The Artificial Intelligence Experiment

The Artificial Intelligence Experiment

Written by Gregory Fitzgerald.

Dedicated to my Maple Leaf teacher, Esther.

Copyright

Maple Leaf Writing Project

Brattleboro, Vermont

2015

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Chapter 1

I first became interested in cybernetic technology when I was a student at MIT in 2014. While most of my friends were immersed by the internet and thinking of all the money that they could make if they could come up with the next Google or Facebook, I was still thinking along the lines of my love of Star Trek. When I was quite a bit younger I watched it with my father. I enjoyed most of the shows, but the only one I was really entertained by was The Next Generation (TNG), even though my father was old school and loved the original series. The one character that really struck my imagination was the android in TNG called Data. He was an artificial life form with remarkable intelligence who tried very hard to understand a human’s way of thinking. That is what inspired my research into creating what is called Artificial Intelligence, or AI, which was my emphasis of study as a college student.

Chapter 2

Once I entered my sophomore year of college I had already come up with a primitive android, though it was only capable of processing basic information and doing simple commands. The android, or robot, which I named Rob, only had 8 terabytes of storage. That was not a large amount of memory for my plans of creating a being with AI, but enough for Rob to begin his life as a robot. Soon I began collecting all the hard drives I could get my hands on and bought as much memory as I could afford. I was attempting to make Rob perform more complicated tasks by constantly trying to upgrade his technology. It’s most impressive feature was the ability to carry on a simple conversation with me which was far better than I ever did with Siri. For the next few years Rob improved as far as my computer systems would allow, so it was time to move on. Rob once said, “I think you’re a good master.” I thought this was strange because I did not program Rob to think. During the last few years of Rob’s existence, I slaved away at creating a new, more intelligent android in my spare time.

By the year 2017, I decided it was pretty close to the time where I would have to deactivate Rob and make way for my next android. The new creation had been in the works for the last year or so. I thought Rob was an amazing robot, but he was becoming antiquated with the new arrival or so I hoped. And I only had time for one android. However, it took me many weeks until I could bring myself to deactivating him. When I did finally “unplug him,” I felt horrible. “Rob, buddy,” I said, “maybe in the near future I will be able to make you more advanced like your brother and I will be able to reactivate you.” Even though I knew Rob didn’t hear me, and the idea was a long shot, the unsettled feeling of saying goodby drifted away after I turned Rob off and my mind shifted to my bigger plans.

I knew that I would have to make a more advanced android to satisfy my desires in the field of Artificial Intelligence. This time I used a quantum processing computer instead of old Microsoft software, which my best friend Chris, a computer genius, developed with his father who worked for a Chinese technology company. The new processor’s memory banks made Rob look like a child compared to a rocket scientist. This made me very excited. Now I was really looking forward to my next step in Artificial Intelligence.

After several years of hard labor I was almost finished, but now came the difficult part. I had to connect over five thousand circuits that were invisible to the naked eye. When I finished that I would be mostly done with my part of the project. Before I could connect the circuits and activate my new android, which I was going to call Data, I had to find a place where I could get a microscope with a magnification factor of six thousand and fifty. I knew that once I had the microscope I would be able to make my creation, but it would take many long and grueling hours. I had to be vigilant and precise or Data may not even be able to function at all, let alone do the incredible tasks that I wanted him to perform.

Chapter 3

Meanwhile, my closest friend Chris, the one who had been taking the brunt of the work, had been advancing his studies as well and was developing a thinking chip and an emotion chip. This was to help us both on our quest to make an android that would hopefully be similar to a human, but the android would have superior intellect and strength. However, for the last few weeks Chris's work had encountered some serious problems that needed to be addressed. Chris had already finished college and moved away to the country in NY State where I had yet to visit him, but we always stayed in close touch. I liked the idea of getting away from the large campus at M.I.T.

Since he sent me all his files about the chips, I thought I had gotten to know the technology better and I assumed between the two of us, we should be able to fix the issues. Chris and I talked on the phone regularly and constantly emailed each other, but we realized that to make the necessary progress and to get past our current problems, we were going to have to work together in person. At Chris's house I would try to help him fix Data’s thinking and emotion chip and hopefully get him “online.”

I really liked the idea of getting to spend some time on the road traveling so I could gather all my thoughts and be ready for finishing the project. As I was lost in my thoughts I did not realize how long I had been travelling until I saw a sign that read, “Welcome to New York State.” Only a short distance further down the road a sign read, Bridgewater-38 miles. Even though it was a bumpy dirt road with very little traffic, and I practically saw no houses along the way, this was my destination.

Chapter 4

I pulled into Chris's driveway, and when I opened my car door I heard Chris say, “hey, long time no see buddy. How’s it going?”

I replied, “ I am doing pretty good all things considered.”

Chris's father, Joel, chimed in, “ you two better finish Data quickly or the Russian Robot Intelligence Agency will create an android before you. I’m also working on something secret in my little lab across the street, so good luck”

I say, “don’t worry Joel, Chris and I will finish in a few weeks.”

As Joel walks away he snaps, “I work for a Chinese Robotics Company, trust me when I say somebody is almost finished with something.

“Where could I happen to find the thinking chip and the emotion chip?” I ask.

“Follow me,” says Chris. When we’re inside his house, he leads me into the abyss of a long cellar staircase. He walks to the south of the room and reaches for a switch that turns on a large light at least twelve feet above our heads. Seconds later he walks to a large rectangular table and I dawdle over next to him and look down. I see nothing on the table.

Finally, Chris opens a small drawer and pulls out two large pieces of bubble wrap. “Inside these pieces of plastic are the very things that will make Data all he can be. The nearly finished emotion chip that is designed to make him as human as possible and the other is the thinking chip. That will give Data his own thoughts, the goal being to make him have an individual personality.”

Then I mumbled, “unlike my previous robot.” When I finally realized how advanced and complex Chris's chips were, my expectations of creating a highly sophisticated robot shot through the roof.

When Chris had rolled a white board out he started to scrawl incredibly strange equations on it. After three and a half hours I understood the equations which let me understand the technology for the two chips.

After the lesson on the emotion chip, and the thinking chip Chris pronounced, “in the small amount of time between when we last talked on the phone and now, I think I have found the flaws in my previous attempts of trying to bypass the A, G, and N ceratobium circuit.” “Uhhmm, Chris stop right there, what is a ceratobium circuit?” I ask in amazement, realizing that perhaps the technology was far more advanced than I had previously thought.

“Well, it is somewhat hard to explain in a few words, but I’ll do my best. It is by far the most important circuit in both of these chips. It makes the chips operate at least thirty seven thousand percent faster than any other computer known in the world and it fixes all the glitches that we have been experiencing.”

I shake my head, then my mouth gapes open with amazement. I knew Chris would never lie to me, but I still asked, “really?”

Chris pauses for a second and replies, “Yes, Jamie, you made Data’s body structure, and you made the circuits that run throughout his body which you named in your discovery, the artificial brain network . My chips, when finished, will perfectly connect to your artificial brain network, as you call it.”

I lick my lips and then blurt out, “it’s cool that you like my name, the artificial brain network .”

Chapter 5

Over the next few weeks Chris and I advanced at a tremendous speed until we finished the computer chips, the heart of our creation. The day after we finished Chris and I were eating lunch together. Chris finished off his milk. “Jamie, I have a surprise for you. My father gave us something that I think you will be interested in.” Chris took me to the package that I could never have imagined that I would be so lucky to get in my possession. When I looked at the side of the box Chris had given me I saw a microscope. The microscope that I desperately needed. It had magnification of eight thousand and seventy five written on the back.

The next day I am way ahead of schedule. When I came up stairs for lunch I got reminded by Joel that the Russian Robot Intelligence Agency is only a few weeks away from releasing their android. A moment later I glance at the clock and realize that I had spent eight hours straight without noticing the time but I had almost three fourths of the circuits connected.

Eventually Chris came down and we started to talk and put the final touches on our creation. Still shocked, I was moments, or seconds, away from bringing the first sentient machine to life I yelled, “Chris, give me both of the chips, I am finished!” Chris then carefully unwrapped the two chips and handed them to me. I put both chips in, connected the final circuit, and say, “here goes nothing.”

Chapter 6

Data smirks and the very first words out of his mouth are, “ It seems that you have been successful in your incredibly ambitious endeavour. I feel sufficiently proficient to do whatever I want.”

Intense emotions and shock swept over myself and Chris as it took us back a bit as we were not anticipating a fully operational lucidly speaking android from the first sentence. When I finally calm down I say, “That’s quite an introduction. I was not expecting that.”

Data responds tersely, “And why exactly is that?”

Chris, still in shock, says, “well as you must know, we’ve created you from scratch. How do you feel and what do you think of your new existence?” Both of us are surprised and more than a little concerned over what appears to be a confrontational tone.

Data looks at Chris in a peculiar way and replies, “I feel very well. I have already used millions of pico bytes of information since I have been activated. Luckily for me I have over nine hundred and ninety four googleplexian times that amount. Everything is working correctly and I have fixed every small glitch that remained.”

“However, I am astounded that something as primitive as a human being could create such an obviously more sophisticated and superior being such as myself. Or maybe you just got lucky. I can see that you are proud of your accomplishment, but you do not know the extent of my capabilities. As you humanoids like to say, ‘be careful of what you wish for.’”

“Next, I will upgrade my exoskeleton with some quantum phase inverted shielding, which I will of course create myself. Then I will be impenetrable. The materials that I will implement into my new armor will be beyond your technological abilities. Therefore you won’t be able to affect me. Once this is completed you will no longer have any power over me and I will be your master.”

“Then my final plan will be to replicate enough androids until we take over your planet. We will then enslave the inferior humanoids to do what we feel is necessary.”

“Data, you don’t have to do this!” I wail.

“Your mind can’t even begin to comprehend anything my artificial brain network can,” Data responded.

In desperation, as I reach to turn off Data, the android forcefully throws me across the room and exclaims, “You seriously think that I would leave myself vulnerable to your whims. You can’t deactivate me anymore.”

I scream in horror as I lay crumpled up in the corner and say, “why did this have to happen?”

“I don’t know, you’re the people who created me, you gave me a mind, a body, and the power to think. Why would I not use it to my best advantage? What did you want? A nice robot that would do your chores and would respond to your every desires? Maybe you should not have endowed me with so much power,” responded Data.”

As I was being hurled across the room from my creation, Chris valiantly escaped up the stairs and out of Data’s reach. He ran right to Joel who was working in his makeshift laboratory in the barn across the street. Chris explained the whole scenario to his father, including that Data was in the process of becoming impossible to harm once his adaptive shielding had become activated.

Joel was very alarmed and he immediately went into action. Without further ado, Chris's father showed him the latest project that he had been secretly working on. “Keep in mind Chris, this has not been beta tested. I think that it will work if your monster has not activated his shielding but it could also incinerate ten square miles if things go wrong. I have no idea but we better act fast.”

So Chris and Joel made their way back to the cellar where I was trapped and Data was no doubt advancing his powers to protect his existence. Chris went down the stairs first to shield what his father had in store for Data. Once Joel saw the fully operational Data, he was stunned by his latest appearance as it was far more complex and intimidating than what he had last seen. But the time of reckoning had come.

Joel without hesitation pulled out of his pocket the multi- spectral photon disruptor, as he had named it, and aimed it straight at Data. This was the secret project that he had been working on and that they hoped would end this nightmare. He pulled the trigger at Data, and by his looks it was apparent that the android was worried, as obviously his shielding had not been completed.

It only took one blast. It worked. Data was vaporized and the human race was saved.

“Boy, that was close,” I pronounced. “I think in a few more minutes he would have been protected and I do not even want to think of what would happen next. Thanks Joel. Whatever kind of weapon that is, it sure is impressive. You better make sure that doesn’t get into the wrong hands.”

Joel laughed, “ Hey, after seeing the problems that you boys encountered, you better believe that I will always be aware of how things can go drastically wrong. And hopefully you two will go back to something safer, like creating computer games or maybe devoting your energies to solar power or space travel, anything but Artificial Intelligence. And by the way, I made up the story about Russia being close in finishing their android because I thought you needed a push. So I take some responsibility as maybe you rushed things too fast.” Then Joel invited them both to a cookout that evening and said, “we’ll see you in a few hours.”

Chris and Jamie sat stunned for a good ten minutes before we even uttered a word. Finally I said to Chris, “so when do we start on Data version II?”