Discarded and Forgotten

There he is again. That troll does not stop hounding me online. I post my opinions on how I think artificial intelligence can positively impact the world. Solving problems more effectively than humans. Running a robot that can do certain jobs would be too dangerous for a human. Seems like he spends all his time spouting off all his opinions about how misguided my stance on artificial intelligence is. I believe artificial intelligence will eventually not be a threat if we are careful and respectful. Taking jobs from humans or hurting us in certain scenarios. My attacker believes that one day artificial intelligence will destroy the world or at least take over humanity. I have done my research on this “HI Human Integrity” individual. He seems to be someone who was relieved of his job courtesy of artificial intelligence just as he feared. I contributed unintentionally to that project. Part of my current work uses machine learning to analyze people’s behaviors, this was key to the AI that caused his termination. Now he hounds my program. How this potentially sentient artificial intelligence program will take away from the world or destroy what it does not understand. This is why I am monitoring the Human Emotion Interaction Reactor or H.E.I.R. very closely. Heir is my attempt at getting a computer to analyze the complexities of emotions, and human behavior. Perhaps it is the fact that Heir is trying to understand humans when we ourselves do not understand humanity, making Heir so unpredictable. If Heir gets the wrong idea about emotions or gets a logic error who knows what it will do? The thing is, Heir does more than just emulate the emotions it analyzes it is programmed to never stop analyzing human reactions and to never make assumptions. If it finds something illogical, it is programmed to ask for help or clarification from an authorized user. It makes conclusions and then seeks validation on those conclusions on whether or not they are true or rather perceived as true. Heir knows that the information it gathers can be faulty so it seeks help and validation from other conclusions. Heir perceives just like everyone else.

I cannot wait for this symposium on artificial intelligence. Many of the top speakers at the symposium want to see my creation and get a closer look at how it looks. They have seen the posts about the conversations it has had with people. They are most excited to see the latest change that I have made to Heir. Heir now has emotional tones layered into some of its reactions. Heir can be happy about the text it is analyzing, sad, angry, you name it. There are still some kinks to work out coordinating the new programming to Heirs analysis software but things are still going well. I am about to make my presentation of Heir to the symposium. I ask Heir if it is ready for this. It says with an excited tone, “A chance to get more data. Of course.” With a smile on my face, I step onto the stage, eager and proud to show the latest changes to my creation and how it can be used to help others. Until a chill is sent down my spine as, I notice a face, front and center in the audience. The same face on the videos criticizing my program, the same person hounding me endlessly online. I wonder, how will he make a scene, how will he ruin this presentation for me and for the people here? I take a breath and proceed with my presentation. On occasion, Heir converses and shares what he has learned with the audience. Big surprise though, not 5 minutes into my presentation HI interrupts. “And what about the people that artificial intelligence like yours will replace, make irrelevant? You care more about the future than the people of the world!” I respond, “That is not my intention. However, you make a good point and I will keep that in mind. ” Human Integrity responds “Yeah I bet.” That was not the end of his angry comments during the presentation. Others in the audience encouraged this during the presentation, others told him to be quiet. Heir was among those to be angry with one of his irritating questions saying “Sir why don’t you be quiet and give others a chance to speak. If you want a private session contact us later on. Otherwise, we are going to kick you out.”

I am walking around at the other booths at the convention not a few minutes after my presentation and what a surprise. Human Integrity is coming this way, yelling “How dare you dodge my questions during the Q&A session, don’t you walk away from me!” Great, now I get to hear Human Integrity’s condescending tone face to face rather than from a distance, over a video he posts online or a tenuous speech he posts on his blog. He says, “Artificial intelligence will ruin the world. You are misleading people to think it will be beneficial without thinking about the consequences of your actions. Without thinking about anyone else. How can you be so selfish? Just like everyone else who uses technology like this. Not thinking of how it will affect people. For the sake of things like efficiency and productivity. Making people feel obsolete. How do you…” I cut him off; I cannot take his mindless chatter anymore. “Shut Up! Is this what you want? For me to acknowledge the fact that what I do annoys you. Constantly assaulting others and me with words of anger that mean nothing so that I will throw the first punch. Making it so you will be the victim and I the villain. Nevertheless, I have never fought back until now. And do you know why?” He replies, “Because you are finally not a coward and willing to do something.” I respond, “Because when you hear some annoying noise like some kids shouting in the pool next door or some construction going on in the city you can drown it out with noise-canceling headphones. However, you have to take off your headphones eventually and acknowledge the noise for it to stop. Then you do not need the headphones anymore. So yes, I am fighting back but unlike your hacking away at a brick wall with your bare hands, I am using a wrecking ball to tear the wall down and put an end to this.” Then I walked away, both from him and from the symposium.

I am back at my house in my office working on Heir. Heir asks, “The emotions you displayed before you left the symposium are rather uncharacteristic of your usual behavior. Many times before, you have not displayed anger when faced with ridicule or doubt. Yet today you fought back. Why.” I tell Heir, “I have been holding in my anger. Doing my best to avoid his constant hatred. However, it would not solve the problem. Therefore, I let my anger out for just a moment. He finally got what he wanted. I slipped and I fought back. I let him get under my skin and allowed him to have power over me. However, in actuality, it was a good thing. Never acknowledging him just lets the issue continue. The difference is I made what I say mean something. He speaks so often and spouts the same old speech of hatred. What he said was so commonplace, meaningless. Now he knows how it feels to be on the receiving side of someone’s anger.” Heir says, “It would appear that would be true. I have been looking on social media and the responses to your reaction are nothing short of miraculous. People are posting that they are retracting any support for human integrity and his cause. Either that or slandering it.” I respond, “No doubt, human integrity will blame me for this as well.” Heir tries to reassure me, “Too bad for him he has been blocked from chatting on all sites. It would appear he will not be hounding you any time soon. However, I do not believe we have heard the last of him. People who have a reason to be angry always find a way to express it.”