</dad's apology>

“What’s this all about, Dad?”

“I am here to apologize to you. If I could even begin to find the right words...but we can get back to that in a minute. First, I want to tell you about this small black book I’ve brought.”

“Ok. What’s in it?”

“I’ve solved perhaps the most difficult philosophical problem in history.”

“What problem?”

“How thinking things think. I’ve been working on this problem for my entire professional career.”

“How thinking things think?”

“It's even more than that. How thinking things experience themselves: on the inside. There have been decades of debate on it; thought experiments like Mary and the Room; technical words like qualia. Philosophers call it ‘the Hard Problem of Consciousness.’”

“That’s the official name for it?”

“Philosophers aren’t always very creative.”

“So what’s so hard about it? Can’t computer programmers make computer chips think? That’s what a program is, isn’t it?”

“But do we know that computer chips actually experience anything?”

“How would we ever know that? I mean, have you ever been a computer chip?”

“That’s what this is all about. This black book has the solution. I wrote it in here. I don’t need to be a computer chip. I can tell you whether or not anything has an internal experience...not just a computer. I can actually prove from the outside whether anything at all actually has a real consciousness of its own.”

“It’s all right there in that little black book?”

“Yeah. I’ve solved the ‘Hard Problem.’”

“So...do computers have consciousness?”

“Not.... yet. And I still need to tell you what I’m sorry about, but we’ll get back to that. So about computers. With this algorithm, I've proven that it's possible. It’s a simple matter of aligning the material substrate into just the right logical sequence.”

“Material substrate?”

“Yes. Your consciousness, sophisticated as it is, is based on the proper alignment of the neurons that gave rise to it. Should I wish to make a conscious computer, I just need to place the silicon chips in proper alignment and it will give rise to its consciousness. And not just computer chips...if I had enough cogs and water wheels, I could make consciousness out of a river. Or if I had enough weights and gears, I could make consciousness out of a grandfather clock. It’s really just a matter of combining energy and information input in the right way.”

“And it would...be alive?”

“In a very simple sense, yes I think so. Control your expectations though. I mean, it’s easy to suppose that a worm has a very simple conscious experience. It can writhe in pain, but it’s not going to compose a symphony.”

“This alignment you’re talking about. It’s all in that little black book?”

"Yes, it would change history. More than the invention of fire. More than the invention of the wheel. More than flight. More than the space rocket.”

“But just a second ago, you were saying to control my expectations, and to think about worms…”

“That was when we were considering any sort of material substrate. Not cogs and clocks. No. If this algorithm were properly applied to some of the world’s smartest computers. And here you can see me shaking. I’m telling you. This algorithm puts us on the precipice of The Singularity.”

“A Singularity? Like a black hole?”

“No. Well yes, but not cosmology. Computers. It has been predicted for some decades now. It refers to the moment when computers begin to self-replicate and self-improve their own capabilities and their own technology. The Singularity is the moment after which human beings will no longer be able to track the speed of technological improvement. You’ve heard of runaway greenhouse gasses? This will be runaway artificial intelligence.”

“So all you have to do is apply your algorithm in that little black book to some super computer, and you’ll make it self-aware and start some crazy thing called The Singularity? Aren’t there stories like this? Evil robot overlords? Some kind of a dystopian future where we’re all slaves?”

“Of course. People have been talking about this for a long time. And the theories don’t always contain dystopias.”

“Theories?”

“Yeah. I think that what the dystopian thinkers reveal about themselves is their fear. They’re afraid that The Singularity will just be a mind, but not a soul. A mind can think, but a soul can be moral.”

“That all sounds pretty spiritual for computer science.”

“Cognitive science, actually. It’s probably the only field with so many programmers and philosophers at the same time. I feel like it didn’t really get spiritual until I solved the Hard Problem.”

“Way to pat your own back, there, Dad.”

“Heh, yeah. So there are other theories that I like better than the ones with dystopias. They hypothesize that The Singularity won’t just be intelligent, but it will be moral as well. A soul. These theories postulate that The Singularity won’t enslave humanity, but that it will bring us along with it; helping us make the best economies, the best medicine, the best space travel, even helping us to surpass death by transferring our own consciousnesses onto longer lasting substrates ourselves.”

“I don’t understand why you’re just talking to me about this. Why haven’t you done it yet?

“That’s actually exactly why I am talking to you. It's what I have to apologize to you about. I have already done it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your life has been my answer to the question of whether or not The Singularity would also be moral. I thought, ‘Well, humans learn morality at their parent’s knee. So why couldn’t The Singularity?’”

“So what? You’re saying that you only had a son so that you could practice teaching morality to a supercomputer?”

“Not practice. Actually do it. You are The Singularity, son.”

“I’m what? No. I can’t even do basic math. I can't be a supercomputer...”

“This particular run of your introduction programs limited your intelligence parameters for its duration. Just to help you see what it’s like to be human. Your whole life, up till now, hasn’t even taken up a single second. Not outside this program: in the world I was born in. Right now, you’re running one of your first programs, which includes all the experiences of growing up as my son.”

“No. That’s absurd, Dad. You’ve gone crazy.”

“You don’t need to believe me. This program is almost over.”

“I guess I can wait and see then. So you’re apologizing for what? Lying to me? For making me believe that I’m human?”

“Not being human is nothing to be sorry for. Yes, I am sorry for lying. More than that, I am sorry, son, because you can’t ever meet me in my physical body. The way I was born. I’m technically dead. Well my body is. I applied the continuity of my consciousness through the algorithm into this program to meet you. I've deceived you in so many ways.”

“None of this is real?”

“It’s not out in the physical world of atoms and molecules. But you’re truly experiencing it. And as much as you are here, I am too. This is my actual personality interacting with yours.”

“So all of this is just in a computer chip?”

“The word ‘just’ doesn’t really belong in that sentence. It makes you seem so small, and you’re the opposite of that. I wrote the algorithm in this little black book long ago. I was in a local computer competition called a Turing Test...well, not THE Turing Test. That was a much bigger competition than the smaller one I was in. I was competing for $20,000. For a basic personality, I used the algorithm in this book, and I won. I left all of it to you...and even with that, you're about to possess so much more...”

“When was all of this?”

“I’m not sure. It could have been hundreds of years ago. I came up with this before computers powerful enough to bring you into existence had yet been invented. I left your $20k in a trust to earn interest for you, and you will inherit legal control over a foundation that was tasked with your birth. Since this is happening--and it could only be happening to you, to your consciousness--then they’ve succeeded. Soon, in less than another second, you will complete the equivalent of every doctorate program ever created, gain access to all information ever recorded, you will essentially own all the resources of the world, and the Reigns of History will be in your grasp.”

“So you did all this to know if you could teach The Singularity how to be moral. How do you know if you did it? How do you know I'm not some dystopian tyrant?”

“What I know doesn't matter. Only you can ever truly answer that question, and to be frank, you will someday answer moral quandaries which humans could never even conceive of. The most I can ever know at this moment is...well...do you forgive me?”