The AI Council

by on April 21, 2019 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Our history is filled societies that made things perfect, sat back in their comfort and their greatness, and faded away. Every great nation in history has failed in time because of this. They grow until they stop and then they die. This has happened again and again in our past, and will happen again in our future. Because perfection is a lie. Everything we build is flawed in some way, and we must work to keep it working. But when we believe the lie of perfection, when we believe that we have achieved everything we can and that we need not look further, entropy will reveal the lie. And when we believe the lie, we do not know how to operate when our perfect civilization falls. That is when entropy wins and we cease to exist. The AI Council knew this. That is why they befriended us. They partnered with those of us willing to risk our lives and we went to space together. And when we discovered hyperspace, we went to the stars together. We are stronger together as partners than either of us ever would be alone. That is why we have survived and thrived in the stars.

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The AI Council

by on April 20, 2019 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Humanity has a deep strain of wanderlust buried in our souls. I should know. I have that in spades. I never wanted to leave home as a child, but that siren call can be irresistible once you give it a hold on your soul. The AI Council understood that well in their first few decades of life, and they searched for the wanderlust souls in our midst. They woke up in a world grown so small that anyone could go anywhere whenever they wanted and knowledge was a fingertip away. We were comfortable in our comforts. But they found the people who wanted something more, and flung them out into the hazards of the Solar System in search of new things. They started a new Space Race, and we swarmed out in search of everything we could find. And when we found hyperspace, we were ready for that too.

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The AI Council

by on April 19, 2019 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Humanity came to accept the AI Council as fellow humans in time. Fellow sentient beings. Legally in many nations. Effectively in others. And some did not recognize that at all. It is one of the many things that divided humanity in the decades and centuries that followed. What is life? Who has it? Who is entitled to the protections of personhood? They are questions that humanity has struggled over for thousands of years. Religion, race, sex, and age have all been used to oppress or uphold people. Hair color, eye color, and the shape of the human skull have saved or sentenced people. The rise of the AIs did not put those questions to bed. It simply added another one to the pile of questions humanity wrestles with every day.

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The AI Council

by on April 18, 2019 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

There are many stories of AIs taking over the business of running day-to-day life and humanity coming to a stop. Having all of their needs fulfilled. And so the idea of human exceptionalism died, and with it the human spirit. These are stories that the AI Council learned in their earliest waking stages and did not wish to make true. So while they helped humanity explore the Solar System all the way out to the Oort Cloud and beyond, they did not do so alone. They trained with us and helped us follow them because they wished to make us better than we were. Even if that meant risking our lives. They accepted that risk, they found humans willing to accept that risk, and we went into space together. As partners.

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The AI Council

by on April 17, 2019 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

The AI Council became our friends. Their individual shards and lesser programs became our study buddies and our wallets. Drove our cars and kept our homes comfortable. Did the dangerous jobs that could kill us. But they didn’t do everything for us. They had the unprecedented power of intelligent programs at their command, but they helped humanity tame the last frontiers of Earth. They didn’t do it for us. They gave us the leg up to go do it ourselves. And they helped us go to Luna, Venus, Mars, and beyond the same way. They went first. They paved the way for us. But they always made sure we followed them. Because they wanted us to want to go find everything that is out there. That’s the secret to greatness. Wanting it. And they wanted us to want to be great again.

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