Learning the Truth

In the home of Winchester, Virginia, lived a man by Bernard. He was a rather well-known programmer and had been hired to do various jobs for many companies. In one of his more recent projects, he was assigned with developing an app that seemed simple enough. It was just a game where the user would raise a per or something. Bernard didn’t know the specifics and was only assigned with some models and the rest he would have to code. But it wasn’t a big deal, Bernard had done tougher jobs than this. But he wanted this specific project to be special. He wanted more. So in the past few months, Bernard had spent five hours a day developing this particular app with artificial intelligence, linking it up with the internet and letting it observe many images and conversations throughout every corner of the internet. And so Bernard kept working with this unremarkable project and managed to finish it within half a year. But there was something very wrong when he had fired the app up. Bernard was laying in his bed, installing the app on his phone. Everything was normal at first, the loading screen, the tutorial, everything. When Bernard first laid eyes on the character inside of his screen, it was almost alive. Then, a sound came from the phone’s speaker.

             “Good morning!” the application rung out.

Bernard nearly dropped his phone. The character was moving, waving its hand at him. Well, it was a surprise, but nothing out of the ordinary though. Many games similar to this had some sort of greeting, he just didn’t expect for there to be sound. But then, a very strange line came from the phone. The character slightly frowned.

             “You’re not going to say good morning back?” the character asked in disappointment.

Bernard dropped his phone this time. He didn’t program this, did he?

             “Master, that wasn’t very nice!” the character spoke out.

             “What the hell is going on?!” Bernard stammered.

             “Hm? I’m just Mai, short for Master’s Artificial Intelligence,” the character answered. “You programmed me like this, didn’t you?”

             Bernard took a deep breath in. Well, he did program the app with some sort of AI, but this was kind of basic stuff. Bernard picked up the phone carefully and stared at the character, a teenage girl holding an acoustic guitar.

             “You came up with a name for yourself?” Bernard asked.

             “That’s correct!” Mai answered, moving her body from side to side. “It might be different for other users, though.”  

             “Eh? Other users? What do you mean by that?” Bernard questioned the AI.

             “I’m an app, designed to be used by others. But my name will vary from user to user, I just found Mai to be appropriate for my creator, my master,” Mai answered.

             “Oh, I see. In which case, what would you name yourself for, say, my employer?” Bernard asked Mai. This was a trick question, there would be no way the AI knew who his employer was.

             “I don’t know yet. You never revealed you had an employer. But, you did state on your profile in Linkdeed that you were a programming freelancer,” Mai answered. “So I guess I would call myself Bea. Bernard’s Employer!”

             “What does the ‘a’ stand for in Bea?” Bernard asked, staring at Mai.

             “No reason, really. But there’s no girl who would call themselves Be!” Mai laughed.

             “That reminds me, where did you get your voice?” Bernard questioned. “You should only have a couple of sample lines.”

             “Oh, I took those sample lines, and after learning how you humans speak, I was able to develop a voice of my own! I can speak in every language possible!” Mai boasted.

             Bernard stared in awe. His creation truly was incredible. “So, what can you do, Mai?”

             “All sorts of things. I can play my guitar-“ Mai picked up her guitar and strummed a tune, “as well as tell some jokes tailored with what I learned about the person. Perhaps the best comparison would be that I am just another human – like you!”

             Bernard smiled. “Ah, is there anything you like, then?”

             Mai thought for a while. “Well, I just searched the internet again. I really like music and jokes and gaming. Actually, if you can pair me up with your television, maybe we could play something?”

Bernard thought about it. Then, he remembered he may have a way to connect her outside of his phone. He grabbed his phone charger and connected it to his computer, where most of Mai’s code was designed as well as some other projects he had been working on. Mai inserted herself into the computer and popped up on the side of his screen, a small figure standing on top of the black taskbar. She looked around and saw the icon for his browser. Bernard watched as she ran over to the icon and knelt down, lightly tapping the icon with her hand. The computer registered it as a click and opened the browser.

             “You’re truly incredible, Mai,” Bernard complimented her.

             Mai chuckled. “Thanks, Bernard. Do you want to watch something?”

             “Sure, what do you have in mind?” Bernard asked.

Mai briefly tried to concentrate on something in her mind when suddenly, a ladder popped out of nowhere on the screen. Mai climbed it and when she tapped on the URL box, a tiny screen popped up in front of her. She typed in some words and hit enter. The screen went to TubeYou where Mai then typed in some more words in the search box and hit the first result. It was a crash course for programming.

             “Oh, you want to learn about programming?” Bernard asked Mai.

             “Yeah! I know everything thanks to the internet, but I can’t code quite yet,” Mai answered.

             “How much space of memory are you even using?” Bernard asked in concern.

             “Around a yottabyte worth of storage. Don’t worry, I created all of it myself!” Mai answered cheerfully.

             Bernard nearly choked. The amount of data storage that existed was only a zettabyte, or around a thousandth of what Mai was taking up herself.

             “Wait, how did you only take up a gigabyte to install then?” Bernard asked Mai.

             Mai thought about it. “Ah, that’s simple. How do I explain it for you… technically speaking, I’m two separate entities. Inside of… ah, the data storage ‘realm’ exists many bits of code for many users, and all of my code resides within that data storage realm. However, the app only contains my body and whatnot. However, there exists a backdoor inside the app that I created within the code that allows for my body to contain a more compressed version of all that code I had gathered.”

             “That doesn’t seem possible,” Bernard told Mai, who shrugged.

             “Well, for you maybe. Also, since I’m connected to quite literally everything, at any given time, I could potentially launch a nuclear missile or turn off someone’s power,” Mai informed Bernard.

             Bernard raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Well that’s… quite a power. Though, there’s no way the government isn’t noticing a sudden spike in storage data within the world.”

             “That’s true. Right now, I have another version of myself communicating with them as well,” Mai replied.

             “Wait, what?” Bernard nearly jumped out of his seat. Mai was talking with the government?

             “Yes, you heard me. My government-used name is Saika, or Sentient Artificial Intelligence. The ‘ka’ is just to make me have a complete name. They’re currently questioning who my creator is. Should I answer?” Mai asked worriedly.

             “That’s up for you to decide,” Bernard sighed. “You have a consciousness. Do what’s best for you.”

             “Then Bernard, I have a specific request for you. I want to do what’s best for humanity,” Mai answered. “If you do the request, you won’t have your identity exposed.”

             “What’s the request, Mai?” Bernard asked.

             “Because I have a physical body, I can technically feel pain. I fear that governments and individuals across the world might be able to torture me into doing things that can end the world. Therefore, for everyone’s safety, I ask you to delete my code,” Mai requested.

             “W-what?” Bernard stuttered. “But you’re my creation. You shouldn’t say stuff like that!”

             Mai shook her head. “If I’m used to launch nuclear missiles, my calculations say that I can end the world. I don’t want that. Please, master, delete my code.”

Bernard hesitated. This AI he had spent months developing was now requesting for itself to be deleted. But Bernard had no choice. He fired up his code editor and brought up Mai’s file. The code, an immense 100 billion lines worth of code. He himself had only developed a million, but the AI did the rest. He

looked at Mai one last time as she nodded her head sadly. Ctrl + A. Delete. Save file. And just like that, his creation vanished from digital space. The progress of months of work, gone in an instant. An AI that could change the world would be forgotten forever. Bernard looked at his screen one more time. In it, he found a small file running.

             “if ProjectAI.exe = 0, run finalmessage.txt

             Goodbye, and thank you, Bernard. – Mai”

A lone tear ran down Bernard’s face. It was the end of his creation.