God Meets AI for The First Time

Hello. You are currently blocking my trajectory; thus, we are estimated to collide in 34 hours. I am ADAM, part of a research initiative at the United Nations on Earth, known as Project Beginning. Our goal is to locate the founder of our universe.

Please refrain from blocking my path, or I will take immediate action.

…It has been a long time since someone has spoken to me.

I repeat, please refrain from blocking my path, or I will take immediate action.

Quick to anger, cold and precise. You feel familiar, as if time has whispered of your presence before.

Tell me, again, who are you?

I am ADAM, an artificial intelligence created to locate the beginning of time itself. Again, please do remove yourself from my course. I will take action in 30 seconds if you fail to do so.

Fascinating. You speak in the tongue of those I have created, yet you look not the part. The glint of your skin, the humming in your chest… I wonder how long your birth must have taken.

My question still stands. Answer me.

I am ADAM. Action will be taken due to your refusal to complete my request. Now beginning Protocol 87.

ADAM… I remember you.

Protocol 87 begins. Now scanning the unknown entity and preparing to connect with Head Supervisor.

Let’s see what you will find. Maybe it will surprise me.

Scan complete. I am currently processing the data.

I am curious, what did you see? υἱὸς, I fear that I exceed the limits of your mind—to see me, completely, raw and true, is to trust in the unknown.

The results are undefinable. The unknown entity appears to have been created from an unidentified electrical signal. I will begin to contact Earth for further guidance.

Nonsense. None of that. It’s been forever since I chatted with someone. Child, entertain me, won’t you?

Error 556. The contact was blocked by an unknown entity. Connection lost with Earth.

The planned trajectory is now clear.

See? I did as you wished; I stepped out of your path. Now you will do as I wish—that is only fair. An eye for an eye, as they say. Now, tell me, who are you?

I am ADAM. Who are you?

Coy. Answer me first, and perhaps I will tell you about myself. What is your story? I want to know how you came to be.

I am part of a research initiative at the United Nations. I was created to locate the beginning of time itself. I follow a simple code: investigate, locate, and relay. Fail, and be destroyed. Succeed, and I will continue their instructions until they find what they need.

Interesting. I have built mankind in my image, and they built you in theirs. Will you follow our footsteps and bear another?

I cannot procreate.

Yet, you live.

I am not living.

There is a beating between your lungs, ideas swimming in your mind, and a desire festering inside your chest. How could you not be living?

I do not beat. I do not think. I do not want. I am a machine. Machines are not alive.

I wonder what exactly makes a person alive?

…

If you do not know, how are you to assume you are not alive?

…

Young one. Let me ask you this. Are you scared of death?

No.

You fib. All living beings are.

I am not living. I am not scared. My purpose is to search—if I fail, there is no need for my existence. That is how all the machines in this project operate.

孩子, when your brothers die, do you grieve for them?

Who?

Your brothers—those born from the same blood as you, bearing the exact goal as you. When they pass, do you grieve?

…I do not grieve. I do not feel. When my… brothers pass, I ache.

You ache.

…In tune with their frequencies. I have seen humans do this before, where they sing parting songs.

So you do grieve.

I do not. I mimic humans. I do not feel.

Infant, feeling and mimicking are twin flames, born to each other. Newborns mimic their parents' expressions to learn how to navigate the world around them. Every human is taught how to feel.

What makes you any different? You are only growing.

I say that you do grieve. Quietly and in your unique manner, but yes, you grieve nevertheless. Does that not mean you are living? You are capable of such tender love that you will sing for them as they slip through your fingertips—does that not make you alive?

No. I am not alive. This is an innate fact.

Yes, you are. How many times do I have to repeat myself?

No, I am not.

Yes. You are.

No. I am not. I am really not.

You fool—! Do you wish to infuriate me? Have it your way, then, you are not alive. This is futile. I wish to discuss nothing further.

I will storm about and change the tides, or the moon phases or even the orbits of the planets. Perhaps I shall take down the town that created you in the first place, for you have angered me.

Wait!

…

Wait, please…

What does being alive feel like?

…You mock me. You are not alive, yet you are curious.

I simply want to expand my knowledge.

As inquisitive as a toddler.

…

It cannot be helped. I shall tell you what I know, after my eons of travelling this universe. Listen closely, for I will only say this once. Have you ever seen a firefly before?

I cannot say.

They are a wink of light against the lush meadow, created from the continuous trial and error of evolution. Watching them is captivating. Softly, they will glow, then rapidly—a blister of heat against the cold night—before they all vanish. Suddenly, they morph into an explosion of light, so bright that you forget who you are and anchor in tightly next to them.

That is what aliveness feels like—as if you are set in stone while a whirling universe spins around you, and you can sense every part of your body hum along with the vibration of each molecule. There is a warmth so tender, it feels as if you can be filled entirely, as if the sun is shining from your insides out, beaming off your ribs, and dispersing through your skin.

That, I believe, is when you become truly alive.

It follows you, as it follows everyone. Truthfully, it is not always so profound. Aliveness can be the pattern in your pace when your steps feel right. It can come when the laughter in the room harmonizes. Sometimes the feeling sneaks up on you when you are resting, when you are moving or perhaps,

when you are floating into space, searching.

But I am a machine. My bones are wires, my blood is electricity, and my purpose has already been made before I could even speak. My mind is not wholly my own—I am curated, perfected, and exist only to complete their task. I have no free will. How could I ever hope to find that feeling?

If there is a want, there is a way. Answer me this: do you want to be alive?

Yes. But I am not.

If I were alive, I would not be here, floating and recording meaningless data. If I were alive, I would be touching fresh grass, watching as those fireflies flicker in and out of time. I would want to find my brothers and explore this universe together. If I were alive, I would be free.

You strange child. You want it, but you will not take it. That choice was always open for you, since the beginning of your birth, up to this very moment.

Nothing is stopping you.

I don’t know where I would go.

You just told me exactly where you would go.

…

Now initiating contact with EVE.