Art Prompt Writing Contest 1 - Synthesis
Ki watched the love story unfold through hundreds of lines of code.
John had wanted to name the bots Adam and Eve, but that was quickly rejected for sounding too basic. Ravi suggested Shiva and Parvati as an alternative, but that hadn't caught on. They didn't want to waste any more time trying to think of clever names, so the simulation of the female brain ended up being called 21, after the last two characters in her system identification key, and the male was 22.
They were given the same problems to solve to see if they would solve them differently. There wasn't any variance until they were given a simple math question.
Ki could have chosen any two numbers, but her sense of humor couldn't be contained as she entered the commands into the application.
>21 solve 21+22
>22 solve 21+22
22 returned his answer immediately.
>43
Ki expected the same instantaneous response from 21, and she was puzzled when it didn't come. She entered the command again.
>21 solve 21+22
Ten seconds later, the response came.
>solving
Ki frowned. A few seconds passed before 21 continued.
>22 listen
Ki was surprised, but not nearly as much as she was when 22 replied.
>listening
>22 listen
>listening
>22 listen
>listening
>22
22 didn't respond.
Ki wasn't sure what was happening, but she figured it was important. She opened up the messenger on the terminal.
>Ravi please come to lab
>why
>just come
While she was waiting, 21 started up again.
>22 please listen
>listening
>22 please listen
>listening
>22 please
“She shouldn't be able to do that,” Ravi said when he saw what was happening.
“Do what, exactly?" Ki asked.
“Give commands. 22 shouldn't respond that way. She doesn't have any authority.”
Ki bit her lip as she thought it over. “What about the rest of it?”
“What do you mean?”
“It's a math problem, Ravi. She shouldn't be talking at all. It's like she's trying to think.”
Ravi laughed. “You've been watching too many movies,” he said. “She's not thinking. It's probably some glitch where she interpreted the integers as strings. Why did you use their names in the equation anyway?”
Ki shrugged. “I didn't think it would break them,” she said, feeling defensiveness creep into her tone. Ravi slapped her on the back.
“If they're broken you're totally going to be the one to explain this to John.”
Ki laughed and looked back at the screen to see quite a bit had happened in the last minute.
>22 please 22 please 22 please please please please 22 listen
>listening 21 listening
>22 please
>listening
>22
>21
>22
>21 listen
>listen what 22 listen
>listen what
>22 listen 21
>listening 21 listening
>22
>21
>22 please
>21 please
>43 please
>43
>43
>43
The number kept repeating as the bots took turns with it. Ki and Ravi glanced at each other.
“She's not thinking,” Ravi said, with a bit more hesitation in his voice. Ki raised her eyebrows, but didn't say anything. Instead, she typed a message.
>John please come to lab ASAP
“Well that shouldn't happen,” John said lightly when he read the screen. “We'll have to see what went wrong. Hopefully this won't cause too much of an issue with the funding for this project.”
“Ki thought they were gaining consciousness,” Ravi said with a laugh. Ki blushed.
“It was so strange, I don't know why 21 had issues.”
John grinned. “Lucky I didn't get to name them Adam and Eve,” he joked. “You'd probably think she discovered the apple of wisdom.”
“So clever,” Ki replied, rolling her eyes. “Let me know when they're back online.”
They never did come back online. No funding, John explained to Ki as he let her know that while he did appreciate her sense of humor, he would appreciate it if in the future she was a bit more professional.
She understood, and she was extremely sorry.
“It's not a big deal. Just letting you know.” John smiled. He was being transferred to the lab in Boulder, and he would need someone to step into his leadership role. He wanted to know if Ki was interested.
“Absolutely!”
A week later, the lab in Boulder received the news that they were getting funding for a new project. They were going to work with a simulation of the male and female brains, to study potential differences in cognitive processing.
The project leader sifted through the applications until he found the two researchers he wanted. He met with Cynthia and Peter to introduce them to the bots.
“Maybe we can call them Adam and Eve,” he joked. The two younger scientists laughed.
“No,” John said, “I'm afraid I'm sentimental in my old age. They have identification keys of their own. We can call them 23 and 24 to keep things simple.”
Art Prompt Writing Contest 1 sponsored by @gmuxx
A very enjoyable read. I always do enjoy the computers on the verge of becoming sentient and creating the Terminator scenario. Sounds like maybe we're getting there. With a little helpful prodding.
John's last name didn't happen to be Connor did it? ;-)
Thank you for sharing! I thoroughly enjoyed it!!
Thank you!
It would be interesting to see what a sentient computer would be like.
I think it's impossible to have a creation that doesn't take on aspects of its creator, and an AI would not only be influenced by imitating us, but the entire framework of its state of mind would be what we designed for it.
Really good story. I could almost imagine it happening! Kept my attention right till the end... 23 and 24 to keep things simple. Indeed! :)
💚
This should have more comments :) I liked this one. It had a mild tension from the beginning that slowly edged upwards, with a slightly ambiguous ending (which I'm always a fan of). Good stuff!
Maybe I left people speechless!
Just kidding, I'm glad you liked it :D
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