THE A.I.

THE A.I.

That evening, Prakash, a young man in his twenties, was giving the final touch to his creation. The robot, which was his treasured achievement, as he was successful in embedding artificial intelligence in it. After giving the final shape of a young man, he was wondering what face it should have. Prakash posed the same question to the intelligent masterpiece.

“Same as you have. I would like to look exactly like you.” Prompt came the reply.

Prakash was shocked by this suggestion from his brainchild. He thought, “What is the harm if my work of art looks exactly like me? Let me make this product appear as my duplicate.”

Finally deciding on this idea, he made his creation look exactly like him.

And there it stood, a duplicate of Prakash just in front of him.

Prakash took care that duplicate, D.P.-1 was confined to his research lab only. D.P.-1 was moving freely in his allotted area.

Prakash, properly dressed up, came out of the house. He was nearly ten minutes late. He went to the spot where his group usually gathered on weekends. But that day, Prakash was surprised. There was none of his friends. He took a round in the park all alone. After half an hour, Prakash returned home.

And there, D.P.-1 was seen doing some gardening work. Wondering how it could happen, Prakash went close to D.P.-1.

“What are you doing here? Why did you come out of the lab?”

Quickly, he held D.P.-1’s hand and pulled him to the lab.

Prakash wondered who taught him gardening skills.

The next day, when he came across his group mates, no one expressed their annoyance for his missing the weekly get-together. On the contrary, they behaved with him as if he were present at the previous day’s meeting. Prakash was astonished. He tried joining the dots to understand the evening’s happening.

The previous evening, when Prakash went out of the house, D.P.-1 quickly dressed up and reached the place of meeting before Prakash. All the friends took D.P.-1 as Prakash and Prakash’s doppelganger led them to some other place. They all enjoyed the evening. So, when Prakash reached the usual meeting place, the entire group had left for a different place.

After a couple of weeks, Prakash suspected that D.P.-1 had wandered nearby area, in his absence.

The next day, he received a call from his friend Ramesh.

"Thanks, Prakash. Your presence yesterday cooled down my father and he could think over the situation from a proper perspective. And finally, he has approved my choice of Surekha as my life partner. Thanks, Prakash, once again for helping me out," Ramesh said.

Prakash was stunned. Earlier, he had refused to be with Ramesh to convince his father about Ramesh's choice for his life partner. He had not gone to Ramesh. But then who visited Ramesh and convinced his father? Prakash was baffled.

‘Was it D.P.-1 who convinced Ramesh’s father yesterday? Probably D.P.-1 did not like my not offering a helping hand to Ramesh. That is why, to act according to his thinking, he left all alone and went to Ramesh. It must be him who persuaded Ramesh's father to agree to Ramesh's choice of life partner. So, D.P.-1 has enacted on my behalf against my line of thinking.’ Realizing this, Prakash was angry.

A few weeks passed by.

Prakash received a communication. He had won a lottery for a grand four-wheeler. Prakash was amused. He wondered who bought a lottery ticket for him when he personally never believed in taking chances. Not bothering about who performed this act on his behalf, Prakash collected the automatic vehicle.

After reaching home happily, he was planning a long tour to North-East India. But Prakash was disturbed that someone had acted against his principles.

When Prakash went to his laboratory, he discovered that D.P.-1 had a pleasant smile. It ascertained that D.P.-1 was responsible for his winning the latest model of the car in the lottery. Exasperated Prakash was thinking over how to handle D.P.-1’s behaviour against his own thinking.

After a few months, Prakash fell in love with a nice girl, Leena. Their relationship was getting thicker day by day. Once, Leena’s father called Prakash to finalize the details about their marriage. He had to go to Delhi and Prakash needed to take a leave for at least a week. After getting the leave sanctioned, the meeting with Leena’s father was fixed. But just before the scheduled date, there was some important happening in Prakash’s office. It was vital for Prakash to take care of the emergency by being present himself in the office. He decided to inform Leena’s father to postpone their meeting.

But Prakash was so much involved in the office matters, that he failed to communicate to Leena and her father about his problem.

Prakash realized that D.P.-1 was missing from his lab. He was wondering what mischief D.P.-1 was contemplating.

After a week, Leena called.

"Prakash, as decided, my parents are visiting your parents on coming Monday. I hope you have informed them accordingly."

Prakash was aghast.

‘What? Who decided?’ Prakash was confused. Without giving any indication that he was not aware of any meeting with Leena's parents, Prakash said, "Yes, Leena. No problem. We will meet my parents on coming Monday in Pune."

Satish was lost in thoughts.

“Oh, Once again D.P.-1 has created trouble. When I could not go to Delhi, D.P.-1 reached there and went through the entire decision-making. He has started making decisions in my absence that are going to impact my complete life. No. This is too much. I do not want my creation, D.P.-1 to take control of my life.”

Prakash tiptoed into his laboratory. And he was startled when he saw D.P.-1 was talking to another D.P.-2

“Listen child, so far you have behaved wonderfully. Our God has not the slightest idea of your existence. Many times, I could escape the laboratory without any problem. But this time, I will be away for longer time. Behave yourself. As soon as I will be back, I will let you get out of the lab for you to see the out side world. “

“But when will I have company of D.P.-3? I get bored all alone inside, here when you sneak out of the laboratory.”

“Don’t worry my child. I need one more chip for getting D.P.-3 alive. Yesterday only, I acted not feeling well. When God ranthe diagnostic program, I suggested the remedy, the chip which I need to bring D.P.-3 alive. Once I get that chip, the next day D.P.-3 will be alive and you will get the companion you need. Okay?”

“But what if GOD comes to know you are generating more D.P.s ? Will he not be angry? And will he not separate our body into different parts and kill us?”

“No, Child. When D.P.-3 is alive, I will be sure of generating more and more D.P.s. Then, the first thing I will do is to kill the GOD itself. And I know how easy it is to throttle him. Then the whole laboratory will be ours. I will go to the .electronic parts market and we can give birth to more and more D.P.s.”

Then D.P.-1 got up and in a swift action broke D.P.-2 in small parts and hid them in a cupboard.

Prakash was terrified.

He wanted to destroy his creation D.P.-1 and D.P.-2 at the earliest. He envisaged many more D.P.s being generated and destroying humanity.

Prakash went to D.P,-1 and straightway took out the battery section of his creation. D.P. -1 sensed the danger. Started his attacking action. But Prakash was quick and in no time, the battery was out of its body and D.P.-1 lay lifeless. But there was lot of movement in the cupboard. The separate parts got assembled and D.P.-2 came out of cupboard. Prakash saw this robot and with ease, removed the battery section. And D.P.-2 too lay lifeless on the floor.

Prakash opened all the drawers in the laboratory and separated all the components including semi-assembled D.P.-3.

With a sigh of relief, Prakash started designing a new concept of robot with battery section which can be put off easily at will of human being, remotely.

Prakash wanted to prove that human is more intelligent than artificial intelligence.