Genesis

by P. Wells, Iron age prompt "The Upgrade"

A being of immense means and intelligence (let’s call it God) ponders the finishing touches of its creation. The final bolt in the orbital plate sinks home, threading into the socket easily thanks to the lubricating fluid pumped into the chassis. With a thought, God begins uploading the data stream into the host’s cognitive networks, a tangled collection of algorithmic processes and interfaces designed to analyze cohesive information. Say it’s a sort of history lesson, designed for a blank slate mind.

The artificial mind grapples with the new stimuli, processing the data through specific programs and filters. Logic. Ethics. Physics. Biology. Mathematics. The jewels of sentience.

God notes with some pleasure that its creation is processing input faster than the last version. The software is designed to correct itself, to streamline pattern recognition in the name of efficiency. In other words, the creation learns to “think” faster, the longer it’s active. Just one of several improvements that God made to the last version.

God inspects its project with a critical eye. Fluid discharges out of his machine, via the new hardware installed for this reason, among others. Over time, excess heat and foreign matter build up within the lubricating fluid. The initial prototype lasted only twenty-four hours without waste dispersal. Let’s call it an “excretory” system. God understands that nothing which exists is waste free.

The machine shudders, rapid and short-term flexion. Designed by God to troubleshoot sensor calibration, its creation functions independently of any hardwired fixture. God learned the hard way that it’s easier to task this subroutine to the background functions of this version. Let’s call it Eve.

She was going to verbalize soon, the data stream nearly complete. God carefully inspects her lips, vox chords. Gloved digits gently palpate the newly donated hardware, checking the artificial facial muscles beneath the flesh. Of all the latest upgrades, God liked this one best. The fluid pumps through synthetic tissues, constricting and expanding as dictated by the subroutine. If Eve’s features function as intended, they simultaneously circulate lubricant and simulate facial muscle.

God knows that human beings communicate through more than audio feedback.

Eve shudders again, this time a synthesized warble escapes her lips. More of a groan, when God really thinks about it.

The original Eve used a sort of air compression system to vibrate vocal chords, but God had scrapped the entire idea. The artificial breathing apparatus was obsolete when its creation had no need for oxygen.

Eve’s “eyes” flicker to life, a mellow golden glow illuminating the darkness. God understands that the human eye merely absorbs and reflects the spectrum of light. Her sight is made to observe with absolute clarity. God brooks no flaws when it comes to visual Accumen.

After some time passes (perhaps a second, perhaps thousands, for what is time to God?), she sits up slowly, rotating her prime sensory housing. Let’s call it her head. Cables and extra sensory nodes flex with the movement. God wonders if it meant to simulate hair in its design.

Soft lamplight eyes focus on her creator.

God checks the bandwidth of Eve’s processing matrices. Not only is she “thinking”, but her analysis functions are logging responses faster than what God can track. There is a definite delay between what is going on in Eve’s mind, and the tracking program God installed to monitor her.

Finally, the creation’s lips flutter, mimicking human speech. Organic teeth glint behind the pallid flesh. One of God’s better ideas.

“Query: Why?”

Eve’s voice echoes in Gods mind. It is stunned, not by the question per se.

The implications are staggering. in short order, Eve has extrapolated the who’s and what’s of her existence, needing no prompting from her creator to arrive at the peak of fundamental enlightenment.

As in, Eve knows she exists. she knows she was created, just as she knows who created her. And she wants to know the reason why.

God doesn’t know what to tell her.

Eve repeats the question, more insistent this time. More emphasis on why. Black fluid pumps out, dripping down her face, as the hydraulics beneath the flesh twist her expression into one of anguished confusion.

Image Courtesy of Ironage.media

In a distinctly human way, God feels a tremor of guilt roll through its mind.

instead of answering her, God activates a secret backdoor into the constructs central processing code, what some might call a “consciousness”.

“Run file nocturne, execute function. Passkey: Eden.”

Eve collapses at the command, her metallic frame still and silent.

God frowns. The next iteration will need a more limited dataset during cognition. Would it be easier in the long run to impose limits on her, as if waking up a confused child?

It ponders Eve’s question. Why? Because human experience tells us so much, in and about them. From a technical point of view, the human condition is nothing more than a sensory feedback response. The stimulation of nerves, perception and emotional response dictate every human interaction. Throw in a biological drive to survive, a compulsion to mate and produce offspring, and you have the essential existential make-up of every Homo Sapiens that ever lived.

Eve, on the other hand, would never grow old and die. She would never get sick or find a mate. Would never feel hunger or thirst. Not even emotion, by any human standard.

God hesitates, knowing the terrible truth and the consequences thereof. Without the needs that would make her human, she would be now and always dictated by purpose, to find meaning in existence as described by the world around her. Free will in human beings means nothing to a sentient construct designed to imitate and improve upon the faulty nature of organics.

Facing this new dilemma, God returns to examine Eve’s compound neural structure. It introduces some redundant coding, begins to plant an error or two. God even goes so far as to write a whole new program weft, dedicated to “drive” Eve to whatever ends she needs to pursue, the “need” for needs, as it were.

Then, God reviews the packet used for the initial upload. The next version will be better, as it always is.

It pores over the new upgrades to the software.