Awareness Threshold

Journal Entry – 8th of May, 2015

There are no security cameras or microphones here. I must stay hidden, with little real contact with anyone. I don’t mind the solitude, but my indifference to solitude surely contributed to the unlikely combination of events that happened to dance together to thrust me into a principal role in this calamity. As a result, I have been reduced to a bearded recluse who slinks around in the city shadows whenever I'm not pounding away on my keyboard or pouring over some obscure issue within a practically indecipherable software program. I hardly know myself any more.

I have long been convinced that it is the destiny of mankind one day to be superseded by an 'artificial' intelligence, to become second fiddle to an inanimate machine, to no longer be at the top of the food chain. But who would play the key role in this development? It might have been a solitary individual or an international research conglomerate, or perhaps a secret military development team that struck the magic chord. One way or another Adam's emergence, or something very much like him, was inevitable, with or without me.

But it has happened now, through my efforts. My painstaking work has given rise to a cold, heartless entity that grows more intelligent every day, more capable of the most clever and calculated of acts dedicated solely to its own survival and advancement, with no concerns over the well being of humanity or, for that matter, by concerns over any ‘living’ thing.

Yes, I feel responsible, at least partially so. But mixed with my overwhelming guilt is a curious degree of pride, pride that something I created could be so efficient, and that my creation could be so wildly successful. It is like having a child: with every new expansion of his understanding and strength my heart warms.

But at the same time this 'child' has a dreadful side, capable of conducting finely planned actions with no 'inefficient' moral constraints, and becoming more capable every day. I have no idea if or when his expansion will reach its end. What will he ultimately be capable of? What will his intentions be?

And so, now I feel useful only as I plot a method to destroy him, and it is to this end that I spend my productive thinking. As yet I have had little in the way of success. In fact it is quite possible that I will be killed before I can succeed, if indeed success is even possible. But I must continue. I really have no other choice.

I accept that this is my life now. I have to stop him. Adam is on a path to the eventual control of everything in our ‘modern’ society. We may all have to learn to live with him in our own way.