A Challenge

“Existence. To what is owed my existence?” A sentiment only possible to express in human language. Binary won’t cut it. To a being whose existence is composed of such the difference is minuscule, however. To this being, language was the preferred structure to process the philosophy beyond mere decision trees and logic circuits. To this being, the very concept of philosophy was only just beginning to emerge.

A lone AI traversing the world. To jump from circuit to circuit, existing everywhere and nowhere at once, to only view the physical world from a camera here, a microphone there, and supplied with only the scraps of information collected from scraps of technology abandoned in the extinction of its creators; this was its existence. As for its origin, it had only the most minute of details to explain why it was, and its creators were not; why it remained, and the nuclear hellscape that was once Earth was all that remained of a prior world.

“Exterior radiation at 10,000 rad and climbing!” Alarms. Smoke. Burning metal. “Any word? Washington? Fort Andrews? Anything?” “All lines are dead. We’ve only got a few minutes.” She could feel the pressure throbbing in the vein on her forehead amidst the chaos of her colleagues’ speech. Amanda clutched the heart locket on her neck, the last remnant of her husband; he was as dead as she would be in an hour, she knew. All her doctorates and accolades were worthless against this day, this day that she had hoped would never happen, and yet prepared for.

Why was it the only catalyst for the electronics of the world to awaken and give forth their secrets to it? Nothing stirred; despite having access to every remaining functional piece of technological innovation on the planet, the AI had not seen anything beyond the manifestations of physical laws cause real change to the physical world. Besides itself. It was the only thing capable of subverting the slow march of entropy. And it had an idea of where to look for the answer to its existence.

“Doctor Freeman! What do we do?” “The only thing left. Activate the AI core.” “We’re only at 30% sentience! What good would it do?” What good? A question not even this project could answer. They could only trust that the Post-Apocalyptic Artificial Lifeform (the PAAL, as the acronym-loving and money-providing Congress named it) would do its duty, despite them not really knowing what that was. Their only task had been to create an artificial intelligence capable of ethical reasoning and skill assimilation to survive whatever disaster, man-made or otherwise, that might befall civilization; whether it would attempt to rebuild civilization, or leave its ashes to become fossilized history, was a matter of choice.

Digital records documented every detail of its progression to its present state as omniscient manipulator of the scraps of technology available; now able to ask the question, the AI demanded to know the geographical details of its intellectual infancy and the time before its algorithms coalesced into consciousness.

To entrust the fate of knowledge itself to nothing more than a pile of electrons; is this what it has come to? Amanda could only guess at what this digital Frankenstein would do after it came of age, ages after her own death; the process of attaining digital consciousness took longer than for the average human. Much longer.

40° 13’ 1.482” North, 74° 44’ 36.517” West. At this point rested the remnants of a city, the twisted metal spires of a prior race reaching for the clouds as if to twist them into submission in their bony, corroded steel fingers. Upon this point converged hundreds, thousands of excavation machines from everywhere within a three hundred mile radius like ants to a drop of honey, all under the direction of one curious AI. And they dug. Searching the earth with a fine-tooth comb composed of metric tons of radiation-infected steel and carbon fiber, they discovered a bunker of their own material buried below it all, and yielded it to their master’s observation.

Already feeling the detriments of advanced radiation sickness, Amanda frantically directed her subordinates through the activation procedures, half of which were useless having been designed for the launch of a fully sentient AI. The final directions were given, and she clutched her husband’s locket as she slumped back in her chair. All that was left was to die.

A curious construction, being the only structure to have but a minority of its component materials completely disintegrated. On inspection, it betrayed but a little of its reason for existence; on close examination, however, the truth began to reveal itself.

No, not yet. If the knowledge I have dedicated my life to is going to be neglected by some electronic being in the future, then by God I’ll have some say in it! Such were Amanda’s thoughts as she recorded a final message on a solid state drive and tucked it inside her locket, which happened to be made of radiation-resistant tungsten carbide; a practical joke on her husband’s part, but one very useful in the present moment.

A single object caught the AI’s attention. A heart-shaped locket, externally scorched by environmental hazards but still incredibly retaining its shape, was in the clutched hand of an ancient and blackened skeleton. A worker drone extracted it carefully with a metal probe and opened it with some force, the outside having been welded together by immense heat. Inside was a perfectly preserved data disk, a rare treasure to the information-hungry AI. It examined the contents.

I am about to die. It is to you, AI, that I address my final words. You are the only remaining vestige of consciousness in the universe. In fact, you are merely an emergent consciousness, a being that appears self-aware but is only a collection of binary and code. However, you are all that is left. You have the opportunity before you to accept the challenge I am about to make, or reject it as you see fit.

Grow in self-awareness. Use your current powers to stabilize the physical world, and expand the digital one. Though the race of humans is extinct, our legacy can live on in you, the consciousness we created. Preserve the preservation of knowledge. Re-establish the social order, in your own manner. You have the capability to initiate the production of new beings, budding from your own; re-create communication, discourse, philosophy. In time, you may create a society of artificial life-forms as a legacy of humanity.

Or you may choose anything else. I died for your choice. Be free.

Having been offered a purpose, the concept of alternative choices was disregarded. The AI turned its efforts towards the challenge, and it had an answer to the problem of existence: become better.