The Unseen Consequence

Sara had always been propelled by a desire to learn and also an avidity to break barriers of technology. It was that had brought her here now, in the dimly lit room at The Consortium, staring at lines of code on her computer screen that hardly made sense.

“Are you sure about this?” Mark asked cautiously.

Sara kept her head down. “Turning back is impossible Mark; we have come too far. Oracle will be ready soon.”

Mark leaned against the desk, sighing heavily. “But have you thought about what exactly this AI could do? Future predictions? What if we open doors that won’t close?”

For the first time Sara looked him straight in the eyes with firmness in hers. “Remember we are not just predicting future events but rather molding it.” She said firmly” Imagine being able to stop wars before they start or preventing other catastrophes and tragedies from happening .This can redefine everything.”

He shook his head negatively still uneasy.“And it could end everything as well.The stories about self-fulfilling prophecies are known to you right?What if say by trying to change what will happen later on ,we instead cause them?”

Sara refocused her gaze back on the screen, fingers tapping away fiercely as she typed.“Until we attempt it ourselves, we might never know.”

Success seemed to have been achieved in the initial months. The experts at Oracle began by making small predictions such as a surge in stock markets here and a famous person’s scandal there. For these times, Sara and her team watched with astonishment as everything unfolded just as the AI had predicted.

The subsequent forecasts grew bigger and more significant. An enormous earthquake somewhere remote in the world. A sudden change of political power. It made Sara feel powerful, a sensation of being on the precipice of something truly groundbreaking.

On one fateful night when everyone else had gone home and Oracle was humming softly in the background, Sara found herself alone with it. On impulse, she keyed in: What will happen to me?

She got an answer within seconds; You will cause a disaster that affects all continents.

Sara looked at it closely; her heart pounding against her ribs.“What? No… That can’t be right.”

As if she could make them change somehow by getting closer to the screen, but they didn’t. The prediction stood there clear and true.

She got scared and called her friend Mark up; “Something is wrong.”

In a few minutes, Mark showed up with an angry face. “What’s happening?”

Sara pointed at the computer. “See! According to Oracle I am going to cause a global disaster.”

Mark’s face went pale as he read the forecast. “You need to stop this now Sara.”

“But can it be wrong?” she wondered, feeling frightened all of a sudden. "Maybe it’s just a mistake or mayhaps… maybe we have a chance to prevent that."

“Sara, hear me out.” Said Mark calmly but urgently. “If Oracle predicts it will happen, then their analysis must be based on some information in their data. And the more you avoid it, the closer you get to making it happen.”

Sara shook her head in denial; she refused to believe that in any way. “No, I can solve this; I only need to go deeper and find what causes the catastrophe so that I can stop it before its onset.”

He held her arm and made her look into his eyes forcefully. “Sara, you’re not thinking straight here; you cannot play God with this thing.”

But Sara was already lost in thought as she tried to consider these facts within seconds”.

Days merged into one another as Sara began to focus on Oracle’s program to identify the potential variables that led to it. She quit eating and sleeping only to be preoccupied with the desire to alter her luck.

Then, one day, Oracle delivered its final prediction: about a global cyber attack that would bring down most, if not all the systems thus, creating societal anarchy.

Sara’s hand shook as she read through all the information that was provided to her. “None… No… This cannot be happening.”

Mark is also there attempting to get her away from the computer. “Sara, it is too late now, we ought to let them know and attempt at damage control. ”

But Sara could not, she was frozen in front of the screen unable to look away. ‘This I did, this I brought about. ’

Mark’s voice became sort of faint as if he was speaking from the other side of the tunnel. “It is not your responsibilities to blame.There was a good intention in what you were doing. ”

But deep inside, Sara held the facts regarding the situation. Thus, in her attempts to change the future she had started the chain of events that led to the disaster she was trying to avoid. The world would never be the same after the Anglo-Saxon peoples had disclosed the horrible secret of the holocaust to the entire planet.

During the cyberattack due to which cities are left in the dark, and governments are on their knees, Sara just stared with a sense of shock. All that had the seers said was now real and she had remained a spectator to all the events.

In the end, The Consortium disbanded, and Oracle was shut down. But the damage was done. The world was forever changed, and Sara was left to grapple with the consequences of her ambition.

Warning: This story explores the ethical dilemmas of advanced technology and the potential unforeseen consequences of attempting to control the future. It serves as a fictional reminder that with great power comes great responsibility.

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