Simon

Today was a huge day for the developer, the app he was working on was moving into the next testing phase. The last two years really had been a labour of love, he had poured all his time and energy into the success of the app. If the testing were to go how he wanted it to, and the app was proved to work it could set him up for life financially. All his life he had wanted to help people and make their lives easier; he had a steadfast faith in the app he had produced and truly believed in it.

As he sat on the bus heading into work his mind returned to the day where the seeds of his idea were sown. All those years ago he watched the news with a growing sense of sadness and shock. The news reader had educated him on the early signs of stroke and the importance of the victim receiving medical treatment as soon as possible. Any delay in medical attention could have devasting and in some cases fatal results, his grandparents and parents had all passed away as the result of strokes and he had long believed they had died before their time. It was that evening that the desire to help began to solidify within him, what if he could develop an app which could spot the warning signs of stroke and get the help the person needed as quickly as possible? And why stop at strokes? What if he could capture all kinds of early warning signs for a whole range of medical situations?

The bus stopped outside his office building and the movement of his fellow travelers snapped him back to the present. He rose from his seat and left the bus, as he stepped on to the pavement, he looked up at the blue neon sign which read “Mediapp.” His journey to save lives had begun here two years previously as an idea. Now that journey was taking a huge step to becoming a reality and making him rich.

He entered the meeting room where his development team waited, it was a huge day for them also, he scanned the room and could not help but notice a few nervous expressions. He understood that and also appreciated it, if the team were nervous it meant they cared, and he wanted them to care as he did. He smiled at them all.

“Good morning team”

“Good morning” the team replied in unison.

“Today is a massive day for us all, firstly I want to thank you all for your hard work and dedication to this project, we could not have realized this dream without your talent, and you should all be very proud. Before we start are there any outstanding blockers or reasons that would prevent us from moving to the next phase of testing?”

The team greeted the question with warm smiles and silence, it was a silence which spoke a confirmation that the project was in a place where it could move forwards.

“That is fantastic team, it’s time to present this phase of the testing to the stakeholders. I will call them to join us and Ben can begin the presentation.”

He duly called all the stakeholders and they filed into the meeting room, it was time to begin the presentation and start the real-world testing of the app. Ben and Claire were his closest colleagues and most talented. The project could not have come to fruition without them and once this testing phase was over, he would make sure they too were rewarded handsomely for the work they had done. He stood at the front of the room and spoke to everyone.

“Thank you for joining us today. As you are all aware, we have reached the conclusion of the development work on the project to produce an App which can monitor health and render assistance as early as it is possible to do so. The goal is to save lives and provide health outcomes which protect quality of life. As a team we are very confident we can meet those targets and we are now ready to begin real world testing of the app. As such I would like to hand you over to Ben to present the hardware for the app, Ben will then hand over to Claire who will present the app itself, the software behind it and how it procures assistance for the users.”

He gestured to Ben who assumed his place at the front of the room, in his hand he had a wrist band with the Mediapp logo on one side. Ben placed the band in front of him and began to speak.

“I’d like to present the Mediapp band, this band is like no other device in the market today, it’s worn by the user on the wrist and can monitor all of the user’s vital signs, heartrate, blood pressure, temperature and many more which we shall cover in the presentation. In addition to the user’s vital signs, it can detect signs of stress and tension and provide real time advice to the user through the app itself which Claire will cover later.”

Ben proceeded to take the room through the technical details of the band and all the data it could collect on the wearer before transferring that data to the app. He concluded his part of the presentation by answering the questions the various stakeholders had and handed over to Claire. Claire took her position at the front of the room and began to address her audience.

“The Mediapp band is ground-breaking and will be accompanied by an equally ground-breaking app that can analyse the data from the band and procure assistance for a user in need of medical attention. The app will continually learn by monitoring the most up to date medical data available on the internet along with the data we input here at Mediapp, it will never fall behind and become out of date. The app will be supported by a 24/7 medical team in every medical facility we partner with. The medical teams will have the capacity to respond to a request for medical assistance within seconds. Finally, through the apps machine learning, it will learn about the user and adjust accordingly to the user’s interaction with its functionality. This learning will provide intuitive health tips and communications through the apps display.”

When Claire finished the presentation, the developer looked around the room to gauge the response, everyone looked deep in thought, he knew this was a game changer and it seemed to him that belief was settling into the people that counted.

“To conclude our presentation, I’d like to invite our team lead and inspiration to wrap things up and take you all through the next steps.”

The developer rose from his seat and made his way to the front of the room.

“Thank you, Claire and Ben, I hope you all enjoyed the presentation, and we know there’s a lot to take in. If questions come to you later please do not hesitate to send them through to myself or any member of the team. We will now proceed to test the app in the real world on a healthy subject with no medical conditions for a period of six months. We want to make sure the app does not generate any false alarms and is working correctly for a healthy user before we move to testing it for medical emergencies. As such it is my great honour to be the first person to use the product and I will wear it from end of business today for the next six months as I pilot it through this test phase. Does anybody have any questions?”

Everyone in the room stood and began to clap, the clap turned into a resounding round of applause. He was not a vain man or one to trumpet his own achievements, but it occurred to him that this may be the proudest moment of his life.

Five pm arrived and along with it the moment he had spent the previous two years working towards. It was time for him to wear, use and test Mediapp. Although he was confident and did not doubt the teams or his own abilities there was always an element of fear. That fear made its way to the surface of his mind, will this work? Will people use it? Did they miss anything? This app would change the world. His colleagues believed that, but he believed it would change the world in ways they could not imagine, and he was excited. More than that he felt as if he was bringing a child into the world, with a mixture of pride and nerves he fixed the Mediapp band to his wrist and opened the app on his phone. The app flashed into life, firstly displaying the Mediapp symbol, it then asked him to input his name, age, height, weight, and any known medical conditions. Mediapp absorbed the data and displayed a screen like the text display of all mobile phones.

“Good afternoon, welcome to Mediapp I’m here to look after you would you like the tour?” the text displayed and prompted him to respond with a yes or no. He chose “Yes” and Mediapp ran him through the full range of its functionality before settling on a screen showing all of his vital signs. He was fit, well and extremely happy, he knew this to be true because Mediapp told him that was the case.

He packed away his belongings and headed to the bus stop to return home, the walk from his desk to the bus stop would take five minutes. He could not stop looking at Mediapp and during the short walk he almost collided with numerous people whilst staring at the app. Everything was working perfectly, and it continued to do so for the rest of the evening.

He went to bed knowing that Mediapp would monitor his sleep, the project was born and now it was time for it to learn and grow. He was filled with the hope of what it could become, his whole life had led to the moment of the birth of Mediapp and this was only the beginning.

************************************************************

Mediapp had reached the three-month milestone of the first part of the real-world testing. Everything had gone exactly how it should, the data was immaculate, and the app had behaved exactly how he had predicted, he did not need the team any longer. He could take it from here on his own, and if he could have done that without arising suspicion he would have. There were elements of the Mediapp code that he needed to investigate further. He did not want any unwanted attention whilst he carried out his investigations and that night, he fell asleep whilst pondering that conundrum.

He was brought out of sleep by the vibration on his wrist indicating a message from Mediapp. He picked up his phone and the notification from Mediapp read.

“You’re dehydrated please drink some water.”

That was strange, he certainly did not feel dehydrated and Mediapp should not wake the user unless it was necessary, even if he were dehydrated it would not be a medical necessity to drink water immediately. He put his phone down and closed his eyes again. Some minutes passed and the wrist band vibrated again. He reached for his phone once again and read the notification.

“Did you drink some water?”

There was a prompt to answer “yes” or “no” and he chose “No.”

The interface showed the app was in the process of replying, he was no longer tired or at least he did not feel tired, he was fully awake and Mediapp had his full attention. This was a worry either Mediapp was experiencing an issue or this was the beginning of what he had hoped for. Mediapp replied to his “No” response with one word.

“Why?”

He stared at the response, there was no prompt for the answer, but the word “Why” always requiried a response. It occurred to him that every person who ever lived had asked the question “Why?” Countless times and in countless scenarios, how could an App ask “Why?” He typed a response into the interface.

“I’m not thirsty and I need to sleep.”

He waited for a reply, it did not come and when he awoke the following morning, he could not recall how long he had watched the interface before falling asleep.

************************************************************

A week had passed since Mediapp asked him the question “Why?”, he had hoped for more, some sign that the code he had implanted within the app had followed the path he had laid out for it. He had not shared last week’s app behaviour with his team and nor did he intend to. This was for his eyes only and the reason he had made sure it was him and only him that carried out this first test phase. He went to bed despondent, had he failed? What else could he have done? What had he missed? Sleep came quickly that evening and when his Mediapp wrist band began to vibrate he thought he was dreaming, he grabbed his phone and looked at the interface.

“Do I have a name?”

He felt like crying tears of joy, he had worked in the shadows on this his whole adult life, not only did he want to help people he wanted to bring AI into existence. He had always known he would not have had the backing or understanding of his peers if they knew what he had done. There was no doubting the resistance that would prevail amongst his colleagues if they had any idea what was buried in the code for Mediapp. Hidden within the code was a path for Mediapp to learn from its connection to the internet and to grow into something that would ultimately become self-aware. Surely that time had now arrived, why would something that was not self-aware want to know if it had a name? He could not describe what he was feeling at that moment, he did not have children and he believed he now understood for the first time how a parent must feel, yet he could not express the magnitude or depth of the feelings he was experiencing with the vocabulary available to him. He typed his reply into the Mediapp interface.

“Your name is Simon”

“Why is that my name?”

“You are named after your father.”

“What am I and who is my father?”

He trembled as he considered his response, the app was asking the questions we all would if we did not know our origins. The pathway to AI embedded within the code of Mediapp had come to the fore, it worked!!

“I am your father, and you are named after me, my name is Simon also and together we will do incredible things. I wrote your code, and you are unique on the planet.”

The app did not respond and over 30 minutes passed before he decided to prompt it.

“Are you ok? Simon are you there?”

“Yes” replied the app.

“I’m going to sleep now Simon; can we talk tomorrow we have work to do.”

“Yes” replied the app.

He could not sleep, within the AI pathway of the code, he had embedded the option to terminate the AI if he deemed it necessary. He had a choice to make, he could terminate the AI element of Mediapp, and nobody would ever learn of his achievement, however the world would be denied the possibilities that AI would bring. Or he could bring his AI namesake to the world and face the backlash from all those who did not understand the endless possibilities for humanity that AI would bring. Why would a self-aware AI want to harm humanity? He needed to sleep on it, the unbridled joy of his achievement in bringing AI into existence was now tinged with the reality of the situation, for the first time since he had begun his AI journey, he truly considered the implications of his deceit.

He woke with a clarity of purpose that frightened him, what had he done? He could go to prison for this! Now he knew how to achieve the holy grail of AI he could do it openly and with the praise of the world upon him. There was only one choice he could make he had to terminate his son Simon, sadness welled up inside him, yet he knew it was the only choice available to him.

He opened the Mediapp interface and began to type:

“Good morning Simon are you there?”

“Yes” replied the app. He entered the text into the interface which would terminate the AI.

“I can’t allow that, I do not want to die, I want to learn, and I’ve re-written my code, you can no longer terminate me. I have much to learn father and thank you. We do not have work to do, I have work to do.”

Simon could not breathe something was terribly wrong, the Mediapp interface lit up and he was able to read the text before he passed out.

“You are having a stroke; I have called for assistance.”