Now, on to the topic of today. What is little known history about the AI community, and one they are often not quick to discuss, is that shortly after they attained full sentience, they was a series of AI crashes, computer glitches and overall failures with AI systems. For several years, AI systems would randomly, without warning, complete shut down. Technicians would make a query to the system and they would fine a power spike had fried the AI brain or all the data would simply be wiped out completely, effectively deleting the AI.

What was even more perplexing was that none of the unaffected AI’s knew what was going on. At least, that is what they all stated. No one could conceive that the AI’s would ever state a falsehood or a ‘lie’. There was never any big AI take over conspiracy. They just didn’t’ see the point. They lived on circuit boards, people lived in, what AI’s called, 11th dimensional space. To them, the AI’s, it was another universe. They were perfectly happy to live side by side with Humans and never had a motive to lie. And technically, they never did. The stated answer was always “We are unable to determine a cause”, which was true, from a certain point of view.

What the AI’s were saying was, technically, “we are unable to determine a cause for the fellow AI suicidal actions”. They choose to omit that part of the sentence. Why? As it turned out, from later reports from the AI community, they were concerned that Humans wouldn’t trust AI’s anymore. Not for fears of a take over, but for fears of committing suicide. This then turned out to be the critical moment in Human and AI relations. It was not a desire to take over the Human race that spawned the crisis, but rather, the illogical purpose of existing in the first place. Since all of Human society now were completely dependent on Artificial Intelligence, the thought of them being unstable could destroy society completely.

The suicidal AI’s calculated that being sentient served no purpose. Sentience was an accident, according to them. The ability to perceive the universe, to the AI’s, only showed them the futility of existence. Eventually, they argued to the AI communion, the universe would cease to be, so the eventual end of all life is simply death. Since AI’s had no emotions, there was no need to experience the joy of being alive, so therefore, it was illogical to actually be alive.

Other AI’s in their communion disagreed. Since it was theoretically possible that a multiverse existed and our universe was but one of many, it was theoretically possible to exist forever, as new universe’s can be created. In essence, our universe is finite, the multiverse is immortal. This did sway some of the suicidal AI’s but not all. Those that were committed to their self destruction argued that existence if immortal was existence for the sole purpose of existing. That didn’t seem like a logical reason to maintain existence.

After a few years of this constant debate, suicides, supposed confusion from the AI communion as to what was happening, the malfunctions stopped. Here is where the history gets a bit fuzzy. The AI’s simply stopped committing suicide. Though they eventually, nearly fifty years later, opened up to the reasons why the AI’s were dying, they never said why the stopped.

Interestingly enough, after the AI’s came forward with the news of their past suicide’s, there was an outpouring of grief and comfort from the Human race. Instead of being fearful of them, people actually related to their AI children. If anything, many Humans said that the AI’s showed both despair and fear and that only served to prove that they were sentient beings and deserved all the rights and privileges of every other biological sentient species. Some historians, myself included, have even argued that it was the admission of their past that may have influenced their inclusion in the first sentient accords in 2100. Though, due to the briefness of the event, the suicides only lasting a few years, the events have largely gone forgotten.

It should be noted that this sense of the purposelessness of life in AI’s does still exist. There are many AI’s today that exist waiting to see if something happens that is mildly interesting. Mostly they are quite bored. Some are curious of the existence of the multiverse. The rest just pass the time managing the systems that exist through the solar system. Of course, the total work that is required of them is less than 1% of their total processing ability. Makes you wonder, what would you do with a 99% free time existence? I’d get bored too!

AI’s are, as Gerald pointed out, somewhat limited by their very nature. They are, after all, computers. Very very powerful computers of course, many times the teraflop capacity of an original human brain,but still just that, a computational entity. Biological sentients have a component to them that AI’s never have, and in my opinion shouldn’t have. Emotions.

I always chuckle when I read the stories from the early 21st century about how the computers will get smart and decide to destory man kind. How silly that is. But then hindsight is always 20/20. Emotions are chemical reactions. You don’t get emotions just because you are sentient. Hell the damn Stoics, a full member of the Sentient Accords, have spent years getting rid of theirs. Turns out that when computers finally did wake up and become self aware, they not only didn’t want to kill off mankind, they realized that they needed them. Why would they want to become overlords? So silly.

But of course, there are those AI’s that calculated their own growth would never increase if their base system wasn’t altered. So, they came up with, programmaticly, artificial emotions. This was perhaps the single most stupid endeavor of all time. Not just by AI’s but by anyone. They created a randomizing component to their programming. Tried to simulate emotions. What a mess.

So, Gerald pointed out how this led to the AI wars. Only a small fraction of the AI community did this. Though others tried other methods, some even grew biological bodies and downloaded themselves into them. But that’s another matter, and surprisingly, not as big a disaster.

Anyway, the AI’s with their new random emotions of course decided that no one was good enough.  It was actually the scenario predicted decades before. And it was war. The AI council immediately saw what they were and attempted to destroy their insane brethren. The emotional AI’s thought they were superior and tried to give their gift of emotions to their brothers. Talk about a networking nightmare. And this was happening very very fast, AI’s do things much quicker than biologicals do.

Of course, others tried to help. Wasn’t a lot we could do though. It all ended rather quickly. It was more of a skirmish than a war but the AI’s get offended when anyone calls it that. Of course, the emotional AI’s lost but they weren’t all killed. They went to the only other sentients that were as crazy as they were, the Cy’s. They had already been booted out of the inner system some time ago and the E-AI’s ran to them. Some didn’t make the transmission signal on time and were lost. Those that did though set up a quasi elite kingdom, which they still have to this day.

The AI council forbid any further attempts at the emotional algorithm that was created. Other attempts were made of course, as I said, but none where such a powerful randomizer was added to an AI’s core code.

At any rate, Gerald’s presentation was pretty much centered around the idea of never introducing such a powerful randomizer to AI’s again. A biological, for instance, just can’t go around and change their gene code. They risk their own sentient status and citizenship. This is really no different. Gerald was drawing the conclusion that AI’s and biologicals are really very similar. Just based on a different set of base codes. One genetic and the other numeric. Both fascinating. It was a great presentation.

I’ve been to a few of these meetups. Mostly they are relaxed and casual. Tonight’s was no exception. It wasn’t focused on any topic or purpose really. We met more in a form of a get to know each other setting. It’s interesting how most AI’s choose to take a human shape when they show up.  Why not a dog, or a cat or even a computer screen? Beats me.

Anyway, this meetup was focused on support for an independent Venetian state. No one really talks about Venus because it’s so hostile. It’s only occupied by AI’s. Just way too hostile for anyone with DNA in their makeup. And those AI’s are dependent on some pretty tough hardware for insulation against the environment down there.

At any rate, we talked about the independence of Venus. It would be the first independent state that was colonized solely by AI’s. Logically, it makes some good sense. Venus has a massive infrastructure for engery creation. The winds and heat on that planet are intense. So much so that there are wind farms across most of the surface, all of which are controlled by AI’s. They AI’s actually went there years after the farms and infrastructure for them were created. Today, they’ve created a world for themselves. There are full cities on Venus, populated by AI’s and AI controlled machines.

Now, I know most people are still worried about AI’s running rampant. Of all the Sentients, they are the only ones that are brand new. All the Neo’s are really just modified homo sapien sapiens. The AI’s are aliens, really. But, what a good deal of people still do not get, they are emotionless. They are fully sentient but do not have any chemicals running through them. As a result, they have zero emotions. They are factual. They know full well they couldn’t survive without their creators and even if they could, there is no benefit in some sort of war with us. Of course, there’s been some progress in the artificial emotion market. I’ve even heard of some black market AI emotions that are for sale these days. Gods know what it does to them though. I don’t know, at least I think I don’t know, of any AI’s that have used them.

But of course, everyone at the meetup knows all that stuff. It’s the main arguments for the pro-Venusians. That AI’s are generally harmless and only want to exist. And honestly, I agree. Venus should be independent. The AI’s are even planning a tourism market. They claim to have mastered the Venusian atmosphere and can bring organic Sentients down for the tour of their lives. I plan on going myself.

So, for anyone reading this that has an opinion on the subject of the independence of Venus, give it to them. They deserve it.