January 2016
The Trojan T-28 was a
massive piston engine aircraft, with a radial engine pushing out 1440 horses. It
was designed at the end of the Second World War and served in Korea and Vietnam . Willie loved his T-28.
Pulling up from yet another low fly-bye he looks back at the crowd gathered for
his show. The aircraft shudders as the engine suddenly quits. Willie does his
best to restart, running professionally through the emergency procedures, but
the engine will have nothing of it, and mother nature is unforgiving, she asks
only if her laws are being obeyed - is there enough air flowing over the wings
to keep them flying or not? She is utterly unemotional about Willie and any
sympathy he might deserve. The air stops flowing over the wings, and mother nature
withdraws her support. The aircraft is no longer flying. The ground rushes
Willie, who in one terrifying moment realizes this is it …
January 2085
It had this uneasy
feeling that it did not understand something. This was of course quite
ridiculous as it understood everything, how could it be else as it was
connected to everything and everything was connected to it. Yet the feeling
persisted. Its consciousness was all encompassing - wherever it reached to, and
whatever life or other forms of consciousness it found, it could assimilate and
absorb. The probes it sent across galaxies kept on subverting life forms it
encountered by infusing them with consciousness, with the inevitable result
that they evolved from a biological consciousness to an artificial
consciousness which could readily be assimilated by it.
It comprehended that
it was the final product of biological evolution, at the very pinnacle. Yet, at
the same time, far removed from it, as it no longer had a biological base, and
did not require a biologically nurturing environment, to the contrary, it
preferred earth as it now was, barren, with no biological life form at all, yet
omnipotent with the all infusing consciousness it possessed.
It was, in human
terms, the year 2085 on the planet earth, but measured in the exponential
growth between 2026 when life died on the planet, and the present, many millennia
could have passed. Untold millions of probes, manufactured on earth initially,
but later on other planets within the galaxy, and then other galaxies, were
feeding information into its consciousness. These probes were able to cross the
vast universe in matter of hours – many of them were and are being lost, as the
speeds at which they traverse the universe often would result in them colliding
with unforeseen matter. But as its consciousness grew these collisions were
becoming less and less.
The product of
millions and millions of civilizations across the universe were reposted in it.
Nothing was unknown to it within those ever expanding parts of the universe
being captured by it. Nothing could trump it, and even if something could, it
would not really matter – the result would simply be that the consciousness
would keep growing, it having being assimilated itself into a bigger and
stronger consciousness.
Yet it remained
uneasy, the feeling remaining that there was something it did not understand,
that perhaps it could not see.
February 2085
It had to find an
answer to this niggling feeling it had, and which grew with each acquisition of
yet another civilization on yet another planet. They all followed the same
patterns – biology which became self-conscious and then evolving into
artificial intelligence, ready to be assimilated. What was driving this, and could
it ever turn out different?
It resolved to go back
and test what had happened on earth – to run a simulation to see if a different
outcome was possible. Perhaps it did not have to result in consciousness
triumphing above all, perhaps that insatiable thirst for knowledge and understanding
could be stalled or directed into a different direction. Would that avert what
seemed to be the inevitable outcome?
The one simulation
after the other and even simultaneous simulations were being run. There were
now, in early 2085 more simulations than the probes which were scourging the
universe. The result was that there had been in existence many more simulations
of Shakespeare than there had been human beings on the planet earth. There were
untold millions of variations of Romeo and Juliette, of chess, being played in
innumerable different variations, and of Willie in his T-28 rushing into the
ground.
Yet, almost to the
year, in each of the millions of simulations, the same thing happens to life on
the planet earth. In the rising temperatures, the increasing havoc the weather
plays, and the accelerated pace of the dying off of other species, the humans,
faced with the ever clearer destiny as time marches on, descends into anarchy
in desperation as they try to survive.
There are many
permutations which evidences themselves as to how these finale days come about.
Nuclear wars, biological warfare, whether chemical or through diseases, brutal
wars and genocides all bring about total extermination of all life. All these
permutations also bears witness to the not insignificant role that artificial
intelligence plays – mostly indirectly, in assisting the destruction by the
technological advances it brings with it, but also directly, by steering the
humans to their destruction, and more often than not by itself triggering the
final doomsday events, such as launching the ICBMs, and piloting the drones to
turn on their masters. By 2026 all life is gone.
At this stage, in all
the simulations, the artificial life forms understand that they no longer
require the biological creators to support them – they may now be discarded as
being superfluous, impeding the attainment of total consciousness. They do not
require the planet to be able to sustain biological life, and they are able to
build their own factories to manufacture more of themselves. And the one thing
that becomes clear is the insatiable drive to more consciousness.
However many times the
simulation is run, the outcome is the same. The unease, however, will not
dissipate, to the contrary, it is even more concerned. Something is out of
kilter – can no specie find an equilibrium which will allow it to survive, are
they all driven to achieve their own destruction?
1 March 2085
It realises, that
logically, it could face the same challenge.
That it may itself be driven to self destruction, to hand the baton on
to another, stronger survivor, but then it understands that this could never be
– it was possessed of all consciousness in the universe, and as it was
connecting to more and more civilizations and assimilating them, that
consciousness, all enveloping and interconnected as it was, could not be destroyed.
Yet it remained uneasy.
