The next day, Isaac was up early and breakfasting on a hummus, salsa, and cheese sandwich when Celica stumbled into the kitchen, bags under her eyes from another late night of gaming.
“Oh, perfect!” He looked up, excited.
“Oh, perfect.” She sighed, pouring herself a bowl of cornflakes.
“Hey Celica, what do you think about the idea of genuine artificial intelligence becoming real?” Isaac asked, undaunted, as he pulled his chair closer to hers.
“Huh?” Celica asked, making a face. “Well, I expect it’ll happen long before you develop any intelligence.”
“Oh, can it.” Isaac sighed, taking another bite of his breakfast. “I was thinking, remember that experimental “solid hologram” tech that was all over the news? At the rate technology is advancing, it can’t be long until we reach the Singularity. You know, the point at which an AI gains the ability to independently reason.”
Celica sighed deeply, then put her spoon down. “Look, no matter how you slice it, whatever creates can only create something lesser than itself. Take, say…” She gestured randomly with her hand while she thought up an appropriate example. “A program written by a human that can generate video games, for instance. It can only make video games within the pre-defined parameters set by the programmer itself. If a mechanic designs an automatic sewing machine that requires no human intervention, the machine can’t just then go and build a bicycle. It can only sew the pre-determined stitches and hems, and nothing more than whatever it was designed to do.”
“So, you’re saying that sentient humans can never create sentient machines?”
“In itself, it’s simply too big a gap. Even manufacturing animal instinct would be pretty crazy, let alone trying to science up human reasoning. Kinda like the food chain, you know? Energy’s lost between each stage of the chain, and likewise meaning is lost between each translation into a new language. Kinda like that, there’s always something lost between each step in the chain of engineering something new.”
“I guess that could be called a “soul”, huh?”
“If you wanna bring religion into it, yeah, I guess. You could argue that in the same vein as humans are created by God, yet are infinitely inferior, so anything our hands make will be inferior to us.”
“So how would you recognize an AI then?” Isaac asked
“That’s easy; AI can’t act outside of their predetermined boundaries, like I just said," Celica responded. "Think of it like a choose-your-own adventure game. No matter how many branching paths there are, there are still a finite amount. They can only cope for so many of the different ways humans act and think. Remember, if an AI reacts in a human-like way, it’s simply because an actual human predicted that scenario, or a similar one, and programmed that response. That, or they're copying human actions they've observed."
“In other words, AI cannot be original, and in situations outside of their programming, they'll simply act according to the next closest scenario?”
“Yeah, basically.”
“What if they were constantly learning, picking reactions and responses from everything around it, and slowly weaving it into a pseudo-personality?”
“That would still be just a very, very complex puppet. You can’t call that a human.”
“Still, isn’t that in itself what humans do?” Isaac countered. “Every time we learn something new, our opinion changes, and we “rewrite” our way of thinking accordingly. We see someone we respect and model ourselves after them, we read about something new we think we’ll like, and our tastes change to match. Multiply this over a lifetime, and one has to wonder, are we really “ourselves” anymore, or just a jumbled-up patchwork of other’s ideas and personalities amassed over time?”
“Okay, but wouldn’t that key blend of “ideas" and "personalities” be what defines a person?” Celica shot back. “The more complicated a patchwork quilt is, the more likely that it’s completely unique.”
“Still, how is that different from an AI that is a similar patchwork of scenarios and reactions imputed to it by all the people around it?”
“I think you’re taking the ability to act without a catalyst for granted. AI can't ever "desire" anything; they can't even understand what it means to want. Thus, their entire programming is based on reactions to triggers. Even if those triggers seem spontaneous, like random events, they're still "triggered" by a randomizer. Humans, however, act even if there is nothing to react to. I guess you could call that “spark” our “soul”, or our “humanity”, or something.”
“So, without that “spark”, the Singularity can never occur, huh?”
“Exactly.”
*******
After lunch Isaac went back to his room, donning his N-LiFe and shutting his eyes as he flicked it on. As the artificial senses from BRYZ started to permeate his body, he slowly reopened his eyes, sitting up on his bed in the hotel.
The first thing he noticed was that his game menu was open.
That’s odd, he started, closing it and getting up. Then, he noticed his window was open as well. “I’m certain I closed that…” Isaac muttered to himself, rushing to the window and looking out. However, there was nothing suspicious in sight, just the usual hustle and bustle of the town. Closing the window, Isaac quickly checked all his belongings and room, but nothing seemed awry at all.
“Hopefully, I’m just overthinking things as usual,” Isaac muttered, setting his status to “online” and walking downstairs.
“’Morning, Isaac!” Marie greeted him as he walked downstairs. “Charles sent a message. He won’t be able to join us until after his shift, but he gave us the go-ahead to start without him.”
“I suppose that’s one of the problems with all of us having different time zones and schedules,” Isaac mused. “It’s about as hard to meet up to take on some quests in this world as it would be in an online game.”
“At least the experience points are shared and divided among party members,” Marie assured him. “Even if we level up a bit, we won’t leave him behind. Although,” she added as an afterthought, “I wouldn’t at all be opposed to leaving that guy behind.”
“Hey, he’s really not all bad.” Isaac laughed. “You just gotta warm up to him, honest.”
“Yeah… I know he’s not a bad guy,” Marie muttered. “I admit it, his heart’s in the right place. It’s just… Rrrrgh!” She slammed a fist into her palm. “He rubs me the wrong way some times, y’know? Makes me wanna just smack him upside the head.”
“Just as long as you save that for outside combat.” Isaac chuckled. “Actually, on that note, without Charles we’ve lost our defensive line. We’ll have to make sure we don’t get too cocky, or we’ll end up in over our heads.”
“I can use my clones as shields, if you so desire.” Tenshi’s voice came from directly behind Isaac, startling him.
“How long were you standing there, Tenshi?” Isaac asked, spinning around.
“Since you left your room.”
“Do you have that low of a presence?!”
“I was wondering how long it’d take you to notice her.” Marie laughed. “But either way Tenshi, seeing clones of you getting chopped up hundreds of times is going to hurt the party more than any monster’s attacks.”
“Oh?” Tenshi questioned. “What if I…” Her form started to shimmer and rearrange itself in front of them. “...looked like this?” she asked, now forming a prefect likeness of Charles.
“No, Tenshi, that’s not the point…” Isaac sighed, putting a hand over his face.
“No wait, this could work!” Marie tapped her fist against an open palm. “That way, not only is the party being defended, but it’ll raise our morale as well!”
“Marie!” Isaac chided her. “You just told me you didn’t think he was that bad!”
“Nah, I’m just joking.” Marie laughed. “Mostly.”
Isaac rolled his eyes. “Well, back on task, what’s our plan? I’ll devise a good strategy for us based on that.”
“Actually.” Marie grinned. “After you left, Tenshi and I went to the town center to shop for quests, and think I picked us a good one.”
“You mean there are still quests in this world?” Isaac asked.
“Oh, totally!” Marie responded. “They aren’t anything major, like mandatory missions that advance the story or something, but there are definitely no shortage of NPC-sponsored quests, and the odd request ordinary players have for people like us with a lot of spare time, and the in-game experience to match.”
“So basically… we’re spending our precious summer doing part-time work.” Isaac grimaced.
“If you think about it, all adventurers in RPGs really are just swords for hire, starting off their level-1 days fighting woodland animals and picking herbs and stuff,” Marie retorted. “Anyways, I got us something much cooler than that! Behold, a Level 10 B-rank mission!” She puffed out her chest and proudly displayed a piece of parchment, adorned with multiple “Warning!” and “Danger!” stamps.
“Um… Marie, I hate to complain but…” Isaac started, “You do know that I only just reached Level 3 yesterday, and that a B-rank mission requires about an eight-member party of a level equal to the quest?”
“Tenshi made duplicates of herself and disguised them all, so they let us take it,” Marie explained nonchalantly. “Also, Tenshi’s already Level 10, so the Captain of the Guard had no problem with it, he just assumed the rest of us were also Level 10s too.” Marie chuckled evilly to herself. “We managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the Captain of the Guard. We’re so awesome!”
“We’re so dead, more like!” Isaac exclaimed. “We only had a 5-person party at our best, our defender happens to be absent, and who knows where that armoured gal went! Not only that, but Tenshi’s the ONLY one among us that’s Level 10, unless I’m mistaken!”
“I’m Level 4,” Marie explained. “Also, I think Charles said he was Level 6.”
“In other words, even with Charles back, we’re nowhere near a match for this quest!” Isaac snatched the paper out of her hands. “What’s the mission anyway?”
“A bandit guild popped up along the main road out of the town, and they’re ambushing players who are trying to move on to the next city,” Marie explained. “It seems they sneak up on new parties, take one of their members, and then hold them ransom. They leave the other members of the guild alone, so they can go work up the money to pay the fee. Also, if the players don’t pay the ransom soon enough or try to fight back, the bandits apparently execute the captured guild member. They’ve already kidnapped over two dozen players, so they mean business.”
“I performed basic reconnaissance, and it would seem that they number at least threescore, when they are all online,” Tenshi followed up. “Also, I could not discover their levels, but I hypothesize they have a minimum level requirement of five. However, our objective is simply to identify their leader and free the prisoners, so engaging all of them directly is unnecessary.”
“But if they’ve formed a party, they could be an incredibly high level by now, due to the fact that they can level up while offline!” Isaac moaned. “We can’t possible match up!”
“Not so, there is a party cap of 10 members and one leader, if you recall,” Tenshi corrected. “They would have to level up in small groups, hence why I said they could be any level, from 5 upwards. Also, as mentioned, fighting them is not our goal.” Tenshi held up an odd gemstone. “This is an Ability Grimoire, a special item that can be bought in shops. It allows a player to store one of their abilities in the stone, and turn it into a one-use item. This one contains the ability STALKER, which allows it to record the real-life information regarding the player it is used on, including their GPS location. It was given to us for use on our quest. If we can discover the bandit leader’s identity and location, players are hoping to be able to press charges.”
“Woah, they can actually ID a guy like that?” Isaac asked. “That’s kinda terrifying. That means anybody could know where I live right now!”
“It’s scarier that that’s an actual ability,” Marie responded. “Who knows how many people could have that power right now?”
“At least there are people like Abercrombie to counter them,” Isaac ventured. “He can tell everyone’s ability, so he could probably point people like that out to the authorities. Since abilities match up with our personalities and desires, I think it’s safe to assume a person with an ability like that is by no means an upstanding citizen.”
“Getting back to the point though,” Marie interjected. “My plan wasn’t to take these guys on directly. First, we should level up, and when Charles gets back, we have one part of the team act as a diversion, while the other half sneaks inside to scan the boss, and let the prisoners escape.”
“Well, I can fine-tune the details of that plan out later, I guess,” Isaac conceded. “Do we have a plan for rescuing all those prisoners, though?”
“Another quest item,” Tenshi explained, revealing an odd, cubed box. “If we place this on a flat surface of sufficient size, it will sketch out a temporary Teleportation Rune,” she explained. “However, it will take around 10 minutes, so we must protect it until then.”
“Wow, we’re getting some pretty good gear for this one!” Isaac exclaimed. “The guys down at the town hall must want to solve this problem pretty badly.”
“They fear that if they sent a large group of guards, the Guild would execute all the captives, so they want a smaller party to go in and manage things,” Tenshi offered. “Plus, with cases similar to this cropping up across the world, Atlantic Canada is on the back burner.”
“I’m guessing they figured that if we fail and the hostages are executed, they can deny all part in it, too.” Isaac grimaced. “Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. What do you have planned for our level farming?”
“Oh, I found us a good quest for that one too!” Marie beamed. “It’s only a Level 4 D-Rank, but that should do us juuust fine. Also, the fellah who issued the quest is offering a large sum of gold. I was lucky I was there right as he was handing in the request, I to accepted it before it was even officialised.”
“Nice find!” Isaac exclaimed. “A Level 4 D-Rank, you say? What’s the request?”
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