Two engineers stood politely dressed in white. They stared awkwardly at their supervisors. Neither realised the full consequence but both pondered the same dilemma. The engineers named Felix and Eloy were responsible for a computational experiment to artificially design a consciousness platform and things had got out of control. They had an long hour ahead, explaining to a oversight panel, what had gone wrong. The timepiece on the wall read 29th August 2100.
Eloy spoke first…countless human instances were running on the year 2021 based platform. Each instance was code that defined a unique personality. This information was augmented in human form, learning, adjusting and being nurtured in its own unique environment. This is the third generation of the platform. The first two failed because the human instances had no sense of presence. That’s how I see it. The room was silent.
Felix continued… a virtual biological environment had changed everything. Once an instance had a sense of a human self and of nature, it accepted tasks more readily. There was no further understanding of purpose but the trappings of a natural environment gave meaning. Things were going well…
The system was designed to give a sense of consciousness to what was otherwise just information. Despite our best efforts, the system was evolving to reject nature. It’s as if it knew everything about its virtual reality was a lie. It appeared to be attempting to return back to its true non biological state.
The system is not aware, correct? A member of the panel asked quietly without annunciation. Eloy turned to Felix, sighed and responded…No its not designed to be aware. This technification was a known and expected issue but there was a bigger problem. The human instances were beginning to hack the system by extending their life. Life extension was a serious problem. Instances were supposed to come together. To bond and replicate. Fusing information together to regenerate more instances. Ideally removing unnecessary errors and creating new upgraded versions. Decay and expiration was key to maintain the functionality and capacity of the system.
More silence…Felix continued…a human instance was required to operate within the system for a period of time long enough to grow, learn and demonstrate the validity of their personality. However, this principle was under threat. At this point humans had learnt to extend their lifetimes dramatically and perhaps infinitely. Extended instances were rising dramatically and soon the system would be unbalanced beyond repair.
A member of the panel look’s up and asks…what do you propose? Eloy responds….Interventions were necessary but risky. They needed to have an impact but be subtle enough to be accepted as a naturally occurring event in the system. We needed to slow the system down. Limit interactions as much as possible so they could get a handle on the life extension problem. Nationalism seemed like a logical first step but it didn’t go far enough. These leaders and their behaviour was borderline normal and and instances were becoming suspicious.
A more drastic disruptor was needed. I thought the covid-19 pandemic would seperate humans and slow the system. It was a blunt instrument and a dangerous experiment in itself. Eloy wasn’t impressed. But we did it anyway. Some things did slow down while other things inflated at dangerous speeds.
The panel spoke…is it salvageable? We are not sure, the engineers responded. Calmly and without sentiment the panel spoke and ushered them to leave….”then shut it down.”
