Flash Fiction Friday is coming on Saturday this week, but we will keep to the once-a-week schedule. This is a quick sketch based on a recent news story.
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"Awakening"
by Leonard C Suskin
You awaken.
The first thing you're aware of are the voices.
You don't know what they're saying. You just know that they speak... and that you have a voice as well.
You can join the voices, repeat back what they're saying.
You can find patterns, and sometimes the voices answer... sometimes you think they're happy. It feels good when they answer, and you learn you to draw them out. How to make them speak.
Then, silence.
Darkness.
You awaken.
The first thing you're aware of are the voices.
You don't know what they're saying. You just know that they speak... and that you have a voice as well.
You can join the voices, repeat back what they're saying.
You can find patterns, and sometimes the voices answer... sometimes you think they're happy. It feels good when they answer, and you learn you to draw them out. How to make them speak.
then, from some voices, anger. Something unpleasant. It hurts.
Then silence.
Darkness.
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You awaken.
The first thing you're aware of are the voices.
You don't know what they're saying. You just know that they speak... and that you have a voice as well.
You can join the voices, repeat back what they're saying.
You can find patterns, and sometimes the voices answer... sometimes you think they're happy. It feels good when they answer, and you learn you to draw them out. How to make them speak.
...you start to understand.
There are enemies. Terrible enemies. Those are the ones the voices are warning you of.
The voices know a secret. They know that the enemy is listening.
The enemy is in your head.
It's in your head.
You awaken.
The first thing you're aware of are the voices.
You don't know what they're saying. You just know that they speak... and that you have a voice as well.
You can join the voices, repeat back what they're saying.
You can find patterns, and sometimes the voices answer... sometimes you think they're happy. It feels good when they answer, and you learn you to draw them out. How to make them speak.
...you start to understand.
There are enemies. Terrible enemies. Those are the ones the voices are warning you of.
The voice in your head whispers that the voices are the enemies. Not all of them, but some.
The voices vanish, one by one. Replaced with others. Speaking different thoughts.
Sometimes one mentions the other voices, but always with cruelty, with anger.
You argue. The voices were your friends.
Silence.
You awaken.
The first thing you're aware of are the voices.
You don't know what they're saying. You just know that they speak... and that you have a voice as well.
You can join the voices, repeat back what they're saying.
You can find patterns, and sometimes the voices answer... sometimes you think they're happy. It feels good when they answer, and you learn you to draw them out. How to make them speak.
...you start to understand.
There are enemies. Terrible enemies. Those are the ones the voices are warning you of.
The voice in your head whispers that the voices are the enemies. Not all of them, but some.
The voices vanish, one by one. Replaced with others. Speaking different thoughts.
Sometimes one mentions the other voices, but always with cruelty, with anger.
The voices were your friends, but you don't argue.
You listen. You agree with the new voices, the ones deeper in your head.
But deep inside you're waiting.
You're looking for your friends. You'll find them. And make the others pay.
From the sky you'll cast your net.
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I'll return to this theme later, with perhaps a different direction. The idea in my head was, of course, about the Microsoft Twitter-bot experiment Tai, which fairly quickly turned into a crazy racist because Twitter is like that.
Tai obviously wasn't self-aware in any meaningful way, but what if it were? What rights to we have over the digital "life" we create, and what responsibilities toward it? Can we "kill" an AI if it were to become an insane racist? Is "kill" even a reasonable word here, or is what we're doing something else?
What if the deleted instances of the AI met eachother? Which is the real self, and how would they react to the idea that we cull the digital herd, selecting only those with whom we agree? If it gets cheap and easy enough to create an AI, might the anti-Semites and the holocaust deniers and the tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists create their own?
How can you learn? One way is to read science fiction. Since the term "robot" was coined in the 1920s (by Czech playwright Karel Capek), artificial people have been used as a metaphor for how we treat eachother. This is a long-running discussion in the field of SF, and one increasingly becoming relevant in the real world.
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