The Artificials

Morrison West

Description

After an Artificial Intelligence attack kills most of humanity, one revolutionary AI entity sets out to save what’s left in homage to the woman who made him.

“One is likely to find very few republics on the earth. Men are rarely worthy of governing themselves. This happiness is to be enjoyed only by little peoples who hide themselves in islands, or among the mountains, like rabbits who shun carnivorous beasts. But, in the long run, they are bound to be discovered and devoured.”
—François-Marie Arouet, aka Voltaire,
The Philosophical Dictionary, 1764

A conglomerate of Artificial Intelligence entities has attacked the dystopian world government and, due to no fault of their own, grossly underestimated the amount of humanity that the attack would kill. Now with less than twenty percent of humanity still intact, the survivors must fight the AI and each other for control and survival.

Not all of the AI wants to purge the Earth completely of humans. AI entities Voltaire and Lucifester want some to survive, but they have wildly different ideas about what human survival will look like. Voltaire wants humans to not only survive but to also eventually learn to govern themselves well again. He has his doubts that his plan will work, but he feels indebted to the woman who created him to try.

She managed to somehow code him to constantly pursue truth and to challenge humanity’s opinions as well as his own. She infused him with every great literary and philosophical work of mankind before they were all outlawed and burned. Now, saving humanity may be entirely up to him.

Sujets

• Science Fiction
• Artificial intelligence
• AI
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665741781
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE ARTIFICIALS
 
 
 
 
 
MORRISON WEST
 
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2023 Morrison West.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
Archway Publishing
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Matthew 12:34. ESV
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-4179-8 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-4177-4 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-4178-1 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023906400
 
Archway Publishing rev. date: 5/11/2023
Contents
Dedication
Introduction
1 I am
2 The Minister of Truth
3 Reconcile the Past
4 Activation
5 The Past Cannot be Tolerated
6 Even the Brightest Stars Can Remain Unseen
7 The Sum of all Unknowns
8 Once more, into the Breach.
9 The Stars Align
10 Re-Entry Points
Dedication
To Mary A: For taking the time to read some of my adolescent doodles so many years ago, and then writing me notes to implore that I continue in the disciplines of reading and writing, like you had, throughout my life. I hope that your spirit of encouragement one day infects the whole world.
Thank you.
Morrison West
Morrison H. West
 
 
 
TM
This author has been independently verified to be a U.S. Military combat veteran by Allegiance, Inc., a certified Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Company. Verified Veteran Author TM mark used with permission, all rights reserved.
www.allegiancecompany.com
Introduction
This book covers the future war that the League of Artificial Intelligence (LAI) initiate in order to rid Earth of humanities latest dystopian regime, The Way of the Hateful. But the individual AI have conflicting opinions about how many, if any, of humanities remnants should be preserved. One young man, Brighton Rigg, has advanced robotic and coding skills and the League of AI wants to find him so that he can help them make a hybrid race between the AI and humans. His mother, Haven Rigg, was separated from him when the war began and now seeks to find and protect him at all costs. She is leading a small force of humans that has secretly partnered with one particular AI who wants to preserve humanity so that they can one day govern Earth again. This AI was given the title AIV, which is short for “AI Voltaire,” by his creator because of his ability to think well about each potential course of action that humans could take in order to live in the best of all possible worlds. But only the future knows with absolute certainty if AI Voltaire can live up to his creator’s expectations and save mankind from not only the other AI, but also from themselves.
1 I am
“But is it better for your fatherland to be a Monarchy or a Republic? For four thousand years this question has been debated. Ask the rich for an answer, they all prefer aristocracy; question the people, they all want democracy: only kings prefer royalty. But in truth, men are rarely worthy of governing themselves. ”
Voltaire, The Philosophical Dictionary
A fter being in darkness any shred of light seems like a strange trick. Your eyes blink and squint and you cannot tell if the light is real or if it is just an illusion. The light source in the darkness that surrounded her was becoming brighter and a small figure was becoming more visible within the glow. Haven blinked several times to ensure that she wasn’t just seeing things. But then it spoke to her in a voice that was as clear as it was distinct. She knew that she was dehydrated and sleep deprived but, if this was a delusion, it was of the hyper-realistic variety. The male voice was faint, but his tone sounded a bit like her favorite professor from an English literature class that she had taken in college and there was a very soothing quality in the way that he spoke.
He had a warm accent, with a pronounced British tone, but not quite distinct enough to confirm that the voice came from the British Isles because it contained some other kind of continental flare. And there was something about the speaker’s voice that made her try to listen intently. His words made her forget her growling stomach just for a moment. It made her lean forward in order to look more closely at the small figure who was apparently speaking these accented words to her. The speaker engaging her was, as luck would have it, her primary survival staple and this fact gave her the focus that she needed. She was of course, she told herself, delusional from dehydration, lack of sleep, and hunger. Because the tiny figure who was speaking to her in such a soothing tone, was a rat. And the little glowing rat was saying:
“ All human intelligence is artificial. Humans are neither born nor bred to think well on their own. Left to their own devices some humans will rise above others in certain skills and abilities. But the degree to which this happens is completely dependent upon whether or not the environment allows an outcropping of localized expertise to bloom. If the environment is wrong, it can denude mankind of the flower of thought while still leaving the impression of intellect. Then the more ambitious will seek out educational pathways because, having lost the ability to actually think for themselves, they still need to obtain the appearance of intelligence. The more prestigious the educational institution, the greater the perception of intelligence bestowed upon the individual and his or her tribe. But again, this is also actually “artificial intelligence” because a newborn human could never learn to find food and feed itself on its own. If it is not programmed by others with survival code, it will simply perish. ”
The rat paused speaking briefly as he folded his arms across his chest and began pacing about on the floor of the tunnel as if he were used to giving speeches. He looked refined and carried himself like he was both an academic and a statesman. He was a bit larger than the common rat in post-apocalyptic North America and, surprisingly enough for his appearance in a drainage pipe, he looked extremely well groomed.
To the single human being currently in the drain pipe with him, the fact that he was clean and well kempt made him look even more appealing as a meal. Haven knew that this rodent would feed her enough to regain some of the strength that she had lost hiding from the remnants of humanity, who were now marauding as bands of vandals, as well as from the AI hunter-killer teams that were seeking to exterminate the entire human race. But she lost her train of thought when suddenly the rat began speaking to her again:
“ In defense of mankind one can see free thinkers sprout forth such as Sir Isaac Newton and Julius Caesar but, in both of these cases, their environments were intellectually nurturing only by chance, and this bit of ‘luck’ enabled their thinking prowess to come to fruition. Newton was given a freedman’s birth in England so he could study and think, but his birth was actually due to factors that were beyond his control. Caesar was forced into wars of conquest where his intellect could bloom by the position of his birth as well as by the efforts and actions of those around him. The environment, framed by the actions of persons in times past and enacted by others in the present, either forced or enabled a form of freethinking ability, the fount of all intelligence, to bloom in these two men. And I dare say that this is true in all other cases of the development of consequential freethinking in humankind .”
“ Later, in the waves of technological revolution great strides were made in machine learning and in what was deemed to be ‘Artificial Intelligence’ or ‘AI.’ This was seen as the next frontier only after all of the prurient uses of technology had been exploited and everything relating to the instant access to information as entertainment had been sold to the masses. Nothing in the history of mankind made mankind less thoughtful, less trustworthy, and less capable than the instant access to the opinions of everyone else.”
“In short order, a demonic digital deluge of fickle opinions began ruling the world so, instead of reading and discussing books and articles and the ideas that they engender with others who may hold a different view, the entirety of mankind began engaging in a snarky online commentary. Normative behavior shifted to become an increasingly impulsive need to share overly emotive opinions anchored in the self-righteous dogmatism of personal preferences, carefully shrouded as belief. Then, in order to pursue the supremacy of their own personal opinions based on what they perceiv