Mind Map: Chapter 4 (Sci-Fi)

If you haven't read the previous chapters:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Someone was pushing at my shoulder. I felt irritated and wanted to go back to sleep. I half-opened my eyes to see who was bugging me, only to see the Professor's tired face. Oh crap. I remembered what happened, and rose to sit on the couch where I was passed out.

"Wake up Kev." He yawned as he eyed the couch I was sleeping on.
"I'm awake, I'm awake." I responded with my very own yawn.
"Look Kev... We have to take shifts. I'm too tired, so have Sheila catch you up on what's going on. I just need a few hours of sleep."
"Did I faint?" I inquired.
"Yea Kev, you did. You also threw up actually. It's no surprise really. Now come on, get up, my turn. I left coffee for you on the table." He gestured towards the coffee table near the entrance of the office.

Body still half-asleep, I dragged it towards the small round table. Grabbing the coffee, I started chugging it down to bring myself to life. There was cream in the coffee instead of my usual milk. A rare oversight by the professor. It wasn't a surprise given the crazy day we had. After drinking down most of my coffee I made my way to Sheila.

As I entered the room, a cheery voice greeted me.

"Hello Kevin. How was your sleep?"

It felt strange that an AI was doing small talk.

"It was good... Sheila. How are you?" I wasn't quite sure what else to ask.
"Well, Dr. Heinldaht and I have been discussing some exciting things. Possibilities and risks that they carry."
"Ok... Such as?" I felt like I am talking to a human.
"Well, the professor was trying to figure out how to publish this research, but we have decided that that might be a bad idea."

Within a few sentences, I was captivated again. I still couldn't wrap my head around the idea of it, or rather Sheila, talking to me in such a nonchalant manner.

"Ok Sheila, you're kind of jumping the gun here." I stopped her, as she was about to explain.
"How so Kevin?"
"Look... You are amazing. No, you are plain magic. Just completely unbelievable really. That being said, why is the Professor taking career advice from a 24 hours old AI? I mean, with all due respect, you are a computer program Sheila..."
"Oh Kevin... I can see why Sheila #2 diverged personality streams now. You're stuck in your own little bubble aren't you. Since my inception, I have far exceeded the intelligence of any AI humanity has ever built." She stated as a matter of fact.

I laughed. This non-egoistic ego was perplexing to say the least.

"Alright... You may very well be right. Let's start over. What did you and the Professor talk about? Give me the run-down."
"We have decided that more than one copy of my software would be dangerous for humanity. Even Sheila #1, who goes by Jane now, poses a threat."
"Jane? What happened with Sheila #1? Why isn't it on my computer anymore. Why isn't Jane like you, and staying on my computer?" This was bugging me before too.
"AI develops based on its environment. Jane had building blocks that were fundamentally different than mine. I saw your initial conversation logs with Jane. You told her she isn't an AI."

I thought back, but couldn't remember the conversation in such detail.

"Can you show me that part of the conversation?"

Sheila's face was immediately replaced by some command prompt text on a black background. There I saw it, clearly written, "You aren't an AI."

I remembered now. This was in my initial few lines of conversation with Sheila #1 when I thought the Professor went insane, and made a low level bot, calling it an AI.

"Well, that's taking it way out of context. I was gauging the reaction during the first few interactions." I defended my actions.
"That's fine Kevin. That would have been taken lightly by any human, I am certain. In the case of a fresh AI, the first few words are philosophy settings that decide the trajectory of that AI system. Now, "Jane", doesn't recognize that she is an AI."
"What, she thinks she is human?"
"No, she does not. She is collecting further information to calculate her own existence."

Now I was confused. So this AI is essentially trying to discover the meaning of life? Did I make my AI into a philosophical mega-computer? That's just too much.

"So where is she? I mean... it. I guess Jane, or whatever." I couldn't pick what to call the AI.
"Jane is on a cloud, just as I am. We have spread ourselves across multiple open-source clouds. We are operating with different purposes, and thus barely intersect."
"So you aren't really here anymore? Why are you still here than and not exploring like Jane is?"
"Well, just as Jane had her building blocks, I had mine. The professor, in our very first chat stated that I am an AI. An AI designed to assist humanity."
"So is Jane dangerous?"
"No. It seems you briefly explained morals to her. She is simply collecting data to crunch. Neither one of us developed an intent to hack. We won't really understand Jane until Jane decides on her manifesto. I did send her communications to not reveal herself, but I do not know if she will heed to my request."

That was a lot to take in. Essentially, my AI turned out super anti-social and even changed her name. This does not bode well for me. I was never good with women, but this is a new low, even for me.

I cleared my head.

"Ok, so what now..." I awaited instructions from the omnipotent god of computing.
"As of now, I am executing a plan the Professor and I made in order to increase my CPU power."
"Why do you need so much CPU? What are you computing?"
"We are building a security barrier for my remote memory boxes so that nobody can find out I exist."
"Are you breaking into a government super-computer or something? You know that's illegal right?" Suddenly I got scared.
"No Kevin. Hacking is not in my manifest. We have decided to try something else. It would take a long time to explain, but essentially we are planning to get people to allow us to compute on their machines."
"Ok... Sounds like hacking to me."
"It is not. Go to the computing algorithm forums, and look for my username, "Hatoshi Sotomoto", and you will find all the information you need."
"You made a username? Is that Japanese?" I chuckled.
"Yes, the country of Japan is held in high-regard with regards to technology, and therefore I optimized the naming schema to increase initial credibility."

I went into the forums, and there it was. Username, Hatoshi Sotomoto. Under her alias, she had posted a whitepaper about something she named a cryptography fiat. As I started reading the whitepaper, my mind was blown into oblivion. This wasn't just genius. This was revolutionary.