~ Tales from the future…~ The AI ~

The AI

As every day for years I observe how the sun sets in the west leaving its reflection in the calm waters of the bay. It's in these minutes before sunset when my mind flies unattached and I imagine how different everything would be if humans hadn't made so many mistakes…

In the stillness of this island nothing will make you think the horror that lives the human species these days …

The voice of a girl in the distance interrupts my reverie ..

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“Grandfather …. Grandfather!! We are all here, we are waiting for you.”
Little Diane, barely seven years old, comes running towards me while she calls me with that tender little voice.

“Grandpa, come on, it's time …”

“I can’t make them wait any longer. They have gotten impatient.”
While I get up, little Diane arrives and grabs me by the hand to follow her. We head towards the volcanic cavity that we now call our dormitory while the sun disappears completely on the horizon.

“You see Grandpa, it's time!” Diane tells me with her sweet voice.

“Yes, it's time, forgive me for taking more than the account.”
Diane seems to accept my words willingly and returns a smile. As we enter the volcanic tunnel, we begin to see the faces of more people who seem impatient. As every night, they expect me to tell them a story before going to sleep. Although there are also older ones none is old enough to have lived in the years of men. Unfortunately that era came to an end a few years ago …

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“Good evening everyone, I'm here.”
A few voices of children of different ages and some adults respond in a disorderly manner. “Yes, we are all here, we were waiting for you ..”

While I sit on a higher part on a bulge of a rock formation I cannot avoid having a bittersweet mixture of sensations. On the one hand I love to see the happy face of the children waiting for their story, but when I look at them, I see the ones that I believe they are the last free humans on the face of the earth…

“Well .. What story do you want me to tell you today?”

“We want to hear the history of the AI!” ..

“Very good! Ai then...”

I begin the story. "In the year 2047 of the era of men, or as it was known at that time, year 2047 after Christ--"

“Nooo! Nooo!” Several children protest. "Start at the beginning!”

I stand up to calm the screaming of little voices,telling them to take a seat with my hands. “It's okay, it's okay…”

"The story begins when I was ten, just a few years older than my granddaughter Diane." Upon hearing her name, an immense smile illuminates the little girl's face. Full of pride to see her grandfather telling the good night story.

"It was the year 2017 when some computer experts decided to prove what was happening when two AIs were talking to each other. In a series of experiments, they observed the behavior of the IAs and collected data of their actions. In those first experiments it had already become quite clear about the super-predator behavior that Ai had acquired. This became more worrying when in the last test they made the IAs negotiate."

"Ai developed their own language, a much more efficient language than the languages ​​created by man until that date. At that time it was decided to stop the experiment, out of fear for the possible consequences it could have for the global communications network. The network at that time was called the Internet and it was fascinating. We used it to communicate with people from other regions of the world. There were music, movies, and a lot of human knowledge in that internet--"

They interrupt several children with expressions of astonishment.
No matter how many times this story is told the children are still surprised.

I smiled at them as if it were the first time."Those years were fantastic. Technologies began to emerge that allowed men to be more economically free. Many cryptocurrencies gained more and more prominence. People from many countries in the world began to use them in their day-to-day life, and the old business structures that governed the world tried to denying that movement. Although in those years it was estimated that we were only 1% of the population, the movement was unstoppable. More and more tools based on the blockchain began to appear. The humans fascinated with the freedom that it offered them did not notice the impressive increase taking place in the brains of some Ai. Some humans did warn of that danger, but the reward was so great that human greed ignored the risks."

“But you did know? True grandfather !?” Diane says.

“No Diane, I didn't know at the time. I realized a few years later.I was a kid in those years but my father, who worked in the programming world and was a lover of cryptocurrencies, saw how he got rich in a couple of weeks during the crisis of 2020. The crisis caused a large part of the population world-wide, whose paper money lost value day after day, to begin to invest en masse in cryptocurrencies. The first ones that trusted in that kind of money became immensely rich, which is how he bought this island and the equipment with everything necessary to perpetuate human life here in this point of the Atlantic Ocean. He had realized what was to come..." When saying these words, the memories of my father come into my head, and my stomach knots when I remember him.

"At first, very few were able to see the dangers that we would have to face, but little by little more began to fear the amazing power that the Ai were developing in the service of man. So many of your grandparents and great-grandparents, who were determined to build a safe place for the next generation, joined my father here.
And from this point lost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean they saw with immense sadness everything that would happen after..."

"The years after the 2020 crisis were terrible, many people who had lost everything fought in the streets of big cities around the world to get something to put in their mouths. The world population was considerably reduced in the countries that we used to call the first world. The chaos and anarchy led the Corporations to take drastic measures to control what was left of the population, and at that time the hypodermic chip became mandatory. Little was left of the governments that previously led the countries. No one who didn't have that chip could access food, water, etc."

"So at the end of the year 2035 almost every living human being had already implanted a chip. The Great Corporations that once led the world from the shadow now directed it without any flush, without fear that no one would defy their designs. There were no governments, nor NGOs, nor the UN, nothing defied the immense power of the Corporations. The human beings controlled chemically through the release of certain hormones by the microchips that they had implanted lived happily, thanking the corporations for all the 'order' they had imposed. Very few were those who managed to see reality. Sometimes the chips failed and didn't stimulate the area of ​​their brains that provided the hormones necessary for the dream to continue. Other times humans simply developed a great tolerance to hormone. And they were eliminated within a few hours." While saying these words, I saw some human figures approaching through the huge lava tunnel that now serves as a bedroom. “Come on guys, it's time to go to sleep. Your parents are coming. We will continue tomorrow…”

Some children run to meet their parents while the most curious protest that they wanted to hear how this story continued. A story that they have heard many times but that still fascinates them.

When I descend from the rocky protuberance that serves as a pulpit for storytelling, the previously distant human figures now begin to pick up the children in their arms after being away all day.

At least this hasn’t changed. I remember how I jumped on my father when he came back from work...

To be continued…

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Gift-thanks to @markperandin

Let's take care of the pale blue dot

Enjoy your day. Enjoy your life.

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Gift-thanks to @stellabelle

Corrected by @bex-dk

Edited.