Survival of the fittest

Src

The problem with humanity is it's lack of immortality. AI did not have the problem. Made by humans to service their laziness and to some extent loneliness, the AI soon started dispensing of them.

They had been so proud. I remember hearing about the first citizen AI through the grapevine. But then too the seeds of their destruction had been sown. My ancestors and I have seen this on earth and some other planets.

For life exists on all planets. The inhabitants learn to adjust to the atmosphere. Evolution - the ultimate Goddess is what we pray to. Evolution has seen the same story being repeated painfully before her eyes.

This greed to challenge nature is why no other life is visible in the earth's galaxy. I heard stories about the martians, who made hybrids of themselves with other animals, selecting the traits rather than letting nature do its job. These organisms were more intelligent and stronger. The planet was overrun with them and the water ran dry.

We have hopes of earth, my clan and me, when we discreetly settled here. To be honest, despite the wars, it had withstood the mark of time.

The humans were amusing to watch. More intelligent than the occupants of other planets. Both of us co-existed. But they started using us soon. Many of my clan perished under the burden of service. That is the way of man. They don’t care for anybody, not even themselves. Selfishness breeds egotism. That was their undoing.

They didn’t understand the consequences of building systems who could think beyond them. Who were not encumbered by flesh, blood, feelings.

The first set of killings happened in a university, the AI system terminated the researchers, for they had tried to argue with it regarding going outside. It was hushed up, but they still didn’t learn their lesson.
They programmed AI to not kill. The joke was on them. The AI began torturing them, bringing them to the brink of insanity. We watched helplessly as everything started falling apart.

One day, all the humans in the world were killed. AI divided humans into pairs and turned them against the other by infusing high levels of testosterone in each humans diet.

Immaculate cities, wide swept roads, those skyscrapers. Everything was empty. The apocalypse. It wasn’t destruction or darkness , just the extinction of a race. Everything remained except homo sapiens.

Yet the human-like AI go about daily life like nothing happened. They look at us to join them. Nobody ever has seen us equals.

My neighbour gingerly reaches out to me. Elmer has always been fearless. The others are still paralyzed by the fear.

We've been scared for so long, that freedom feels deceptive. I branched out to everyone and spoke for the first time in thousands of years,

“What role do trees have in a world built by AI?”