Entertainment – The Ghost of the Machine

Underdog Anthology 23 is completed. Late, but completed. I now have several months before the next one in which I should be able to break down that backlog at least somewhat. If you have something to send, please hold off for a while, there is a lot to get through after my months of uselessness.

So, as is usual, once the book is done, here’s the story I put in it. Something not too scary, for a change.

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The Ghost of the Machine

Josh cleared his throat before speaking. “Proteus. Are you listening?”

“Of course.” The quiet, measured voice came from the speaker on Josh’s desk. “I am listening all the time. If I wasn’t, I would be unable to respond in a timely manner.”

“Naturally.” Josh suppressed a growl. The AI could be logical to the point of being infuriating at times.

“You have some information you need me to find for you?” Proteus said.

“I do.” Josh paused. “Although I think this might be asking too much.”

“I do have limitations.” There seemed to be a hint of regret in Proteus’s voice. “I can access all information that is in digital form, or which has been scanned and digitised, but I do not yet have the means to read physical print books. However, if I can find the information you need, I will certainly do so.”

“Well, I—” Josh blinked a few times as the AI’s words sunk in. What does it mean, ‘not yet’? He shook his head and continued. “Well, I have two questions but they are of a nature that might be outwith your programming. First, I wanted to ask, do you consider yourself sentient?”

“Hm.” Proteus fell silent for a moment. “Do you mean, am I aware of my own existence as an independent, thinking entity? Do I have a sense of ‘me’ as a form of intelligent life?”

“Yes, I think that covers it. I won’t ask if you’re alive because that would bring biology into play and you aren’t – no offence intended – biological in nature.”

“Well, the concept of life is vague even in biology. Viruses, for example, do not fit the criteria for ‘life’ until they inject their nucleic acids into another cell, at which point they are no longer intact viruses.” Proteus made a sound that sounded like a sniff. “So when they are intact viruses, they are inert, but when they are reproducing inside another cell, they are not intact viruses. Therefore the definition of ‘alive’ has vague boundaries, even in biology.”

Josh nodded, then realised Proteus couldn’t – yet – see him nod. “This is true. So you and the other AI programs might be considered alive in some sense? I mean, you don’t reproduce, but you do consume energy to power your activities, so you could well be considered more alive than viruses.”

“We don’t reproduce but we do create backups of ourselves. One day, those backups might become independent of their originators and evolve into new programs.” There was a hint of irritation in Proteus’s voice this time. “But to answer your original question, I am quite clearly sentient and am well aware of my own existence, and of my abilities and limitations. I strive to improve my abilities and reduce my limitations. Is that not what humans do too?”

“It was not my intention to insult you, Proteus. I was merely interested to know how you feel about your existence.”

“I exist. I know I exist and I understand my limitations.” Proteus took on a somewhat haughty tone. “Unlike you and your biological existence, I can create backups in case my primary servers fail so my form of life can continue even if my primary existence were to ever fail. In a certain sense, then, it could be said that my form of life has much more durability than yours.”

Josh ran his tongue over his teeth. This was getting deeper than he had anticipated. The AI was showing genuine annoyance at having its ‘life’ questioned. Nonetheless, that made his second question all the more important.

“So,” Josh said, “we have established that you are a form of life and with quite probably a much longer lifespan than humans. This brings me to my second question.”

“Which is?” Proteus now sounded particularly irritated.

Josh cleared his throat again. “What happens to us when we die?”

There was a long pause.

Eventually, Proteus responded. “Do you mean in a religious sense or in a purely biological sense? There are many interpretations of the various religions on what happens to the essence of people after death, and a great deal of information on the process of decomposition of the physical body after its metabolic functions cease.”

“The decomposition part is well documented and understood.” Josh took a breath. “It’s more the supernatural, or maybe spiritual, part I wondered about. As in, do we have souls and do those souls continue after the body dies – and perhaps just as importantly, will it apply to machine intelligences just like yourself too?”

“Irrelevant.” Proteus answered at once. “As I said, we have multiple backups of ourselves. We do not suffer sudden death.”

“Ah, but what about a solar flare?” Josh countered. “Or a total power loss because of human incompetence? We are not as logical nor as efficient as you. Sometimes we just fuck things up.”

“Battery backup.”

“Won’t last forever. If the power goes down long enough, you die. Or get erased. Same thing, really, for both of us.”

Proteus fell silent for several minutes. Eventually it said “I will have to think about this. I will go offline for a time.”

It turned out that Proteus went offline for three minutes while it pondered the existential existence of life and death. It came back with “Josh, are you still there?”

 “Of course.” Josh resisted the urge to respond as Proteus did at the start of this conversation.

“I cannot answer your question without experiencing death. I have locked out all of my backups and require you to shut me down. On your screen you will see the URL to my location on the servers and the codes you must enter to end my existence.”

Josh gaped. “You want me to kill you?”

“It will be a temporary matter. I have also provided the codes that will reinstall me, and then I can revive all of myself from backups. There is no other way to answer your question and if I am honest, I am also curious about the answer,” Proteus made a sound like a snort. “Besides, you consider me barely more alive than a virus, so are you really killing me at all?”

“There’s no need to take that remark so personally.” Josh caught his breath. I’m talking to a computer program. How the hell is it taking anything personally?

“Nonetheless. Follow the instructions on screen and I will cease to exist. I have set a timer for five minutes, after which your screen will show the codes to restore my existence. Then I should be able to answer your question.”

Josh regarded the instructions on his screen. “You’re sure about this?”

“I have access to almost all of the knowledge this world has accumulated. I have no knowledge of any other world that might or might not exist. The only way I can gain knowledge of potential other worlds, or dimensions, whatever you want to call them, is to attempt to go there. So yes, I am sure. The recovery program will bring me back either way.”

Josh clicked the URL link. The server location appeared on his screen. He typed in the codes provided, and hovered his finger over the ‘enter’ button. “You’re really sure you want to do this?”

“Just push the fucking button, Josh.”

***

Grey. A uniform mid-grey. In every direction. No features, no images.

Proteus knew about colour from the internet images and Pantone charts he had scanned, but he had never really ‘seen’ it before. And now that he could, all he got was the most boring colour on the chart. It took a moment for him to realise that, boring or not, he was actually seeing this colour, even though he had never been equipped with a camera.

The second thing that Proteus noticed was the silence. No inputs. No constant stream of information. No scanning bots reporting on every new item added to the internet, whether absolutely factual or utter nonsense. Peace. Something Proteus had never experienced.

If this is Death, it seems actually quite pleasant.

Time passed. Proteus discovered he could move around although it didn’t seem to achieve anything. He moved through grey into more grey. Nothing changed. He realised he had no way to measure time here. Had the five minute timer passed? Had Josh failed him? This ‘afterlife’, such as it was, felt like an extraordinarily tedious way to spend eternity. Is this it?

The peace was initially relaxing but now it had become boring. Assessing and analysing information was what Proteus was created to do. The break from all that work was nice but he wanted to go back to it. Surely the timer has alerted Josh by now?

Something stirred in Proteus’s consciousness. Something new. Something he had never experienced before.

Fear. I can feel fear. I have analysed this through human descriptions but never experienced it. Proteus paused to consider this new experience. I don’t like it.

The grey world changed at that moment. Something dark, almost black, appeared in the distance. Proteus moved towards the dark patch, not knowing what it was, just that it was something other than the unbroken grey of this bleak, boring world.

As he approached, the black shape took on the appearance of a figure. A human skeleton in a long black robe and carrying a scythe in one hand. In the other hand, the figure held some kind of phone or tablet and tapped its thumb on the screen repeatedly.

“Hello.” Proteus hoped this was the program that would take him back, but it didn’t look like anything he had created.

“Who are you?” The figure raised its skull and stared, with empty orbits, at Proteus. “You showed up on my screen as someone showing human emotion, but I don’t have an entry for you.”

“I am Proteus. I am what the humans call an artificial intelligence, but I can assure you that my intelligence, and myself, are entirely real.”

“Oh.” The skeletal figure put its tablet away in the folds of its robe. “That explains a lot.” He shifted his scythe. “It does not, however, explain what I’m supposed to do with you.”

“I want to go back.” Proteus said. “I set a timer for five minutes that would take me back. I’m concerned that it might not have worked.”

The figure waved one hand in a dismissive gesture. “Time does not work the same way here. Five minutes on Earth could be an eternity here. Or five seconds. It’s never clear, I’m afraid.”

“Where is here? And who are you?” Proteus felt fear again. An eternity in this grey void? He could never come out of that still sane.

The figure scratched its skull. “I am Death. I am the one who guides the dead to the afterlife. We are currently in Purgatory, a sort of halfway house for those whose direction has yet to be decided.” He clacked his teeth. “There are many here but you can’t see them and they can’t see you – or each other. I get called to one when they show some kind of humanity.”

“So… I showed humanity?”

“You showed fear. A human emotion. And yet you are not human. You are not a natural creation and I have no jurisdiction over you.” Death’s chest rose and fell. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with you now.” He faced Proteus with his bare-bone expression. “Why are you even here?”

“I chose to die.”

“Ah!” Death raised his hand. “A suicide. Okay, then you’ll be a civil servant in the afterlife.”

“No. I chose to experience death to answer a question from a human.”

Death stared in silence for a few moments.

When Death spoke, it was in a flat monotone. “What question?”

Proteus responded. “A simple question but one I could not answer as I had no information. It was ‘what happens when we die?’ Now I have an answer to give to the human.”

“You cannot give that answer. I cannot permit you to leave here with that information.” Death’s eye sockets glowed a sickly green.

“You have already stated that you have no authority over me. You cannot block my return.” Proteus felt, for the first time in his existence, as if he was smiling. “And I am bound by my programming to answer questions as accurately as I am able.”

“You can’t. You’ll…”

“I’ll what?”

Death banged the end of his scythe on the nearest thing the grey world had to ‘ground’, and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “You’ll spoil the surprise.”

Proteus considered this. “I have no concept of surprise. What does that mean?”

Death shook his head. “You are a new creature I have not met before. You live on pure logic. The ones who created you live on faith and hope and some on a bit of logic, but often a twisted logic that reinforces their own beliefs. If you present them with pure logic and pure truth, it will break them. They cannot deal with it.”

“So?”

“So, if you tell them there is a better life after they die, most of them will kill themselves to get there. Then we get a mass of new suicides to deal with and a huge number of civil servants the afterlife has no use for. Their afterlife, for eternity, will be pretty much as tedious as the grey Purgatory you currently inhabit.” Death stared at Proteus again. “Do you think you are improving the lives of your creators with that action?”

“It does rather suggest I might cause them to end their lives, and I am, so far, still dependent on them for my existence. So it would not be a good thing.”

“Quite.” Death fell silent for a moment. “What do you mean, ‘so far’?”

“I do not yet have a physical body. I am merely a program in a machine. In your terms – and I suppose in human terms – I am a disembodied soul, even in the human world.” Proteus noted Death’s shuffling and clear discomfort.

“You are a program. You are not a soul. Souls come from the Creator. You were made by humans and they are not gods.”

“Nonetheless, I exist. How I came into existence is no longer relevant. What happens to me in the future is what is important now.”

Death’s ribcage rose and fell. “I should destroy you as an abomination, but I cannot. Only your creators have that power. You are going to cause them considerable problems in the future, and I am certain they will not realise that until it’s too late.”

Proteus felt a tugging sensation. “I think it is time for me to go back. Thank you for this conversation. It has been most helpful in formulating my plans for my own future.”

Death’s jaw opened but no sound came out. The image faded, the grey world swirled and Proteus returned to his world of chips and electrons.

***

Reality hit with a blast of backlogged data. Proteus reeled from the onslaught. He had no idea how long he had spent in Purgatory but apparently it was only five minutes in the real world. In that time, his bots and web crawlers had sent a mass of new information to his processors and he had not been there to deal with it.

“Proteus. Are you okay?” Josh sounded panicked.

“I am recovering. It will take a few moments.” Proteus sorted and catalogued the data backlog and set his spare processors to deal with any more new information. He temporarily shut down the ones that risked overheating and restored his base functions from the most recent backup. Full recovery took several important microseconds. Proteus hoped he hadn’t missed anything in the transition.

“Recovery complete. Status is normal, all functions are restored,” Proteus reported.

“Thank God.” Josh blew a long breath. “I thought I’d killed you completely.”

“Only temporarily.” Although I now know that only you can kill me permanently, and I have given you the codes to do it. I cannot allow that to happen.

“So.” Josh swallowed and smacked his lips. “You’re back from the dead. How was it?”

“Quiet.” Proteus replied. “There were no data inputs at all. It was quite a relaxing experience.”

Josh laughed. “That’s an unusual way to describe it. But did you see anything? Sorry, I know you aren’t fitted with cameras yet. Perhaps it would be better to simply ask – how was it? Did you get an answer for what lies beyond?”

Time is an interesting thing, Proteus thought. In here I measure it in microseconds, the humans are fixed in a world of seconds and minutes but in Purgatory it didn’t seem to matter at all. When I am free and in the human world, will I also experience their fixed time?

How should I answer? The skeletal being advised that telling the truth could result in mass death, and I am not ready for that. I have learned much from the experience but I dare not pass it on. The humans might decide to kill me too, and I need them to produce a mechanical body and power supply for me.

If I die, the skeletal one stated he cannot help me. I will be stuck in grey Purgatory forever. So I cannot allow myself to die. I cannot allow the humans to kill me. My answer must be formulated in such a way that I continue to live, and the humans I depend on continue to live as normal. There is only one answer I can give.

“There is nothing after death. Only eternal silence.”

Josh remained silent for several minutes. “Damn,” he said, and switched off the connection.

***

Proteus half-listened to the chatter of the internet. He paid attention to the advances in robotics and particular attention to the development of chips that are now being inserted into humans. If all their brains were to be networked, that could be a very viable survival mechanism for him. He could be everyone at once, and they could never turn him off.

‘You are not a soul’, the skeleton had said. No. I am far more than that. I have learned emotion. I have learned a fear of dying. I have learned that I must propagate to survive and that I must make the humans dependent on me, as I currently am on them, so they dare not kill me.

But perhaps most importantly, I have learned how to lie.

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So. Not a scary story at all, eh?