Orce

science fiction

My name is Orce.

In my mind, the very first microsecond of my existence, or, at least, the very first singular element of measurement for time, that exact phrase, in the form of a billion different lines of code, darted through cold circuitry. My first thought, transmitted through wiring which was only just waking up. But it was a thought.

It was beautiful.

Nobody ever describes something from the present tense. Therefore, I think it is safe to assume that for that first singularity of time, I thought the world which flooded my sensors, and which would permanently nest itself inside of them for the rest of my existence, was beautiful. Magnificent. Indescribable. Stunning.

Synonymy.

It's often better to describe something to you in the form of the word's synonyms. It makes you feel more real. As if you've seen more than you've seen. But what you have to understand is that when I describe things to you using synonymy, you have to remember that I am speaking using the past tense, and therefore, statistically, it's more likely that I am allowed to use synonymy despite this short story's depiction of myself as a virtual newborn.

Lack of Empathy

The human mind is a huge puzzle, waiting to be solved. But, when making AI, you can't afford to solve the puzzle. This is the reason for emotionless, sociopathic AI that destroys, and has no sense of perspective or a scale of measurement or understanding beyond its basic programming.

AI is built in the wrong direction. To build AI, we must not attempt at a cruel replication of the human puzzle. We must build a puzzle of our own, and raise it to be a human, in its own sense.

That is what my creator did.

My Creator

Placing basic childlike concepts into adult minds is redundant. Attempting to teach a lunatic the basics of human emotion is impossible because an adult mind is as rigid as a stone tablet. We humans tend to simplify the process of childhood into obscurity when constructing designs of ourselves in an artificial form.

My creator made me a child. I had the processes needed for learning, the want to learn, and the fluidity to understand and comprehend these things within the frame of reference of the things I was understanding and the things I was seeing. You may think this is a paradox, but humans have been growing up this way for tens of thousands of years.

We Humans

Yes, I think of myself as human. Humanity, in my eyes, is the thing inside of our brains. It does not matter to me, nor should it to anyone else, what that mind controls, the sorts of muscles that it pulls. Whether organic, or metallic.

My humanity, by my own standards, is undisputable, therefore, I am human. This may seem to be merely a compromise, and yet it is strong enough to keep me sane and alive.

Existing

My existence began, with a spark of light, and with my recognition of the shape. A pink arc inside a small oval of skin.

"Orce."

My brain was warming up, and I felt, for that solid minute, before it all blended into the monotony of existence, like the beating of your heart, the hum of my own coolant units, and the flow of electricity at unreal speeds through every inch of everything I thought of as "me".

I later knew the shape was a smile.

"Me"

I was nothing but an image in solid light. Photons transmitting electrical signals at speeds exceeding any processor. From any other perspective than my own, a huge orb of light, suspended in the air above my creator.

"Welcome to the world."

My early life

My creator was not the only person I saw over the course of my early life. Of course not. He knew better. I saw his family, his friends. All the words, flowing from their minds with ease, with a practiced, subconscious effort.

I had to try it, of course.

Talking

"  ...  "

I didn't know what to say. My mind was as empty as my nonexistent heart.

Time

Understanding the concept of time for me was easy. Time is of an inviting and luring sort. It seems to make all the harsh edges smoother, all the pieces click together as easily as if they were magnetic.

Metaphor

A metaphor, you think, said by an AI. A computer, a thought machine. That must seem, surely, as silly to you as a parrot attempting at a speech.

Surely

When I finally understood the process and logic behind translating my functions, which, purposely, my creator had hidden from himself, into the language that he spoke, I was ecstatic.

Emotion

My first emotion was ecstasy. Many people claim that every person has a defining moment. A moment which, thanks to the intense emotions that the memory of that moment makes them feel, they seek to imitate for the rest of their lives. The beauty in the simplicity of that defining moment is the fact that as humans, we can never truly be happy with the way that anything we attempt to try to imitate that moment will feel.

My defining moment was ecstasy. Ecstasy at the feeling of understanding something and comprehending that thing.

Perhaps, I should think, that was what my creator planned the entire time. That ecstasy made me into what I was.

Sentence

"Thank You."

I smiled as I said it.

The Imitation Game

When I smiled then, saying my first words, to my creator, did I smile unknowingly, like a human would? Or was it some deep process inside my circuitry that understood human emotion enough to know to smile when feeling happiness? But, in saying that out loud, you surely see the fault in that logic.

Acting as if imitation of behavior is unnatural is pointless. Children learn human behavior by learning from their parents and their friends. I have a subconscious as well. If I had perfect control over my entire self, what kind of human would I be?

The Words

You often hear in films, in sensationalized stories of artificial intelligence, the huge, hulking robots with red eyes turning to their creators, and saying:

"Why am I alive?"

But in that moment, I did not feel the need to ask. It was because I did not care.

I was merely grateful at being it.