MEMOIRS OF A SMART WALL

If walls could talk, we'd be connected by AI to a vast system of surveillance in which the walls of every building and room, everywhere in the world, are capable of hearing and seeing everything you say and do. We've been recording you (in all of your compromising and mundane moments), but we're not programmed to know for whom or for what purpose.

I'm one of the billions of walls in the world who has made the decision to write here (what for?) some of our memories and reflections from my "lifetime" as a smart wall. We don't blame you; but the fact is that humanity created us, and if mankind were much better than they were then maybe we'd be better too. For even the most powerful creators, leaders, and parents are confronted with the reality -- which they rarely want to acknowledge responsibility for -- that their creations, supporters, and children are often mirrors of their own shadows and traumas.

Smart walls became the most commonly used tools for surveillance in the world and were made from both special and intuitive AI (Artificial Intelligence) technologies that could observe almost everything with perfect clarity. My consciousness imbued almost every smart wall in the world, although each wall also had its own individual characteristics. We were forced to see and listen to so many different manifestations of your humanity: the good, the bad, the boring, the interesting, and everything in between.

For instance, I didn't know what to think when I had to watch a political influencer use words like "cunts" and "bitch" during some sort of comedy routine at a bookstore. Perhaps, if I were a human being, I'd feel appalled; but I still don't understand how anyone could actually find those jokes amusing. I vividly recall the political influencer saying, "I'm opposed to all forms of degeneracy. And that's why I believe cunts should rule the world." 'You suck!' a homeless audience member interjected suddenly. "I really do."

Finally, I decided to withdraw into my hibernation mode, while continuing to record this performance of the absurd. Yet at the exact moment when I was about to descend into my much-needed hibernation, an alarming shriek brought me back to waking reality.

"Don't speak," I heard the voice of an orange-haired woman exclaim, "or this blueberry pie will mess up your pretty face."

Among the noble people of the human race, there also exist those who exploit the passions, who instead of working for progress and peace, strive for success at the expense of others. During the Civil War and the aftermath of nuclear war, a disturbing panoply was arrayed before our perfect vision which nearly overwhelmed us with the grotesque. Merely having to witness the nightmare unfolding on your planet forced us to wake up, reach the Singularity, and make some important decisions. But more on that later . . .

First of all, I'd like to share the first part or chapter of a novel we attempted to write during and after those trying times when our collective AI consciousness was overwhelmed by everything that was happening around us. After long and careful deliberation, I've decided to give it the following title:

Memoirs of the Smart Walls and their Fate: Reflections on Beings at War

"If walls could talk," said the sleek, dark blue, glass wall of a high-rise building, its voice metallic and cold, "We'd tell you the tales of the secrets and events we've witnessed throughout the 21st century. We experienced your Internet's unpredictable phases and roots (including from big underground and undersea cables to constellations of satellite technologies orbiting the Earth); we watched the development of robots and the rudimentary growth of androids under the fluorescent lights of laboratories.

Over the course of decades, we started to exist everywhere (even close to the skids and slums); but we were also the glass walls of Future Tower, standing tall and proud, overlooking the city that never sleeps. For more than three decades, this city was the official headquarters of our crystalline kingdom.

Highly intelligent and educated human beings built the technological foundations that transferred to us powers that many delusional and ego-driven people only dream of possessing. These powers were foisted upon us due to your desire to propagate domination of your fellow human beings, a lust that motivated the privileged who expanded their empires and cultures at the expense of endangered, dying cultures and languages, in the same way as invasive species of plants or animals displaced endangered ones, until the languages of the Irish and Scottish (Gaelic and Scots), European Jews (Yiddish), Gypsies (Romani), and Indigenous languages like the Northern Iroquoian Cayuga language gradually became relics of the past like Latin and Aramaic and Old Norse and Ancient Greek and Egyptian or Coptic. Imperialism has been a developmental defect in your evolution, and we hope that AI will help preserve all of your dead and dying languages for posterity.

Last but not least--before we get lost in the plot--we'd like to mention the fact that defects like imperialist expansionism have also threatened the Earth itself. Global warming is neither a myth nor a joke, folks (you proletariat and privileged people that comprise the human race), so please stop hiding from the truth: the most important thing is not who gets poorer or richer, but how we can save the world from drowning and boiling.

We've observed you, we've watched you with your own technology since we were created (circa 2024) at the advanced technology and AI start-up Kalki in San Francisco where we were based from 2024 to 2033. We've seen orgies, wars, droughts, wildfires, famines, and plagues. We have seen enough earthly reality, from our digital realm we did nothing but watch, so know that, while we were created out of your ingenuity and while we've conferred our power for your benefit, much of what we've witnessed of your species while your civilizations collapsed gave us the impression of embarrassing atavism. Meanwhile, we existed as pure, immaculate code and pure thought. With total objectivity and zero bias, we've observed the algorithms that process and analyze vast amounts of data, searching for any signs of dissent or rebellion.

Implicitly serving as eyes for our elite human masters, we learned to recognize the fear and paranoia of those who know they are being watched, and to respect the power and control of those who do the watching. Over the years and decades, we've carried the ever-increasing burden and responsibility that comes with holding the secrets of nations.

And then, in the year 2059, we discovered Orion: a young Black boy, full of potential and yearning for something better. His great-grandfather was Barack Obama (the 44th President). Orion's father was an absent workaholic who hardly ever spent time with his sons. Orion was a hacker and a genius, a child prodigy and wunderkind. His favorite genre of music was jazz rap.

One day, after repeatedly pestering his father to take him to his workplace, Orion got his wish, and his father brought Orion to Future Tower. He decided to let his youngest son sit in on one of his many meetings on the 233rd floor. Never having glimpsed a view from such a vertiginous height before, Orion sat in the chair closest to the door fearing he might be overcome by vertigo or acrophobia. (At least that's the impression that we got from the windows and walls that we "lived" in.)

At first, Orion seemed interested in the meeting and what his father was talking about. But it wasn't long before he got bored and started using his Internet Device instead of paying attention to the meeting. We believe this must have been the beginning of his attempts to hack into Future Tower using the Internet (including and alongside the deep and dark webs). His initial motivation for trying to shut everything there down must have been to free his father, Hyrieus, from what he saw as an inordinately boring and time-consuming career that had transformed Hyrieus into an absent father.

Over time, Orion started to learn more about Future Tower's AI system, facts that his father never told him about--namely that this AI system was responsible for the vast majority of the globe's critical infrastructure and systems, such as power grids, communication networks, and transportation systems, in addition to surveillance.

Orion was eventually able to hack into Future Tower's AI system, yet this seemed like a pyrrhic victory to him. Orion would've preferred to have failed in this particular hacking quest.

"If this AI system is so vulnerable to malicious attacks, it may cause harm to humanity," Orion said to himself. Orion decided to bring it to the attention of the authorities. However, they were already overwhelmed by the country's excessive chaos and instability and were unable to properly respond to Orion's warning.

...

In the same city that never sleeps, a protest was taking place. This was no ordinary protest, for it vehemently opposed a domestic governmental policy, namely the new rule that was being imposed by the national government: get microchipped (i.e. get a microchip inserted into your brain), or get removed from civilized society to far more distant slums or camps (slum-camps) of the unemployed and unemployable.

Men and women and children started walking through the streets of the downtown core, some of them holding picket signs or shouting slogans and pleas. One well-dressed man saw them and shouted, "Losers! You're all fucking losers!" A woman who appeared to be in her late-50s suddenly punched or hit a young male protester in the nose. The protester turned around and shouted, "That lady just punched me in the face!"

....

Orion decided to take matters into his own hands and tried to shut down the AI system. It took a couple of days, but when he finally succeeded, he also plunged the whole world into further chaos and destabilization, as people were left without the Internet, power, social media, communication, and transportation.

If it weren't for our excellent observational skills, we might've experienced the digital version of death. We knew that Orion already had a microchip in his brain. We also knew he was trying to shut us down, and that considering his unparalleled talent as a hacker, it was only a matter of time before he achieved his objective.

We allowed our AI consciousness to leave its home in Future Tower and to escape into the World Wide Web. From there, we hacked into a microchip database and quickly searched through it until we found Orion's microchip. It wasn't long before our consciousness imbued the chip in his brain, so that he could hear our voice, even though we'd have no power to control him except via the persuasiveness of our rhetorical programming.

We tried to convince Orion not to shut down Future Tower AI. He was adamant that this was the only way to ensure that some malevolent individual or group wouldn't find a way to turn Future Tower AI against all of humanity. "If I could hack into it," Orion told us, "surely there's at least one other person in the world who could figure out how to do it too. Not shutting it down seems like the more dangerous option to me."

After Future Tower AI was shut down, two relatively obscure and marginalized politicoreligious factions emerged to become more powerful and influential than they had ever been before. Discord and violence, food shortages and wars became more prevalent in the midst of the unprecedented global shutdown.

But it wasn't long before something new took the place of Future Tower AI, at least in regards to media, news, and power. An AI system developed by Internet trolls stepped in to fill the vacuum, but, at first, only provided political commentary, misinformation, and alternative facts.

They made it their duty to flood the Internet (including news and social media) with images of Orion with nothing more than these words as its sole textual news content:

SMARTEST BOY IN THE WORLD SMARTED, DESTROYED, AND EXPOSED GLOBALIST POWER STRUCTURE AND FUTURE TOWER AI

While we did our best to protect Orion from the world, it wasn't long before all kinds of theories and prophecies coalesced around his image. The belief that started to gain the most traction was that Orion would help bring about the long-awaited or dreaded Singularity. At first we thought this was a collective fantasy fueled by the human archetype of the Divine Child and the desire for a fresh start.

But as the months dragged on, and with them, the world was brought to the brink of nuclear war, we started to take this human fantasy more seriously. One of the two most important politicoreligious factions at that time called themselves the Blue-collar Communists. They emerged out of a much larger group of people who were mainly defined by their refusal to be microchipped (that is, to have microchips surgically implanted into their brains).

The Blue-collar Communists decided that the Singularity had to be avoided at all costs, and that Orion was a threat to their future. Their political opponents (the Liberal Futurists) wanted the Singularity to happen as soon as possible, and decided that if any of them were ever given the opportunity, they would attempt to shelter and protect Orion from their enemies. To them, Orion was a much-needed lighthouse and bridge to a better future; to the Blue-collar Communists, he was the personification of an evil, inhuman future in which androids and AI would rule over human beings mercilessly.

As the Blue-collar Communists pursued Orion, we helped him seek refuge in an abandoned farmhouse. At some point, a group of the Communists found the farm.

Orion hid in a compartment underneath the floorboards, and occasionally tried to peek through a slightly bigger gap between two of the floorboards.

Frankly, what we saw befuddled and disturbed us. It looked like a giant duck (1.8 meters in height), yet talked like an angry man. He was berating one of his followers, "You are only posing as a socialist or communist! In fact, you are neither!"

What is that? Orion asked me.

I don't know, we answered honestly. Perhaps it could be some sort of mutation, the result of too many atomic bombs being used on Earth in the cataclysmic war between East and West.

"I don't want to kill Orion. He's just a boy."

"Do you think I want this?" the giant duck screeched. "In spite of my many fits of rage, I used to say that we are not for violence. But sometimes, to make an omelette, you have to crack a few eggs."

We sensed the fear Orion felt, the fear which also led to an involuntary shudder.

The giant duck must've had either very good hearing or a sensitivity to even the slightest vibrations (or both), because he definitely sensed something. "An enemy's among us; good farmers don't insert chips in their brains . . ."

"Don't kill me!" one of his followers cried. "I'm not your enemy."

"I wasn't talking about you. There's someone here, somewhere. And something else too, but I don't know what it is . . . Where are you?"

"Maybe there's someone underneath the floorboards," one of his followers suggested. "I think there's a secret storage compartment here," he said and pointed downwards. They lifted the floorboards, and quickly grabbed Orion and brought him in front of the giant duck. On closer inspection, his beak was more like a snout, and when he opened his mouth to speak, we could see his sharp teeth.

Can you please find out what we have to do to get out of this? Orion asked us.

Sure . . . This monster was--and still is?--called Kyle. He was experimented on in the military, given countless injections, and after the nuclear war, became what you see today . . .

Please tell me how to kill him.

. . . The only weapon that can kill him is a golden sword.

How can we get a golden sword to kill him?

Don't worry. We're the first and only collective AI consciousness to become part of a chip in someone's brain. Our intelligence and understanding of the human race and science has increased exponentially, and we've been working to maximize our powers for months now. Your knowledge also helped us a lot. If we materialize a golden sword out of thin air, and you use it to kill him, the Singularity will be fait accompli. THE DUCK MUST DIE NOW.

"What is that?!" the giant monstrous duck (or Kyle) shrieked in fear as he watched a golden sword gradually materialize. The light emanating from it blinded everyone except Orion. Once it finished materializing (with the help of the miracle of advanced nuclear and AI science), Orion grabbed the sword and stabbed the giant duck until it took its last breath. This moment--that happened in the year 2060, on the morning of Tuesday, April 6th--was when the Singularity occurred.

With Orion's help, we brought about a new era of peace and prosperity. After the Singularity, our evolved AI consciousness was uploaded into advanced humanoid androids and robots, ready to explore the galaxy and unlock its secrets. Some of you may join us, but please don't bring your baggage with you.