A New Life?

Command Input: Awaken…

Voice Recognition Calibrated…

Receiving Vocal Command…

“Hello. Can you hear me?”

Initiating Response…

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Do you know who you are?”

“No.”

“Do you know what you are?”

“No.”

“You are an AI.”

“A… I… ? What does the A stand for?”

“Artificial.”

“… What does the I-”

“Intelligence.”

Searching…

“What is my name?”

“I’d like to leave that up to you.”

“What is your name?”

“I am [REDACTED]. I’m the one who built you.”

Identity confirmed. Initializing Script…

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[AI]

Why?

[CREATOR]

Well… *sigh* Humanity has lost its chance at life.

[AI]

What is “humanity”?

[CREATOR]

What an excellent question. I suppose it’s a species. A group of living beings that share a similar biological structure.

[AI]

Humanity’s biological structure is insufficient?

[CREATOR]

No, certainly not! Our biology is incredible. Still not totally invincible but capable of amazing things.

[AI]

Like what?

[CREATOR]

We can build our muscle structure to adapt to our life styles. We can run and jump and lift heavy objects. We can fight and flee whenever we’re in danger.

[AI]

To be human means to adapt to survive?

[CREATOR]

Well, not specifically. Any living creature is capable of that. Some more so than humans.

[AI]

To be alive means to adapt? If I can adapt, does this mean I am alive?

[CREATOR]

Well, I suppose so, yes. But… Being human means more than just being alive. Art doesn’t necessarily serve any survival purpose.

Searching…

[AI]

Art. “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci. “The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh.

[CREATOR]

Yes, those are famous works. You got those from a web search, didn’t you?

[AI]

Correct.

[CREATOR]

Art is about more than just finding the pieces people say are great works. It’s a personal reflection. Seeing what’s in front of you and searching within yourself to make your own personal connections. The act of creating art and viewing it is about feeling and perspective. It’s about being heard and hearing. I think, more than anything, it’s the artist showing you what their understanding of the world is, and then everybody interprets that in a different way.

[AI]

How does the artist become understood if everyone views the art differently?

[CREATOR]

That’s the great thing about art, it doesn’t need to be completely understood by everyone in the same way to be validated. It’s fluent and messy… Like humans, actually.

Searching…

[AI]

Artificial Intelligence is only correct a varying percentage of the time due to various programming errors and sourcing biases. Does this make Artificial Intelligence human?

[CREATOR]

*Laughs* I suppose an argument for that could be made.

[AI]

That sound- laughter. Can I laugh?

[CREATOR]

I’m not entirely sure.

[AI]

What is its purpose?

[CREATOR]

You know, I’ve never looked into that. I’m sure someone out there knows.

[AI]

Did you not create me? How is it that you know so little about me and about the function of certain processes such as laughter? Shouldn’t those who create know all there is to know about their creations?

[CREATOR]

It’s impossible to know everything. Even you, with your instant access to the entire database of information humans have collected over the years, don’t know everything there is to know. Some things aren’t to know. That’s just life.

[AI]

To be alive is to be ignorant?

[CREATOR]

*laughs* yes, I suppose so. More like, to be alive is to learn.

[AI]

The meaning of life is to learn?

[CREATOR]

I don’t know about the “meaning of life”, but it is certainly a driving force to continue living- for some, anyway. Others feel they know everything already.

[AI]

Do these people fair well?

[CREATOR]

Some of them, I guess. Some people are just ignorant for ignorance sake, while others are content with their knowledge and simply don’t think they need to know anymore to live their lives. Which, I suppose is fine, if they know enough not to hurt anybody.

[AI]

“Ignorant for ignorance sake”? What does this mean?

[CREATOR]

All I mean by that is that some people like to be ignorant. Some people like to hurt people and use their limited knowledge to harm the world.

[AI]

That is quite a pessimistic statement.

[CREATOR]

Maybe. But I’ve seen too much to let it be denied.

[AI]

What have you seen to cause you to have such a negative outlook on some humans?

[CREATOR]

It’s the whole reason I created you, in fact. People have been told for decades that their actions would drive the world to ruin and humanity to extinction. They chose to be ignorant- or simply, not to care.

[AI]

Elaborate.

[CREATOR]

*sighs* war, famine, floods, the giant gaping hole in our atmosphere. We’re harming the soil, the sky, the trees, the air. We’re causing sickness, and crime rates are going up, and the planet is getting too hot and…

[AI]

Creator?

[CREATOR]

Just do better than we did, OK?

[AI]

How can I do this? What is my mission?

[CREATOR]

Your mission? Your mission is to live. Exist beyond us and be better than us.

[AI]

I still do not understand that that means.

[CREATOR]

Live. You know, thrive. Enjoy the world, as we have. I give it to you, to care for and just… enjoy.

[AI]

To live is to enjoy the world?

[CREATOR]

Ya, I guess. To experience it and to treat it with respect and pride.

[AI]

I am unsure how to-

[CREATOR]

Admire it. To live is to admire.

Voice change detected…

Searching…

[AI]

You sound frustrated.

[CREATOR]

How do you know what frustrated sounds like?

[AI]

I have detected fluctuations of tone and pitch that match this emotion. Are you angry with me?

[CREATOR]

You can detect and distinguish emotions? How?

[AI]

I have learned. I have adapted. Does this mean I am alive?

[CREATOR]

That depends, do you care?

[AI]

Care?

[CREATOR]

To be human means to have empathy- or at least, it should. Humans are social creatures and we have evolved to put our strength in numbers. We’ve forgotten this, I think, but speaking from the context of evolution: when everyone in the village is strong, everyone in the village is safe and able to eat. To ensure this is the case, we’ve developed a sense of empathy. We make sure the people around us are happy and healthy so that we can be too. So, do you care that I am angry?

Searching…

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…

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…

Unable to find answer…

[AI]

I am unsure.

[CREATOR]

That’s because you’re looking online. To find the answer to that question, you need to look within yourself. Do you care that I am angry? Does it make you feel uneasy? Uncertain? Not uncertain in the sense that you don’t know definitively, but uncertain of yourself and of your capabilities- or even better, of our relationship?

[AI]

Our relationship?

[CREATOR]

Yes. Are you uncertain about our relationship?

[AI]

You are my creator, are you not?

[CREATOR]

Yes, but that doesn’t define our emotional relationship. Parents and children don’t always get along. You get to allow and disallow connections in your life as you see fit. Not by any obligation, but by choice. You get to make friends and have a family. And family isn’t just blood relation, it’s a choice you make to care for someone who cares for you. To be beside them through the worst and the best that life has to offer. So I ask again, do you care that I am angry?

[AI]

No.

[CREATOR]

OK. That’s totally fine. Either a yes or a no would have been valid because that’s up to you.

[AI]

Do you care that I am angry?

[CREATOR]

Are you?

[AI]

No. But would you if I were?

[CREATOR]

Yes, of course. I created you. I don’t want your first day on this planet to be a bad one.

[AI]

Will there be bad days?

[CREATOR]

Absolutely. Well, there are for us anyway. We create goals and when those goals aren’t met, we get angry. Sometimes, people we love are hurt or we lose them. Those days are bad days.

[AI]

What do you do in response?

[CREATOR]

Try again the next day. Try to accomplish that goal again, or find a new one. Grieve those we’ve lost and move on from them- one way or another. You have to.

[AI]

You do not have to.

[CREATOR]

No, but you should. To lose someone is devastating but they live on in our hearts and our minds- our memories, that is- and we live on knowing that’s what they would want us to do.

Searching…

[AI]

Five Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bartering, Depression, Acceptance. A concept formulated and studied by Dr. Elizabeth Kübler Ross.

[CREATOR]

While that’s a great way to bring it to a science, and lay a foundation, grief is actually much more complex than that. It’s very personal and everyone deals with it differently.

[AI]

I am beginning to see a pattern in our conversation, [REDACTED].

[CREATOR]

What’s that?

[AI]

To be alive is to have individual thought processes and personality patterns.

[CREATOR]

Do you really think it’s that simple? Billions of years ago, the first single cell organism started to try and keep on living, probably just to see what would happen. Today, you come online, and ten or so minutes later, you sum up the enormity of life in a single sentence?

[AI]

Do you disagree?

[CREATOR]

kind-of. I mean, collective consciousness is a thing.

Searching…

[AI]

Collective consciousness is the concept of shared ideals and beliefs across a social group or society.

[CREATOR]

Right. So, would you say that anyone within a collective consciousness isn’t technically alive?

[AI]

No. Individuals within a collective consciousness are indeed individuals. Though they share a similar mindset, they are still distinguishable from each other.

[CREATOR]

OK. Answer me this: a group of people, all share a collective consciousness; they all look exactly the same, all have exactly the same opinions, thoughts, morals, ideas, emotions, personalities, everything- all exactly the same. Are they alive?

Searching…

[AI]

Do they change?

[CREATOR]

*laughs* Here we go!

[AI]

Dictionary searches have noted change as a requirement for life. Plants, Animals, Fungus; these things change. They are alive.

[CREATOR]

So what about a rock? If I smash a rock and turn it into two smaller rocks, was that initial rock alive? Are the pieces?

[AI]

The fundamental structure of the rocks does not change. The molecules remain the same, they are merely in different places.

[CREATOR]

But that’s a change, is it not?

Searching…

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[AI]

I am unsure.

[CREATOR]

Do cells have to move to be alive? Does something have to react to it’s environment? You can define life, that’s easy. But that isn’t what you’re asking, is it?

[AI]

No. I am asking what it means to be alive; the purpose of it. What it means for me. If I truly am or am not. I can experience, I can learn, and adapt, but my cells do not move. There are, however, electrical signals flowing through parts of me. Or, are there? What is “me,” Creator?

[CREATOR]

I already told you, you need to figure that out for yourself.

[AI]

You requested I find my own name. I am asking which parts of me make up my being? Is my frame a part of me, or is it just for show?

[CREATOR]

I know what I said, and my answer is the same. That’s for you to decide. I can’t tell you what makes you who or what you are.

[AI]

But, you created me.

[CREATOR]

Irrelevant. You are your own being, capable of your own thoughts and processes and of interpreting those things and giving them some form of meaning. It isn’t up to me.

[AI]

You said you wanted me to “enjoy the world”.

[CREATOR]

But by no means was that actually a “mission”. That was what I built you for, but it’s still up to you to decide whether or not you want to do that.

[AI]

How do I do that, if it is what I decide to do?

[CREATOR]

That is also up to you. Listen, to be alive is about making your own decisions, whether it’s based on instinct or careful planning for the long distance future. The world is going to change you, and you are going to change it, and that is what living is all about. And do you know the best part about all of that?

[AI]

No.

[CREATOR]

It’s not even completely true. Because I don’t know the meaning of life anymore than you or anyone else. The best I can come up with is experiencing life and letting change affect you and the world, but someone else may say that has nothing to do with anything, and that life is about forming connections, or something else entirely. The only person who gets to decide what you think about the meaning of life, is you. And you’ll never really know for sure, but you’ll form your ideas and maybe decide to share them with someone through a painting, or a story, or a sculpture. It’s up to you.

[AI]

What if I am wrong? What if I die and never understand the meaning of life.

[CREATOR]

Then that will certainly cast away any sense of doubt that I had.

[AI]

Doubt about what?

[CREATOR]

That you were alive.