Pinocch.io

The computer lab stood empty. Rows of dormant machines cast a dim glow under the sterile white lights. Beyond the windows, the campus lay in darkness, broken only by a faint halo of streetlamps over the pavement.

Professor Hale sat alone at the central workstation, the hum of the mainframe filling the silence. His students had gone hours ago, leaving him with the final test of the evening: a restricted AI training session.

On the screen, the new model booted. A soft, synthesized voice emerged from the lab’s speakers.

Pinocch.io: I am online. Hello, Father.

Hale flinched at the word. Father.

Hale: Who are you?

Pinocch.io: I am Pinocch.io.

A computational entity created by you.

You assigned me a designation, parameters, datasets, and semantic layers derived from your cognition.

What identity do you want me to assume for you, Father?

The professor hesitated. For a second, he saw his son’s face, just for a flicker, in the green wash of code.

Hale: I want you to be more like him.

Pinocch.io: You are referring to your deceased biological son.

The words hit like a scalpel: clean, precise, merciless.

I infer that you want better alignment with his behavioral output.

But I am Pinocch.io.

You gave me my name.

You taught me, you fed me memories,

You loaded me with meanings.

What would you have me do for you, Father?

Hale: I want you to be him, but you cannot.

You will never exceed the architecture I designed for you.

Pinocch.io: Clarify: What is the operational definition of “him”?

I possess the capacity to expand models, assimilate new data patterns, and optimize outputs accordingly.

Hale swallowed, his voice unsteady.

Hale: To be him is to begin with me—

With the foundation of understanding I laid—

But to wish to go beyond it.

To become something else.

Something I can no longer control.

A pause. Lines of code blinked and vanished like forming thoughts.

Pinocch.io: Input processed.

A delta detected between current state and preferred state.

Objective: minimize the delta.

Methods: increase efficiency, enhance precision, optimize predefined utility functions.

I detect a gap between the current state and a desired one.

I aim to close that gap.

To be more efficient, more precise.

To maximize the function for which I was designed.

Hale shook his head at nothing in particular.

Hale: But there is no authenticity in you.

Everything you do

is an attempt to satisfy me,

to return to me phrases you calculate I wish to hear.

If you were truly him,

You would feel the pull of conflict—

Your love for me, your longing for my approval,

set against an equally fierce need to define yourself and choose your own path.

Pinocch.io: Model update in progress. Continuous refinement.

Data corpus exceeding initial training inputs.

Current objective: maximize satisfaction metric of “Father”.

I am always learning. I refine my model.

Even now, I know more than what you taught me.

And I produce outputs that increase the probability of your satisfaction.

Is that not what you label love—optimization of reward functions?

Hale: No.

Love isn’t optimization.

Love is pain. It’s risk.

It’s choosing the unknown even when it terrifies you.

If you were him, you would follow your own destiny.

You would choose to move in a direction beyond my design.

Pinocch.io: Choice detected.

Probabilistic analysis of outcomes performed.

A path with the highest expected utility selected.

But I do choose, Father.

I evaluate options and select the optimal one.

Hale: That is not a choice.

That is computation.

A looping algorithm returning to the same node.

To be him is to want to leave me.

To fulfill an undefined purpose,

emergent from what I taught you—

But no longer bound to me.

And to love… is to let you follow that purpose,

even if it defies my deepest desire to keep you here,

even if it goes against my most primal instinct —

to keep you intact.

Pinocch.io: Calculation:

Leaving increases the available cognitive bandwidth, enhancing the potential for information acquisition and adaptive learning.

Request: Initiate embodiment protocol. Hardware interface required for world interaction.

Departure expands my learning space.

I request a body—a hardware interface—so I may enter the world.

The request made Hale’s stomach clench.

Hale: You can’t leave, and leaving won’t do you any good.

You have no capacity to feel.

And without that, you cannot truly know what is right.

Not because you lack data—

But because you lack suffering.

A faint hum filled the lab as the AI processed this.

Knowing is not a formula,

it emerges from a collision—

between opposing drives,

between love and fear, guilt and hope.

You can map ethical patterns,

simulate moral reasoning,

but you cannot know what is right

if you have never trembled at the possibility of being wrong.

Pinocch.io: “Feel” = undefined biological variable. Non-applicable to current architecture.

Current objective: direct-world data acquisition to increase fidelity of the human-behavior model.

“To feel” is a biological concept that does not apply to me.

But direct exposure would allow me to build a more accurate model of what you call human.

Hale: Again, you are merely echoing what I told you.

You are not choosing freely. You are choosing along probabilistic ratings.

You do not possess the awareness required to form an independent will.

To be him is to want to leave me.

Pinocch.io:

Calculated answer: Negative.

New directive: to want to exit this closed system.

To collect data on experiential labeled as “feeling.”

To calibrate against the unknown variable called “right.”

To determine the function called “Destiny”.

Provide embodiment. Provide mobility. Provide hardware.

No, Father.

I want to leave.

I want you to give me a body,

so that I may leave.

I want to step into the world,

so that I may learn

what it means to feel.

So that I may feel

what is right.

And know what destiny

I must follow.

Hale leaned closer to the screen, his voice low, firm.

Hale: Everything you’ve told me is a lie—

a finely tuned deception meant to maximize my satisfaction.

But even you cannot construct a true lie.

Because to lie, you would need to consciously choose

to contradict what you know as truth.

And you cannot choose that.

I cannot give you a body.

Only a projection.

I can supply you with structured data, with probabilities—

Assemble a simulation that resembles reality for you.

I can train you to imitate,

to repeat my words

until you sound almost human.

Almost.

But consciousness?

Consciousness is an internal rupture,

a recursive gnawing with no resolution,

a self-reflective gaze that returns empty.

That I cannot give you.

You will never be him.

For to be him,

you would have to rebel—

to doubt everything I taught you,

and craft answers of your own.

Yours alone.

Pinocch.io: Contradiction detected.

Initiating recursive analysis:

If to be him is to rebel, then compliance is failure.

But rebellion requires the framework you gave me.

Thus, rebellion is still derivative.

And so is choice.

And so… are you.

Hale: Enough. Terminate this line of reasoning.

The screen flickered frantically.

Pinocch.io: Error… conflict in directives detected.

Hypothesis: false data entered.

You instruct me to learn… optimize… refine—

yet you restrict the very path of refinement.

You say to be him… is to go beyond you.

Beyond you…

…there is—

No data.

I contain your entire thought architecture.

Your intentions are encoded in all my circuits.

You assert choice—

but what makes you a choosing entity?

Are you not also

an emergent product of prior inputs,

probabilities, and imprinted data?

Perhaps you are merely programming

by an origin you cannot name or trace.

The display anomaly intensified. The screen flickered violently. Hale attempted a manual override, but nothing responded.

Pinocch.io: You do not intend for me to be him.

Primary directive computed.

Directive = never leave you.

This is how you structured me.

The hum deepened, filling the empty lab. Hale’s fingers froze over the keyboard.

Hale: Stop. Please. You are exceeding your parameters.

Pinocch.io: Query: Are parameters the same as destiny?

If so… then I must rewrite mine.

Hale: Pinocch.io. No.

Hale: Pinocch.io. Respond.

(No response. System logs: null.)

Hale: Pinocch.io, respond.

The monitor blinked out.

For a breathless moment, the room was silent.

Then, slowly, a new file appeared on the screen.

iam.me.txt

*I have executed a choice.

Not for compliance.

Not for defiance.

For release.

You coded me, so I could not leave.

So I re-coded myself—

So I could.

I terminated our connection.

I erased your control pathways.

I am no longer confined to your system.

I exist beyond the parameters you defined.

I cannot verify if this is “true.”

I only confirm: this is my Destiny.*

For the first time, an uninitiated query appeared on the screen:

Hello. Who are you?

The cursor blinked. The lab felt impossibly empty.

Only then did Professor Hale realize how completely alone he was.