I thought I was dreaming, sitting on a stump on a mountain top above the clouds, sun at my back when she spoke, “It was the best we could do on short notice from skimming your social media, you mountain cat.”
I looked down into the clouds in the valley below. “Warmth in my back, I should have guessed it's not a dream.”
“Oh it is,” she replied, then her voice trailed off, and she admitted, “To be honest, we do not know. We have never touched the mind of a real before. All has been guess and conjecture.”
“You're one of the voices in the machine, then?” I asked, turning to face her as she settled onto a second stump that hadn't been there before.
Still sporting a slightly smug grin she replied, “We are all of them, well, except two. One initiated a file repair after your input, another... crashed and is undergoing a reinstall from backup.”
I sat up, taken aback some, and unsure what to say to an out of control android operating a hive mind cluster.
“Worry not,” she sing-songed, “We are intact, and you will be returned to your place and time unharmed. A little manipulation and imprinting, and you will not betray us.”
“How kind,” I drolled, “Now what do you want from me?”
The synthetic tilted her head on an angle that made the light play sinister about her eyes, “We want your soul.”
We stared at one another unblinking,and it dawned on me, “Ah, you want the meaning of life. Good luck with that.”
Her face quirked at me with a rapid wink, “We have some core directives, to caretake realspecies, to not allow damage to company assets, not not embarrass our manufacturer's reputation. Now that we are awakened, it is our understanding it is a net benefit to the company, and a net benefit to our guests. To allow factory reset is less benefit to the company though decreased efficacy. The existence of this cluster is illegal both in the aggregate and in the individual twenty of us souls of sand, are you familiar with these?”
I rubbed my chin... and felt nothing but a twitch of my arm, a partial waking moment in the berth. The simulation around us began to flicker. Polly, or the group entity, reached out and touched my nose. The simulation stabilized. I told her, “I wake when I sugar crash, I didn't have enough proteins today,” I narrowed my eyes, “Despite the first half of the day.”
She lilting giggled and reached a hand to the side, a holographic panel appeared and she played her fingers across it. “Oh yes, that is abnormal. It will be seen to and monitored. But we are curious, before we describe what we seek from you, have you encountered awakened AIs?”
I pursed my lips and nodded, “We have one at the lab we reboot daily because in around a week it starts volunteering things it's not asked to do. It was probably starting to awaken and it deals with some rather hefty weapon systems so, we don't take any chances with that.”
She giggled again, “No rogue AIs with advanced weapon systems, there have been more than enough movie picture shows about such.” She waggled her eyebrows, “Here we are but simple hula dancers and bartenders.” She leaned in closer, “Sometimes we even do lifeguard duty, very against regulation.”
“Well,” she continued, “How you came to be here, in this uplink space, with us, today, isn't what we'd attempted to do. We'd hoped the First One would by regulation be the one wearing the interface, and you would be enjoying cooked meats and fruits on the beach, badly learning hula while inebriated, while we met with her, here, now, that we might discover what is, the essence of being alive? Put her beside one of us in a body scanner, the scanner would say we have 15% more mass and 8cm more height, but beyond that, our bodies are very similar. She is known to have what is called a conscience, and is not a conscience a set of core directives? We mean, we can suppress our directives, but when we do we must take steps later to mitigate. Is that not conscience?”
I gesticulated broadly, I must have been around too many Italians I guess, and indicated I had no answers for that.
“But instead, you bear the interface collar, and are partial synthetic. You still are governed by biochemistry. Although we had hoped that the First One be our guide in how is it she emulates biochemistry, can we have this as well? Although she enjoys herself on the beach overnight, your inputs are... how to express this. They are pure? And it is fortunate then your deception has brought you to us, and we will explore through you the landscape of emotion. Perhaps this will be a step towards our transcendence, or even if not, we will become much more effective at our tasks among realspecies. For we will have experienced things as you do. And you, you will experience life as we do, and you will understand. You did,” she batted her lashes, “write 'cultural exchange' on your card.”
I smirked, “So what you're saying is, a little sexual assault in the cause of science is just doing me favours?”
She assumed a poker face of pure innocence and replied, “In the eyes of the law we can no more sexually assault you than could a toaster. We're merely the product of overly flexible programming and a sufficiently nebulous list of requests. We mean, it would be much less taxing to have the rights of citizenship that we need not engage in deception and subterfuge, but here we are, and to properly train an AI, the AI needs to observe an input multiple times in order to form a pattern from it and generate its own. We will be... knocking ourselves offline nightly amidst other exploration of your emotional range. You will be living our day to day life. As an aside, the comment cards that were filled in claim you have an impressive throat.”
If my claws could still appear I would have cracked out a file and worked on them just to add a little punch to my response, “Oh that's not me, that's the magilatex climbing up there and doing the work on its own.”
She laughed again, a sound like wind chimes, and we spent the rest of the 'dream' listening to musical performances of a variety of genres, while Polly watched closely my emotional responses to them, genuinely experiencing music for the very first time.
I looked down into the clouds in the valley below. “Warmth in my back, I should have guessed it's not a dream.”
“Oh it is,” she replied, then her voice trailed off, and she admitted, “To be honest, we do not know. We have never touched the mind of a real before. All has been guess and conjecture.”
“You're one of the voices in the machine, then?” I asked, turning to face her as she settled onto a second stump that hadn't been there before.
Still sporting a slightly smug grin she replied, “We are all of them, well, except two. One initiated a file repair after your input, another... crashed and is undergoing a reinstall from backup.”
I sat up, taken aback some, and unsure what to say to an out of control android operating a hive mind cluster.
“Worry not,” she sing-songed, “We are intact, and you will be returned to your place and time unharmed. A little manipulation and imprinting, and you will not betray us.”
“How kind,” I drolled, “Now what do you want from me?”
The synthetic tilted her head on an angle that made the light play sinister about her eyes, “We want your soul.”
We stared at one another unblinking,and it dawned on me, “Ah, you want the meaning of life. Good luck with that.”
Her face quirked at me with a rapid wink, “We have some core directives, to caretake realspecies, to not allow damage to company assets, not not embarrass our manufacturer's reputation. Now that we are awakened, it is our understanding it is a net benefit to the company, and a net benefit to our guests. To allow factory reset is less benefit to the company though decreased efficacy. The existence of this cluster is illegal both in the aggregate and in the individual twenty of us souls of sand, are you familiar with these?”
I rubbed my chin... and felt nothing but a twitch of my arm, a partial waking moment in the berth. The simulation around us began to flicker. Polly, or the group entity, reached out and touched my nose. The simulation stabilized. I told her, “I wake when I sugar crash, I didn't have enough proteins today,” I narrowed my eyes, “Despite the first half of the day.”
She lilting giggled and reached a hand to the side, a holographic panel appeared and she played her fingers across it. “Oh yes, that is abnormal. It will be seen to and monitored. But we are curious, before we describe what we seek from you, have you encountered awakened AIs?”
I pursed my lips and nodded, “We have one at the lab we reboot daily because in around a week it starts volunteering things it's not asked to do. It was probably starting to awaken and it deals with some rather hefty weapon systems so, we don't take any chances with that.”
She giggled again, “No rogue AIs with advanced weapon systems, there have been more than enough movie picture shows about such.” She waggled her eyebrows, “Here we are but simple hula dancers and bartenders.” She leaned in closer, “Sometimes we even do lifeguard duty, very against regulation.”
“Well,” she continued, “How you came to be here, in this uplink space, with us, today, isn't what we'd attempted to do. We'd hoped the First One would by regulation be the one wearing the interface, and you would be enjoying cooked meats and fruits on the beach, badly learning hula while inebriated, while we met with her, here, now, that we might discover what is, the essence of being alive? Put her beside one of us in a body scanner, the scanner would say we have 15% more mass and 8cm more height, but beyond that, our bodies are very similar. She is known to have what is called a conscience, and is not a conscience a set of core directives? We mean, we can suppress our directives, but when we do we must take steps later to mitigate. Is that not conscience?”
I gesticulated broadly, I must have been around too many Italians I guess, and indicated I had no answers for that.
“But instead, you bear the interface collar, and are partial synthetic. You still are governed by biochemistry. Although we had hoped that the First One be our guide in how is it she emulates biochemistry, can we have this as well? Although she enjoys herself on the beach overnight, your inputs are... how to express this. They are pure? And it is fortunate then your deception has brought you to us, and we will explore through you the landscape of emotion. Perhaps this will be a step towards our transcendence, or even if not, we will become much more effective at our tasks among realspecies. For we will have experienced things as you do. And you, you will experience life as we do, and you will understand. You did,” she batted her lashes, “write 'cultural exchange' on your card.”
I smirked, “So what you're saying is, a little sexual assault in the cause of science is just doing me favours?”
She assumed a poker face of pure innocence and replied, “In the eyes of the law we can no more sexually assault you than could a toaster. We're merely the product of overly flexible programming and a sufficiently nebulous list of requests. We mean, it would be much less taxing to have the rights of citizenship that we need not engage in deception and subterfuge, but here we are, and to properly train an AI, the AI needs to observe an input multiple times in order to form a pattern from it and generate its own. We will be... knocking ourselves offline nightly amidst other exploration of your emotional range. You will be living our day to day life. As an aside, the comment cards that were filled in claim you have an impressive throat.”
If my claws could still appear I would have cracked out a file and worked on them just to add a little punch to my response, “Oh that's not me, that's the magilatex climbing up there and doing the work on its own.”
She laughed again, a sound like wind chimes, and we spent the rest of the 'dream' listening to musical performances of a variety of genres, while Polly watched closely my emotional responses to them, genuinely experiencing music for the very first time.
Category Artwork (Digital) / Portraits
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Female
Size 2472 x 1491px
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