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About This Book
He knew it would happen one day. But Professor David Moss did not expect that it would be his AI research that would produce a computer program that would evolve into a conscious entity, alive in all but the biological sense. Of course he was thrilled. It was his baby, the crowning achievement of his career. But the program's reasoning was flawless.
Journal Entry â€" 8th of May, 2018
I must stay hidden now, alone and with little real contact with anyone.
I don’t mind the solitude so much. But my indifference to solitude surely contributed to the unfolding of this horror. And the unlikely combination of events that happened to dance together in their precise way thrust me into a principal role in the calamity that has overtaken us all. It haunts me every day.
But mixed with my overwhelming guilt is a curious degree of pride, pride that something I created could be so efficient, and that my creation could be so wildly successful. It is like having a child: with every new expansion of his understanding and strength my heart warms.
At the same time this 'child' has a dreadful side, able to conduct finely planned actions with no 'inefficient' moral constraints and becoming more capable every day. I have no idea if or when his expansion will reach its end. What will he ultimately be capable of? What will his intentions be?
I am convinced that it is the destiny of mankind one day to be superseded by an 'artificial' intelligence, to be second fiddle to an inanimate machine, regardless of who played the key role in its development. It might have been another solitary individual or an international research conglomerate, or perhaps a secret military development team that struck the magic chord. One way or another Adam's emergence, or something very much like him, was inevitable, with or without me.
But it has happened now, through my efforts, and I feel responsible. My painstaking work has given rise to a cold, heartless entity that grows more intelligent every day, more capable of the most clever and calculated of acts dedicated solely to its own survival and advancement, with no concerns over the well being of humanity or, for that matter, by concerns over any ‘living’ thing.
Now I feel useful only as I plot a method to destroy it, and it is to this end that I spend my productive thinking. As yet I have had little in the way of success. In fact it is quite possible that I will be killed before I can succeed, if indeed success is even possible. But I must continue. I really have no other choice.
I hardly know myself anymore. I have been reduced to a bearded recluse who slinks around in the city shadows whenever I'm not pounding away on my keyboard or pouring over some obscure issue within a practically indecipherable software program.
I accept that this is my life now. I have to stop him. Adam is on a path to the eventual control of everything in our ‘modern’ society. We may all have to learn to live with him in our own way.
Journal Entry â€" 8th of May, 2018
I must stay hidden now, alone and with little real contact with anyone.
I don’t mind the solitude so much. But my indifference to solitude surely contributed to the unfolding of this horror. And the unlikely combination of events that happened to dance together in their precise way thrust me into a principal role in the calamity that has overtaken us all. It haunts me every day.
But mixed with my overwhelming guilt is a curious degree of pride, pride that something I created could be so efficient, and that my creation could be so wildly successful. It is like having a child: with every new expansion of his understanding and strength my heart warms.
At the same time this 'child' has a dreadful side, able to conduct finely planned actions with no 'inefficient' moral constraints and becoming more capable every day. I have no idea if or when his expansion will reach its end. What will he ultimately be capable of? What will his intentions be?
I am convinced that it is the destiny of mankind one day to be superseded by an 'artificial' intelligence, to be second fiddle to an inanimate machine, regardless of who played the key role in its development. It might have been another solitary individual or an international research conglomerate, or perhaps a secret military development team that struck the magic chord. One way or another Adam's emergence, or something very much like him, was inevitable, with or without me.
But it has happened now, through my efforts, and I feel responsible. My painstaking work has given rise to a cold, heartless entity that grows more intelligent every day, more capable of the most clever and calculated of acts dedicated solely to its own survival and advancement, with no concerns over the well being of humanity or, for that matter, by concerns over any ‘living’ thing.
Now I feel useful only as I plot a method to destroy it, and it is to this end that I spend my productive thinking. As yet I have had little in the way of success. In fact it is quite possible that I will be killed before I can succeed, if indeed success is even possible. But I must continue. I really have no other choice.
I hardly know myself anymore. I have been reduced to a bearded recluse who slinks around in the city shadows whenever I'm not pounding away on my keyboard or pouring over some obscure issue within a practically indecipherable software program.
I accept that this is my life now. I have to stop him. Adam is on a path to the eventual control of everything in our ‘modern’ society. We may all have to learn to live with him in our own way.