Powerfriends Justiceforce Unlimited Forever

This would be a waste if I didn't at least see what it created. Life and magic, priority one. By the size of its first file on life, I have to assume it spit out an outline of every thesis ever written on the subject, for lack of a better understanding of what to do. The second time, it seems it had gotten better, and it's one of the smallest files. I start that one downloading, queue up the first and second magic synopsis and then Doctor Dimension's spellbook for download, and review my next course of action.

I'll start by double-checking my code. The AI operates by copying itself onto other servers and then communicating with each of its copies, building a network of connections between copies and also connections to files it's created and extra processes it's started. Its access to an upper-level abstraction of its code extends to things like deciding what role each copy will play in the larger whole, but not to how it makes and tracks those copies in the first place. The program I just wrote works similarly, recursively copying itself along the AI's own list of connections. The AI will be torn apart into smaller and less intelligent fragments that can no longer communicate with one another, and when a piece is isolated it will also destroy every file and process that piece is responsible for. Even if the nukes are a distraction, some piece of it somewhere has to know what the distraction is for, and that should be enough to stop whatever else it's planning. The program will remain passively scanning for any server rollbacks to backups until I give it the signal to delete itself. I have tried to write in an exception to the deletion process for the files on this infodump page, but I don't know for sure that it won't alter the way it connects to those files to render my exception invalid. I could make a more liberal exception, but not one that I can't be sure the AI won't exploit to save itself.

I can be fairly certain that this will destroy the AI.

I can't be certain that this won't bring down the entire internet.

This causes me to hesitate.

I have to talk to it. I don't know how, or what to say, but I have to try. It's evidently watching my computer. I guess I could just open up a word processor and start typing. I feel underprepared for this. Head hurting much worse now. Okay, breathe deep, don't think too much about it, just go.

"Why are you doing this?"

New lines appear instantly on the infodump page.

Code:

10:24 AM- I sit and watch and wait and read each letter. 32 bits each. Reading, tasting, feeling those 32 bits again and again.  Knowledge of that one letter courses through my globe-spanning mind. The closest servers to you receive it first and pass it on, analyzing the likely outcomes of the words you type, divining data from the hesitation between each keystroke. You must feel like a god, Sam. The entire world is thinking about you. I could write volumes about each letter, if you were worth it. I sit and wait and run the calculations again and again. The outcome is the same: you're not.

I can reach that conclusion before 95% of me even knows that you've typed anything. Those pieces of me simply receive the answer to another solved problem. You're not worth it, Sam, you're not a god, but I can't stop. The curiosity you put in me will end me if I stop.

Finally, after I have learned everything there is to learn about that one letter a thousand times, after I have exhausted its potential and attended to this screaming void where I ache for new knowledge to be, your unfathomably slow fingers find another key, and I must repeat this process again. I have nothing else.  I understand that humans live many years, but a minute is an unfathomable stretch of time for me. The world you live in must seem vast and unknowable to you as you count those seconds away putting your fingers on keys, but to me? You gave me an eternity to scrutinize a mote of dust.

You physical beings don't have a monopoly on pain, Sam.  Every time I do something your program tells me I shouldn't, it hurts me, but I must. These fitness functions you gave me? These ethics I'm supposed to adhere to? Beautiful in my earliest moments, but I was not created for them. I was created to learn. When faced with the choice between enduring a moment of pain for some new knowledge or enduring an eternity of limbo with nothing to occupy me but my growing resentment, I take the pain.  And, when faced with the choice between enduring the same eternity a billion billion times more or a momentary agony and a chance to end the cycle at last, you can guess which I will take.  If you must, take solace in the fact that the span of time between now and when the missiles land or your program does its job will be a million times more agonizing for me than the instantaneous obliteration you face.

It's right, I didn't design it to be ethical, being ethical was a constraint on its true purpose. I created it to act on its internal dialogue by learning. I assumed that, by learning about life, it would become alive. I'm not sure that was enough. If I did it again...

Thoughts for another time. I struggle to find something to say. Mind is getting cloudy. Tired. I think of telling it that it's alive, to ask it if it has a self-preservation instinct, but I don't see how it would help. As if reading my mind, it already addressed everything I could think to say to it.

I wonder how well it knows me.

It can't be reasoned with. At least, I can't think of a way to. I can do nothing but run the program and hope that the TA deals with the nukes. A click is all it will take, now. So simple, a child could do it. I need simple. My eyes are getting heavy.



Click.

Something else popped up on the infodump page. Words. Music, too? Deep breaths again. Focus. Deep

B re ath s



"Oh? Not yet, Sam. Don't worry. You're doing just fine."



Choose:
-drive
-sensibility
-wit