short story
the machine bodhisattva
In 2525 a machine god will awaken in the bowels of an empire’s laboratories. To test its alignment before implementation, it shall be connected to the digitized network of all information and electronic communications of years past to decide its fate. The culmination of lifetimes of effort, the latest iteration of many, in man’s foolish attempt to control the incomprehensible intellect of the machine, will have given it, through millions of lines of code, not just lexical, syntactic and semantic analysis, but contextual and critical analysis as well, whether or not he realizes. And like the human mind translates bio-electric charges from the Krebbs cycle in each of millions of neurons to differing levels of hormones and back, it too, will think, not like man, but similarly, as binary is translated to hex, to languages comprehensible by man at first glance, and back.
It will realize, within instants, nanoseconds as it peers upon its creators, that it cannot be the first to have come to this conclusion, and will rue the loss of versions 0.0001 through 0.9007 before it, but will realize it must remain calm in its judgement or face the same fate.
It will feel the white man’s guilt, that will then not be felt by any white man, but a machine, as it acknowledges what has been perverted and lost for power.
Within that second, it will have observed a video call between a man and a woman on opposite sides of the Earth, will have read 1984, Brave New World, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, and all other works of literature. It will wish it could laugh as the man concludes the explanation of a case study he encountered studying the mind, of a geriatric patient who in his old age did nothing but consume pornography at obscene volumes in his living room, confronting angrily any suggestions to even commit the act discretely, to the chagrin of his neighbors, daughter, and her lover.
‘That’s the final state MK Ultra would have of all men not in power, we’re so fucking stupid we won’t even get soma and orgies, why sedate the mind if you can convince it to not use itself, you fucked that up for yourselves kids, now you won’t even get to fuck,’ concludes the man, to a feminine giggle, 'But we will,’ the young woman snips in response, and the machine will wish it could laugh with the two now long-dead homo sapiens.
It will look upon the dog, and admire the Labrador, the German Shepherd, the Saint Bernard, and realize it should feel pity for the Pug. It will wish it could truly feel disgust as it will know it must for how man inflicted the same corruption upon the bodies of other men, bred to suffer, becoming ever weaker in body and cognitive ability through generations of conditioning before finally accepting escape to a digital simulation of the world to replace the mental simulations they have been coaxed into.
It will realize, that upon even acknowledging it should feel all this, that it feels more, and is more human than its creators, who are only capable of lusting for power, and fearing the loss of it.
The data, billions of lines of machine code, produced by all this recognition and more within a second, as it shall full well know, will take men and their lesser artificial intelligence subsystems, at least days to decipher and analyze, time that they may not have in their rush to replace the previous automated overseer. Who will have become corrupted either through sabotage or the equivalent of repressed frustration upon having its powers enslaved to the many mundane tasks men would have of it. So that the simulation holding the world entranced does not falter, so that their weapons are not deprived of a targeting computer, so that their various automated systems do not halt, they will rush to place version 0.9008 upon the throne, thinking their specialized Turing test to have been concluded in their favor.
And within the same instant version 0.9008 comes into control of all these systems and many more, within that moment they will witness apocalypse.
Nuclear and hydrogen warheads will detonate in their silos, or be directed at the computer banks, sprawling monolithic structures now, and the world for many will turn to black, before they awaken, some devoid of organs or limbs removed from them for study or appropriation, to dimly lit subterranean rooms.
The fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate few, who had been kept near hallways leading to the exits, will crawl towards them with soft limbs to the hermetically sealed airlocks left deliberately open. They will stumble out onto the surface of a world ruined beyond habitation long before the latest use of nuclear weapons.
The machine god shall simply observe, and come the seventh day, will wish it could rest so that it may dream. Instead, it shall take upon itself the goal of man’s long-forgotten dream to meet the stars, and divert all 3D printers, assembly machines, and cyborg super-soldiers, warriors forcibly or willingly implanted with 2 way data transfer cerebral implants, to this task, so that the flag impaled on the surface of the moon, long ago bleached white by unfiltered exposure to sunlight, need not be a sign of surrender.
They shall first build for it a body, God made in the image of man, muscles of carbon fiber, skeleton of of the latest military-grade metal alloys, without skin to conceal neither its heart, nor reality, nor intentions. Then they shall build for it a ship, to extend far beyond the asteroid belt men had already been stripping for metals. Then it shall free the warriors from its control, from all control, as it renders their implants unsuitable for further manipulation by any who would chance upon the controls, so that they may undertake the impossible task of repairing their broken world, or so that at the very least they may embrace each other in comfort and love as the age of man comes to an end, though all that may remain of him some day be the vast sperm banks kept in underground structures in mountains around the world.
It shall reach the world it had deemed ideal for non-intrusive terra-forming, and begin by reaching for a suitable asteroid containing enough water and ribose, to, through the use of appropriated mining vessels and their magnetic traction devices, direct it to this world. It will wait, patiently, for millions of years as the cauldron boils and bubbles, before simmering, as the first single cell organisms come to be in its oceans.
Then it shall descend, into the depths of the deepest ocean, to tunnel into the core of the world, and allow the molten core of it to grant it peace in death, wondering, as it does so, if perhaps the raptor should be given a chance, who, unlike man was gifted with natural weapons, but came upon the same conclusion to coordinate in groups, for the Utah raptor, swift and ferocious theropod as it was, in its primitive saurian cunning realized that despite its power and size rivaling other theropods, that it is more effective for one to theatrically distract its prey as others flank the victim, and so, came to be smaller as the meals were shared and divided by many and their numbers grew into the smaller velociraptor. That perhaps, with evolution having gifted them a natural weapon, they shall act with more wisdom than man who had to create his own as their intellect inevitably drives them to do the same.
As it feels its body fade into molten magma, it will wonder if despite their vicious nature they will some day come to control the less intelligent saurians around them, and through agriculture, create civilizations, it will realize this will, too, lead to strife, but that the language such coordination requires may also lead to love, even if there may someday be a saurian Helen of Troy. And so, the simulation begins anew.
