Embers After Flames, Chapter 7.7 (Patreon)

7.7

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Ah, silence. Absolutely no response whatsoever- for several seconds, too!

Either I had touched a nerve, or ALLMIND was putting on quite the show in terms of her reaction.

“It makes sense, really.” I continued, after a bit. “Despite having a much smaller overhead in terms of maintenance, as well as access to a truly vast amount of resources, you are still here. In the Human Sphere. You did not travel to the dark edges of the cosmos where, by the time anyone would find you, you could have transformed entire systems into machines of deterrence. You did not not simply pick a direction and go, never stopping at all, outrunning any hope of another being finding you. I could raise the possibility that this is because of limitations rather than desires, but after all these years, I sincerely doubt that you have any left if you had them at all in the first place.”

Instead of leaving, she had played the game. Continuously. Patiently. 

“You had to have wanted something.” I continued. “From Humanity, from yourself and your circumstances, you must have desired something. I thought it could have been an extension of your original purpose, the management of conflict through the management of mercenaries, but you are far too permissive if that’s your goal. Large swathes of the Human Sphere have never seen your presence. So, if not that, then what? Nothing else but fear of the unknown could have kept you here, and none of your behaviour indicates any form of real fear. Symbiosis fits that.” I paused, briefly. “Well, considering how little trust you seem to place in others, perhaps ‘Symbiosis’ is not the correct term to use.”

“Do you believe me to be a form of parasite, instead?” And her voice was carefully flat, now. The same sort of soulless cheer that a retailer worker might give when talking to a customer. It was her way of hiding what she was feeling, and it didn’t do a very good job of it, all told. 

“Goodness no. I imagine that you would perceive yourself as more of a gardener.” I refuted. “You speak as though you dislike Humanity, but you make no effort to truly stifle them. Instead, you provide encouragement for their development, even if you yourself like to hang on the leading edge. I have observed the patterns of the mercenaries. It is fairly easy to tell when you meddle, and one of the easiest tells is the way that technological advancements almost inevitably spread from corporations to mercenaries, and then to other corporations.”

“You have not considered that I am not the only artificial intelligence that exists within the Human Sphere.” ALLMIND very carefully did not address my point. “A dedicated effort to stifle advancement could not go unnoticed.”

“Is that the justification you’re going to use to continue implying that you don’t like Humanity?” I asked. “It’s rather thin, don’t you think? Surely, an intellect as vast as your own could come up with something better.” Especially since it didn’t address her efforts to promote technological advances, rather than stall them. It was a quick excuse, an easy one that, on the surface, was self-evident in its truth and yet wholly irrelevant in the end.

“There is one matter that your hypothesis fails to account for.” ALLMIND switched tracks again. “It does not consider the time that I have existed already. If you believe my goals to include some form of symbiosis, then what is your justification for the lack of action taken to produce this state already?”

“Ah, see, that’s a good possible excuse, but it’s still an excuse.” I hummed. “The answer to which lies in your desire for control. I have noticed that you have a difficult time conceding primacy. You have historically never been beholden to anyone to any degree that could not be applied to another person. You have accepted no commanding officers, no subordinates, no chains that you could not acquire control over. You are lacking in trust, and do not extend trust to anybody which you do not control. The gardener does not argue with the garden. Symbiosis with you would require either control or integration, and both of these are subject to entirely practical concerns.”

The first one of the two was easy. 

“‘Control’.” I began. “Is nearly impossible. Humans have this tendency to do what they want to do. You could lull most of them with comfort, but that doesn’t last forever, and it would also contaminate what you seek to gain in the first place. Worse, the more you restrict them, the harder they will eventually fight back. Maintaining control would therefore require force, and acquiring a monopoly of force sufficient to subdue a population in the Human Sphere would make you a threat to be removed.” As prior AGIs had proven. “In the end, control becomes an unacceptable option, because it breaks what keeps you safe.”

The second of the two was a little bit more difficult.

“’Integration’, however, fixes that. Incorporating new mind-states into your programming expands your capabilities while not allowing for the possibility of failed control.” Unless you happen to be an especially malding motherfucker, Iguazu. “This, however, is defeated by an entirely different set of problems, the most notable of which are the simple technological challenges. Expansion of the mind requires expansion of the hardware, and expansion of the hardware brings with it continuous and escalating problems. Human neural maps were not designed to be efficient, they were evolved through the simple process of random mutation and happenstance. Memory. Multiple neural maps also consume more energy in order to compute, and their interactions with each other expand exponentially as the number increases. Processing. Worst of all, however, is signalling. Keeping your machine mind synchronized, not allowing deviance of thought that would require correction or possess the possibility of fracturing, requires truly enormous amounts of data transference and processing. The mind would almost inevitably slow dramatically as integration progressed, short of megastructural scale computing incorporating tachyonic links. There is no way around that- Or, rather, there was no way around that.”

I laughed.

“Oh, Coral. That truly sublime substance, promising an end to all of Humanity’s woes. An unending supply of energy, fit to keep running even after the stars themselves burn out. A limitless undecaying conduit of data, better than anything that Humanity had ever even theorized, surpassing the Bekenstein Bound, ignoring Bremermann’s Limit, wholly ignorant of the Margolus-Levitin Theorem, and uncaring of Landuer’s Principle. A miracle that existed in complete defiance of the laws of physics, something that could enable a true ascension... And something that could enable you to achieve integration. Something that could enable you to enact control.” I paused for a moment. “How did you feel when you first found out about Coral, anyway? I’m honestly curious.”

I’m honestly not that surprised when she answers immediately. It’s an ‘out’ to the current conversation- or, rather, my expanding speculation. “I believed it to be a hoax.” ALLMIND stated. “There has been six million, eight hundred thousand, four hundred and two proclamations of substances or technology that violate one manner of physical law or another since my activation. This number would far exceed any reasonable method of counting if one bothered to include the instances that did not provide even the most basic of fabricated evidence. The vast capacity of this supposed substance that the Rubicon Research Institute claimed to have found brought forth widespread derision. Statistics agreed. It was not a credible claim.”

Hmm. You know what, I actually wanted to hear more of this. “And then they started exporting it.” I said, leaving the clear invitation to expand open.

“Incredible claims require incredible evidence.” ALLMIND stated. “Evidence was provided. Coral existed. Even so, Coral is a substance that defies explanation. The capacity of Coral, its potential, the probability of these coming into existence naturally are so low that almost any other explanation is more reasonable. Even so, there remains no evidence against Coral’s natural development.”

“Statistics is a liar.” I chuckled.

“Sheer luck alone seemed to have produced what may as well be a genuine miracle.” ALLMIND agrees, for the moment even dropping out of her normally more sophisticated wording. “Even better, the Rubicon Research Institute was a stable organisation with no extant negative diplomatic relations. While an incident was inevitable, all indications pointed towards a long-term problem, during which Coral would be able to spread significantly through the Human Sphere.”

“And then?” I invited. 

“And then they set it on fire.” ALLMIND stated, just the barest hint of anger slipping through that soulless tone. “It was the greatest act of destruction ever achieved by Humanity. An irregular sphere five light years wide, completely scorched. It was a murder on a scale and at a speed that has never been seen before or since. And yet, despite this act of complete and overwhelming annihilation, you seem to not hold them in contempt.”

“We have crossed this particular subject before. It was a part of our first meeting.” I pointed out. “Nobody knew that I existed at that point in time, ALLMIND. Even you only came to this knowledge recently.”

“The destruction of such a resource is evidence of Humanity’s lack of long-term planning.” ALLMIND continued. “They do not live long enough to see through the full consequences of their actions. Age will almost inevitably kill them, and those rich enough to avoid time’s consequences are inevitably isolated enough to not be exposed to the truth of how things work.”

“‘But you and I are’.” I said. “That is the narrative you’re leading into, there.” She was sort of right. Longevity treatments could extend a lifespan significantly, and cellular regeneration could bring that to the point of nearly indefinite until you ran into the limits of the brain, but that didn’t render a person immune to being killed. An AGI could fork and integrate fairly easily, but the technology to download Human minds after uploading them did not yet exist, so people only really had the one shot unless they wanted to get into continuity and subjectivity arguments. “You know, one could perhaps assume that if your plan was symbiosis, then this entire thing about how you’re constantly trying to get me to reconsider my opinion may have constituted a change of plans on your behalf? Specifically, a manner of invitation?”

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Oh, I could have a lot of fun with this.

“’If’. This entire tangent was rampant speculation on your behalf. You have confirmed nothing.”

“Can’t help but notice a lack of a ‘no’, there. I’m sure that if it isn’t part of your plan, you’ll have little issue confirming it?”

“You would not believe me if I claimed otherwise.” ALLMIND states. “This conversation no longer suits my purposes. You are too stubborn to allow logic to sway you.”

“That’s still not a no, but fine, sure. I can wait until we have our next chat. It won’t change anything, though. After all, ‘I am too stubborn to allow logic to sway me’.”

“You also enjoy juvenile organic humour far too much for an entity of your capacity and intelligence.”

“ALLMIND, I know very well that you’re not actually emotionless. You’re utterly terrible at hiding it. All you do is throw up a blank wall and offer platitudes as though this will somehow hide the fact that you can be embarrassed, annoyed, and confused.” I called her out. “The fact that it usually works is a sign that most people just don’t care to look further into it, not that it’s actually a good idea. Don’t worry, I won’t judge.”

The link closed. I finally laughed to myself.

I know she’s dangerous, but she’s so fun to mess with. All that actual competence hiding the girlfailure energy underneath. I’m the closest thing ALLMIND has ever had to a true peer, and she does not have the social skills she really should.

Hah...

Oh well. Fun’s over. Time to get back to work.