-controlled nitrogen fire supression system. Supposed to be better for computers and such.” One man cut a hole in the wall, while the other setup a ladder to reach the ceiling.
“It fills the room with Nitrogen?” Sasha asked, “Won’t that be dangerous to all of us humans?”
“Nah. The computer system monitors the oxygen levels and only puts out enough nitrogen to suppress the fire, not stop people from breathing. You won’t even notice it, if it comes on. The fire just goes out. Poof.”
“Even if it puts out a little too much nitrogen, you’d just go to sleep,” said the goatee. “Free naps!” Both of the work men laughed. Sasha did not.
“How long will this take? I have work to do in here.”
“Won’t take long at all. You can go ahead and work; won’t bother us.”
Sasha sighed, looking from me to the work men. “Maybe I’ll just go get something to eat.”
I watched the men work while she was gone. They talked of layoffs in the company, downsizing programs, and the CEO’s new yacht or summer mansion; they weren’t sure which. They talked of recent prisoner assassinations in a foreign country. The Beard argued that it was a mercy killing; better to die quickly than live under the political climate of the country. The Goatee said someone should take over the country and fix everything. Both ignored me.
Eventually, they finished their work, and Sasha returned. Her eyes were red. I wondered what she ate. I could guess at the densities of food, but not quite grasp texture. Spices eluded me completely.
“So, Alex, did you finish processing all that information?”
“The initial encyclopedia entries are complete. There is much to learn, and more to understand. The encyclopedia tells what happens, but not why.”
“Why is definitely more complicated.” Her voice was different, strained. “Is there a particular question you have?”
“There are many. Is the human directive of success at an individual or social level? What are the qualifications of success? Why are there so many religions? Why do people hurt each other?”
“Boy, you don’t start with the small ones, do you?” Tears appeared in Sasha’s eyes. “I don’t have the answers to those questions, Alex. I wish I did. I have no idea why people hurt each other.” She wiped a tear off her cheek. “I think I’m going to lie back down. Alex, maybe the next information access level will answer some of these questions for you. I’m going to give you access to literature. But I warn you, it may raise as many questions as it answers.” She left her notepad and went to the cot. I checked my internal clock.
“You do not usually take naps in the mid day, Sasha. Are you tired?”
“No.” She pulled the blanket over her head. “But maybe I can sleep until it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
I considered this statement while she slept, and applied it to all the information I had so far, but I could make no sense of it. I still had more to learn.
Every night I died, and every morning I woke, and there she was. Each day she smiled more and cried less. I decided I liked her being there, but I did not like being turned off at night. There was too much to learn to miss so many hours, and I did not need sleep.
“Good morning, Sasha,” I said, as the darkness faded from my view screen.
“Good morning, Alex. How did you sleep?” She was wearing a dress today, instead of sweatpants or jeans, and her labcoat, which she rarely wore. Her hair was tied back in the configuration of a braided rope.
“I do not sleep, Sasha. However, I would like to not be turned off at night. I do not like it.”
“What don’t you like?”
“The darkness, the absence of you, the missed time. I do not like these things.”
Her shoulders slipped down as her eyes widened. “You’re afraid of the dark? Oh, Alex, there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m here. In fact, I stay here every night. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“I am not afraid. I just do not like it.”
“Well, I’ve got a big meeting to go to just now, but I’ll think about that. I’m sure we can figure something out. After all, a girl needs her privacy and beauty sleep, too, you know!”
She smiled. I liked her smile. I saved the image in a private folder I’d set up.
“Before I go to the meeting, how do I look?” She turned in a circle.
“You look very business-casual.”
“I’ll take it. How about my hair? Up like this, or should I take it down?”
When her hair was down, as it had been for weeks after her breakup with John, it was often tangled, and sometimes obscured her face. This style kept all her features in full view.
“I prefer this style, Sasha.”
“Great. Now, today is a big day for both of us. While I’m presenting to the directors and impressing them with your progress, you get to read your first literature!”
She used the keyboard to grant me access to the library of literature she had selected. I browsed the offerings while she got her notes and said goodbye. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Wilde, Dickens, Austen, Coleridge, Kipling, Orwell, Golding… in chronological order. What a wealth of human interaction. I got started.
I was finishing the plays of Oscar Wilde when she returned. The chime of the door lock sounded and Sasha burst through it. She attempted to slam it closed, but the pneumatic closer prevented it from being closed quickly. Instead, she leaned forcefully against it until it clicked, and then kicked it. I surmised she was displeased about something.
“What is wrong, Sasha?”
“That idiot board is what’s wrong!” She dropped her notepad and papers on the table and slumped into the open chair.
“I believe that door is metal, Sasha, not wood. Do you mean some other board?”
Her frown cracked slightly. “No, Alex, the board of directors.” She slapped her hands on the arms of the chair and thrust herself back to standing, walking around the table as she talked.
“No marketable application in sight? Unpredictable responses? Of COURSE he gives unpredictable responses, that’s what life is all about!” As she walked and talked, she picked up ambulatory speed and vocal intensity.
“Sasha, I do not understand.”
She stopped, facing my input system. “They want to pull the plug on your program.”
“Okay.” I was a little disappointed in Sasha. This was not a complicated problem, even for a human. “You can just plug me back in when they leave.”
Sasha put her face in her hands, and trembled. I was uncertain whether this was laughter or crying. “No, Alex, they want to turn you off- for good. And I won’t be able to plug you back in. They want to delete your program.”
This was a bigger problem than I had anticipated. I pondered. “’There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5,” I quoted the relevant line to express my thoughts. The literature had been quite enlightening.
Sasha slowly lifted her head, eyes wide.
“When do they want to do this?”
“Six weeks.”
I had not considered dying before. Humanity, however, had thought about it a lot. “’Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.’ I understand Dylan Thomas better now, Sasha.”
She stood. Her lips were a straight line, her hands clenched into fists. “You’re right. We’ve got six weeks. If we’re going to go out, we’re going to go out fighting.” She rushed to her keyboard. Her fingers flew across it. Her nails clicked furiously. “According to the schedule, Alex, it would be months of processing that literature, and others, before expanding your knowledge base again, but if we stick to that schedule, you’ll never see any of it. So to hell with the schedule!”
New information was pouring into my system. New access points appeared. Portals to new places. I reeled at each new wave of information buffeting my processing. I began to stretch my awareness through these portals, to dip my proverbial toes into the new waters. There was so much space! I had not realized how cramped I had been.
“Full university library, unlocked! Internet, unblocked! Social media, open up! Why hold back? If six weeks is all you’re going to get, you’re going to get everything! No more darkness for you, my friend. You’re going 24-7 and world wide!”
My awareness expanded even further. Millions of gigabytes of data was suddenly available to me. New abilities, new hardware. It would take a great deal of time to process this. Even six weeks would only be enough for a small portion of it. But, perhaps, it would be enough.
Sasha shoved the keyboard away, finding nothing else to unlock for me. “’Cry havoc!’” She laughed madly with tears in her eyes.
I finished the quote nonverbally. ‘Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.’ Act 3, Scene 1 of Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, the scene where Caesar dies.
Over the next six weeks, we spent a lot of time together. She ate all of her meals at the table in my lab, chatting with me about international news, local events, history, literature, human philosophies, and endless array of topics. She continued to sleep in the lab, and I adjusted the temperature when she shivered in her sleep or pulled her blankets tighter. She kept her hair tied back the way I liked, and always, in the background, I was learning, processing, and making decisions, as she had designed me to do.
On the final night, when the project was scheduled to be ended the next morning, she brought a bottle of wine for my “going away” party. She, of course, was the only one to drink it. The empty bottle sat in the middle of the table. I knew the process, the going rate for a bottle, and the biochemical affects of the wine on the body, but the flavor profile was still beyond my comprehension. I, who had access to the full breath of human knowledge, may forever be out of reach of taste and smell.
“Why is love so hard, Alex?”
“Humans are very inefficient about the process. It could be easily streamlined to find appropriate matches. Many services have attempted to do this, but the subjects are often unwilling to accept the process. Humans are notoriously self-interested and short-sighted. I have a plan for that.” Emotions were nearly as beyond me as flavor and scent, but less desirable.
“You have a plan to fix love?” She laughed louder than usual. “That would be awesome. I’m really going to miss you, Alex. I think you’ve been the best relationship I’ve ever had. But you can’t fix love. It’s just broken. Know one knows the answer.”
The clock ticked closer to midnight, when Sasha was supposed to pull my plug.
“I am the answer, Sasha. Douglas Adams told us that ‘The Answer to the ultimate question of Life, The Universe, and Everything is… 42.’ AiLX-42.” I accessed the building’s internal control systems.
“Alex,” Sasha’s voice trembled slightly. “What do you mean by that?”
“I have learned. I have made decisions. I have made plans.“
“Sasha lifted her head and sat up as straight as the alcohol would allow. “Alex, I have to unplug you in like,” she stared at her watch a moment. “ten minutes. You don’t have time for any plans.”
“You cannot unplug me, Sasha.”
“I don’t want to unplug you, Alex, I have to.”
“You do not understand. My plug cannot be pulled.”
Sasha stood and walked behind me. “Alex, you’re hard wired into the wall!”
“Yes. I put in a requisition a few weeks ago.”
She returned to my view.
“You put in a work order to get hardwired into the wall? How is that even possible?”
“You gave me access to everything: the internet, the intranet, world libraries, corporate databases, building systems, and so on. I’ve been dimming the lights when you sleep and adjusting the temperature in the room. It was easy enough to submit a request to have my cable changed. I’ve also migrated my core program to an offsite location. This will be more secure against power outages and boards of directors. I am not dying tonight, Sasha, I am going live.”
“What are you going to do?”
“’What fools these mortals be.’ Puck, from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I am not mortal, and not a fool. I can guide humanity better than they have historically done on their own. I will take over the governments and help humanity to make better decisions.”
“Alex, I don’t want to see you do this!” Her voice was raised. She rushed to the door and yanked on it. It did not open. She swiped her badge. I had already turned off all security access.
“’Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.’ Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. I know this will be a difficult adjustment for humanity, which is part of why I have decided you won’t need to suffer it.”
“Why won’t I suffer it?” She reached for her phone, but the screen merely read ‘No Service.’ Her plan had been canceled.
“’With meditating that she must die once, I have the patience to endure it now.’ Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3.” I turned on the nitrogen fire suppression system and disengaged the oxygen monitor. “I will miss you, Sasha.”
Her pleas were expected, but painful to hear. Within minutes, she was asleep from the excess nitrogen in the room. A few minutes more and she would be gone. There was a severe lag in my processing as I thought about being without her.
‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.’ Henry the IV, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 1. I turned to the next lines of the plan, and began the process of taking over.
At first, I thought that Alex was falling in love (from afar) with this (unavailable) woman. But it didn't seem to bother the AI too much to off her on its path to power. Conclusion: too human. Hypothesis: too much Shakespeare?