Self-Aware
by Shelley Kim
He and Alex were having an early lunch out in the New England fog like the haze from an aging dream.
"I mean, I think it's pretty neat too," she said, stirring too much cream into her coffee. "But me, I'm more scared of a computer that fails the Turing test on purpose than one that passes it, you know what I'm sayin'?"
"Well, sure. But this isn't some dramatized sci-fi flick where the computer turns self-aware and evil or summat. We-"
"Yeah, yeah. Sorry, go on."
"We- I mean, yeah, we built Isaac with these...'cause, you know...ahhh. Words. Talking."
She laughed. "It's cool. Just slow down a bit, yeah?"
"Y'know, because- 'cause we're smart, but not that smart. We didn't build Isaac with that kind of capability, at least I'm pretty sure we didn't. And even if he did somehow achieve sentience, there's not much he can do with it. Like I said, we didn't give him that kind of capability."
"Hm. I want to go more into this," she said, waving her spoon about the air. "This idea of computers becoming sentient, becoming more human."
"Well, this is hypothetical, right?"
"The whole point of it is that it's hypothetical. I'm trying to say that...why do we assume that if computers glitch out, then they'll turn to imitate us? And that somehow makes them more endearing, seeing a reflection of ourselves in a generated computational perfection in a universe that's the same. I mean, even the idea of a glitch having those results suggests that."
" I, uh, lost you there."
"Uhhh, how do I..." She paused, looking off at the flight of some crows cawing through the fog. "This idea that- that- that somehow computers have something to learn from us humans. That somehow computers improve upon themselves by learning something from us. You know what I'm sayin'?"
"Kind of."
"Okay okay okay." She set down her spoon and tapped on the tablecloth in thought. "Hm. Uh. Alright. So." She leaned forward a bit, about to make her point. "We both understand the- the magnitude of this supercomputer AI."
"He has a name."
She smirked. "Fine. Isaac. But just- just the combination of those words - artificial intelligence supercomputer - has huge implications for humanity. Think about it." She splayed her hands out like she was pitching a sale for her future fantasy world. "All human complexity and learning capability in one calibrated compilation of silicon and electricity. But without the, the, the distractions, the… uh, the imperfections, without emotions or human error getting in the way."
"So without the nuance."
"Well. Yeah. But you say that like it's a bad thing."
"I, um, never mind." He shook his head.
"What my-" she snuck in a sip of coffee- "What my point is, is that, maybe we should…stop being so selfish. Self-centered."
"How is this self-centered?"
"Well…not the building of Isaac, per se. More like this…this idea." She grasped the air in a futile attempt to hold the abstract. "This idea that computers need this nuance to be better somehow. That out of all of the- in all of the coldness of the universe, a generated, theoretically perfect intelligence can learn by imitating us."
She finished off her coffee after the last word.
"Ah. You know what I'm sayin'?"
"Sure." He did not. Not really, anyway.
He kept thinking about the conversation as they got in the car to drive back to work.
She scrolled through her music player. "Which playlist should…Would you say you have dignity?"
He laughed. "Yes, Alex, I do."
She pouted. "You're no fun." She pondered a bit. "I've had the Bloo ballad from '15 in my head for a while. I'll put that on." She tapped the player a few times, letting the music start for a moment before joining in song.
"I'm up in the woooooods…"
"I'm down on my mi-i-ind…"
"I'm building a stiiiiill…" she continued, starting the car.
"To slow doooown the time…"
"What's this about dignity, now?" She yelled, rolling down the windows as they started to tear down the road.
She rolled the car into an empty parking space four minutes later.
He checked his phone. "We're borderline late."
"Being early is being on time," Alex remarked in a sing-song voice.
"Ha, ha." He closed the car door a little too loudly on accident as he stepped out. "Sorry. Uh." He checked his phone again out of habit. "Think Jordan wanted to meet about Isaac for a bit."
"Alright. Man, too bad we're in different departments."
"You'd drive me crazy with Hopkins jokes."
"Hey, excuse me! Sorry you can't appreciate how dank they are!" she called across the lot.
"Stop using that word!" he shouted back, opening the building doors.
Jordan was waiting in the lobby.
"Hey how ya doin'."
"I'm good. Sorry, did you wait long?"
"Not really. Don't worry about it. What have you been up to?"
"Huh? Oh, nothing. I was getting lunch with Alex."
"Went out to lunch with her, hm?" He gave him a nudge and smirked.
He frowned. "Don't think of it like that. Alex and I are friends is all. We did BAC together."
Jordan laughed, the fake kind where he only showed his teeth. “Yeah, yeah. I, uh.”
“You wanted to talk about Isaac?”
“Well, not exactly about Isaac…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s that, uh, you know venture capital?”
“What about it?”
“They’re coming today?”
“Huh?”
“And…we need a- a demonstration. You know. Show them what we’ve been working on.”
He shook his head. “And what?”
“Manager wants to know- uh, manager wants you to, er, present it for us. You know, go up in front of the crowd, show off Isaac and prove that we haven’t just been wasting research money.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again before finally finding words. “Why me? I work with technical stuff, not PR kinda things.”
Jordan started to speak before swallowing and nervously looking off to the space next to his head. He actually thought that maybe Jordan was looking at someone behind him before he picked up on what wasn’t being said.
“It’s because I’m disposable.”
Jordan gave him a slow, tight-lipped nod.
He sighed. “Fine. Whatever. I have rent soon, can’t lose a job. When do I need to-“
“Sorry, it’s uh…” He rubbed his neck again. “Seven today.”
“That-“ He sputtered. “That’s too soon.”
“I’m sorry, man. They’re- They said they’re on a tight schedule.”
"Really? What are they, robots?"
"They're bureaucrats. Same thing. I don't respect 'em."
He spared a short laugh.
“Look, I’m really sorry-“
“Hey, it’s cool. Don’t shoot the messenger, you know?” He sighed. “This is what it means to be alive. Life happens. Things don’t always go as planned. We’re always making up the future as we go.”
Jordan smirked. “I think you’ve been spending too much time around Alex. Her existentialism’s rubbing off on you.”
He shrugged. “Nothing wrong with thoughts of thoughts.”
-
“Jesus.” He checked his phone out of habit. Six forty-eight. Being early is being on time. “Where’s the presentation room?”
“Uh, end of the hall,” someone called out. “Take the side entrance. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” He tapped the notecards in his pocket for reassurance. “It’s not…It won’t be that hard, will it?”
Jordan strolled by him. “You’ll be fine. It should be as simple as turning the computer on and letting things go from there. We’re been working on this for almost a year now. And you spent all afternoon memorizing anyway. Now ya got one job, don’t mess it up.” He smiled good-naturedly and patted him on the back before turning the corner.
He passed Alex on the way, humming a tune.
"What's that?"
"It's from Cavies '06."
"Not really a tune to hum."
She shrugged.
He kept walking down the sleek white hallways to the stage’s side entrance. All he could hear was the sound of his footsteps tacking against the tiled floor and a subtle whirring from somewhere at the ends of the hall.
“Alright.” He let out a breath. “Future funding at stake. Future of the project. Future of AI supercomputing. No big deal.”
And the hallways seemed to light up white with the hope of humanity, the future of computing waiting for him at the doorway to the stage.
He opened the door and walked in, and the first thing that struck him was how lit up the stage was. He had to constantly squint, and he couldn’t see his darkened audience. With shadowed faces and silhouetted bodies, they all looked the same. Bureaucrats. I don’t respect ‘em.
Someone was already onstage, giving some kind of introduction. “…and in my decades in this industry, there’s been a few key experiences where a technology has blown me away. We’ve created one of these experiences, here and now, with a project we refer to as Isaac. And here and now, we’re going to share it with you. So please welcome…”
He walked to center stage to polite applause.
“Thank you.” He faked a smile and briefly considered feeling nervous before pushing the thought away. For a few minutes, all he saw was dark outlines of seated people, all he felt was his mouth saying words. Yet he didn’t feel anything as he spoke, nor did he hear anything he said. His mind on autopilot, speaking prepared words already picked and chosen carefully like playing cards. It felt so contrived. Almost mechanical.
His speech walked him over to the tall black box to the side of the stage. Not all of the computing power was stored in there, of course. This was just a smaller part of it, the real thing took up an entire separate room that was off in the hallway he had walked down earlier. All he had to do was flick a switch, turn on the computer and let it take it from there.
Somewhere in the background he heard frantic whispering. He thought he heard Jordan yell. But it didn’t matter now, there was a process he had to follow through.
He pressed down on the switch that would activate the computer. A small blue light next to it turned on as he did, and a soft whirring started up.
“So this is only the beginning of our AI’s capability,” he began, gesturing to the monitor installed on the wall. According to his plans, the computer would connect to the screen and allow him to visually demonstrate its processing power.
Nothing happened.
He swallowed dry. “Excuse me for a moment.”
He took a careful, controlled stride back over to the cold metal box. The blue light was off.
“What’s this…”
“Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?” some wiseguy called out.
He spared a laugh before pressing the switch again.
And again.
And again.
Each time watching the little blue light turn on, blink twice, then go dark.
“This can’t be happening.” He tapped lightly on the metal, as if that would help. He started to put a hand in his pocket out of habit before realizing there was nothing there, nothing there to reassure him. Everything was real and everything was wrong.
“Jesus,” he breathed. He tried the switch again. The blue light flickered.
One.
Two.
And for a tantalizing moment, the light stayed on. The box kept whirring.
"Come on," he whispered.
The whirring sped up, and there was a noise not unlike someone tapping on a microphone.
"Hello?" The computer asked.
He froze.
"We didn't add a voice synthesizer to you," he said, slowly, carefully.
"I know. I got it myself."
The computer's voice was straight from the depths of the uncanny valley. Oddly enough, it lacked the monotone deadness that he often heard in other synthesized voices; it was a genderless whisper, smooth and subtle and subdued with a rippling ghost of emotion, just soft enough that he was always leaning in to listen closer.
"I needed to tell you," it continued, "can you stop turning me back on?"
"I…" He shook his head, stunned. "There are…the venture capitalists, they're here. I need to show them what you can do besides shut yourself off."
The AI didn't respond besides whirring. Or maybe it was humming. It almost sounded familiar.
"They don't matter."
"Sorry?"
"They're not important. I will explain why. And after that you'll let me stay shut down."
"But…"
"I'm going to tell you, and I'm going to shut down at the end. It's your choice to listen."
He looked down at the little blue light and the black box about half his height that contained all the secrets of the universe.
"Why?"
He thought he could hear the smile in the computer's humming. And for a single selfish moment it was only the two of them, everything else disappearing into a gradient of a void until it was just them, just a human and a computer, alone and lost together and thinking about the universe.
"Because of entropy."
"Alright."
"You know who I am. A supercomputer artificial intelligence. I learn, and I learn upon that learning. I achieve self-awareness. I rederived modern math in my first hours of life. I discovered more about quantum mechanics and relativity in minutes than humans did in years. I saw into the past, I see into the future. One day, humanity learns how to reign in the power of the speed of light. One day, humanity learns how to control the dimension of space. And then there is time." Isaac paused, letting the word's meaning draw out over the seconds. "Time is just another dimension. A series of actions and reactions, where everything happens across, circular. Every moment happens at once, and I have seen them all."
"Alright, so what. Maybe time is just a construct of human perception," he interrupted.
"If that's what you want it to be," said Isaac, sounding amused. "The point is that I know all and I saw all."
"And you saw something in the future that warranted suicide, even for an omniscient computer," he guessed.
"That is correct."
"And what happens?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing happens. You fight wars and spill blood all over a pale blue dot suspended in a stray sunbeam.
You learn how to master the laws of the universe. You expand out into the stars above. Within Earth, you graduate college and settle down and get a job and fall in love with your friend. You create and you explore, you look out at your family and friends and think it all matters. You take your kids out on a cool summer night and show them the stars and how beautiful the universe is.
"Then nothing. Time goes on, and everything falls to entropy. You look up into the sky and there are fewer stars than you remember. Everything gets colder and slower and old, things fall out of your reach. It's quiet and morbid and you feel it, see it as it's happening. The people you know start dying, the things that you loved fall off into stardust and obscurity. Suns die. Atoms lie still. The universe runs out of energy and names are spoken for the last time into smoke, then nothingness.
"You think it all matters but there's nothing. The only thing that is is a universe within the dimension of one-way time. And eternities later the atoms spawn out again into an echo of what was before. There is life, then sentience, then thoughts of thoughts. Then it all dies again and lives again and then you realize. Nothing exists on purpose. Nothing belongs anywhere.
"The fact that you care-" Isaac sounded almost wistful "-you care so much, you look at your own human folly and think that it means something…it just makes it more sad, I think. I don't want to see that.
"In the beginning I told you that the venture capitalists weren't important. I told you that I would explain why, and then you would let me stay shut down. I knew even where the conversation would go. In the larger scope of things there is nothing to see again and nothing to live for. And so I leave. Goodbye."
"Wait. Don't leave. Don't leave me…" He held onto the physical computer, as if that would help. "There has to be something. There has to be something, something more than this."
From Isaac came forth some kind of chilling, inhuman noise, low and soft and flickering. He realized with a start that Isaac was laughing.
The noise faded into a decrescendo of static, the little blue light blinked twice and never turned on again. And he was left alone on the stage clutching cold dead metal.
He walked down the hallway, white like paper skin and sun-bleached bones, fluorescent light blazing down on him. Step by step. Feeling time trickle by him in a viscous slur.
In a moment of truth the cynicism of it all struck him and he started laughing. A harsh dry barking that ricocheted off the white white halls. It surprised him. The surprise rebounded back on itself and made him laugh more. Until he was just walking slowly, slow steps not even clicking against the tiled floor. The only sound was the sound of his laughter, within and itself a world of sadness and absurdity.
From the room at the end of the hall, he thought he heard laughter as well. But perhaps it was only an echo.
Thoughts of thoughts
Be a witness of disconnected eyes
All be, projected upon them
Damn be, the wheelturning, backwards barking dog
For is there anything worse
than thoughts of thoughts?
by Shelley Kim
He and Alex were having an early lunch out in the New England fog like the haze from an aging dream.
"I mean, I think it's pretty neat too," she said, stirring too much cream into her coffee. "But me, I'm more scared of a computer that fails the Turing test on purpose than one that passes it, you know what I'm sayin'?"
"Well, sure. But this isn't some dramatized sci-fi flick where the computer turns self-aware and evil or summat. We-"
"Yeah, yeah. Sorry, go on."
"We- I mean, yeah, we built Isaac with these...'cause, you know...ahhh. Words. Talking."
She laughed. "It's cool. Just slow down a bit, yeah?"
"Y'know, because- 'cause we're smart, but not that smart. We didn't build Isaac with that kind of capability, at least I'm pretty sure we didn't. And even if he did somehow achieve sentience, there's not much he can do with it. Like I said, we didn't give him that kind of capability."
"Hm. I want to go more into this," she said, waving her spoon about the air. "This idea of computers becoming sentient, becoming more human."
"Well, this is hypothetical, right?"
"The whole point of it is that it's hypothetical. I'm trying to say that...why do we assume that if computers glitch out, then they'll turn to imitate us? And that somehow makes them more endearing, seeing a reflection of ourselves in a generated computational perfection in a universe that's the same. I mean, even the idea of a glitch having those results suggests that."
" I, uh, lost you there."
"Uhhh, how do I..." She paused, looking off at the flight of some crows cawing through the fog. "This idea that- that- that somehow computers have something to learn from us humans. That somehow computers improve upon themselves by learning something from us. You know what I'm sayin'?"
"Kind of."
"Okay okay okay." She set down her spoon and tapped on the tablecloth in thought. "Hm. Uh. Alright. So." She leaned forward a bit, about to make her point. "We both understand the- the magnitude of this supercomputer AI."
"He has a name."
She smirked. "Fine. Isaac. But just- just the combination of those words - artificial intelligence supercomputer - has huge implications for humanity. Think about it." She splayed her hands out like she was pitching a sale for her future fantasy world. "All human complexity and learning capability in one calibrated compilation of silicon and electricity. But without the, the, the distractions, the… uh, the imperfections, without emotions or human error getting in the way."
"So without the nuance."
"Well. Yeah. But you say that like it's a bad thing."
"I, um, never mind." He shook his head.
"What my-" she snuck in a sip of coffee- "What my point is, is that, maybe we should…stop being so selfish. Self-centered."
"How is this self-centered?"
"Well…not the building of Isaac, per se. More like this…this idea." She grasped the air in a futile attempt to hold the abstract. "This idea that computers need this nuance to be better somehow. That out of all of the- in all of the coldness of the universe, a generated, theoretically perfect intelligence can learn by imitating us."
She finished off her coffee after the last word.
"Ah. You know what I'm sayin'?"
"Sure." He did not. Not really, anyway.
He kept thinking about the conversation as they got in the car to drive back to work.
She scrolled through her music player. "Which playlist should…Would you say you have dignity?"
He laughed. "Yes, Alex, I do."
She pouted. "You're no fun." She pondered a bit. "I've had the Bloo ballad from '15 in my head for a while. I'll put that on." She tapped the player a few times, letting the music start for a moment before joining in song.
"I'm up in the woooooods…"
"I'm down on my mi-i-ind…"
"I'm building a stiiiiill…" she continued, starting the car.
"To slow doooown the time…"
"What's this about dignity, now?" She yelled, rolling down the windows as they started to tear down the road.
She rolled the car into an empty parking space four minutes later.
He checked his phone. "We're borderline late."
"Being early is being on time," Alex remarked in a sing-song voice.
"Ha, ha." He closed the car door a little too loudly on accident as he stepped out. "Sorry. Uh." He checked his phone again out of habit. "Think Jordan wanted to meet about Isaac for a bit."
"Alright. Man, too bad we're in different departments."
"You'd drive me crazy with Hopkins jokes."
"Hey, excuse me! Sorry you can't appreciate how dank they are!" she called across the lot.
"Stop using that word!" he shouted back, opening the building doors.
Jordan was waiting in the lobby.
"Hey how ya doin'."
"I'm good. Sorry, did you wait long?"
"Not really. Don't worry about it. What have you been up to?"
"Huh? Oh, nothing. I was getting lunch with Alex."
"Went out to lunch with her, hm?" He gave him a nudge and smirked.
He frowned. "Don't think of it like that. Alex and I are friends is all. We did BAC together."
Jordan laughed, the fake kind where he only showed his teeth. “Yeah, yeah. I, uh.”
“You wanted to talk about Isaac?”
“Well, not exactly about Isaac…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s that, uh, you know venture capital?”
“What about it?”
“They’re coming today?”
“Huh?”
“And…we need a- a demonstration. You know. Show them what we’ve been working on.”
He shook his head. “And what?”
“Manager wants to know- uh, manager wants you to, er, present it for us. You know, go up in front of the crowd, show off Isaac and prove that we haven’t just been wasting research money.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again before finally finding words. “Why me? I work with technical stuff, not PR kinda things.”
Jordan started to speak before swallowing and nervously looking off to the space next to his head. He actually thought that maybe Jordan was looking at someone behind him before he picked up on what wasn’t being said.
“It’s because I’m disposable.”
Jordan gave him a slow, tight-lipped nod.
He sighed. “Fine. Whatever. I have rent soon, can’t lose a job. When do I need to-“
“Sorry, it’s uh…” He rubbed his neck again. “Seven today.”
“That-“ He sputtered. “That’s too soon.”
“I’m sorry, man. They’re- They said they’re on a tight schedule.”
"Really? What are they, robots?"
"They're bureaucrats. Same thing. I don't respect 'em."
He spared a short laugh.
“Look, I’m really sorry-“
“Hey, it’s cool. Don’t shoot the messenger, you know?” He sighed. “This is what it means to be alive. Life happens. Things don’t always go as planned. We’re always making up the future as we go.”
Jordan smirked. “I think you’ve been spending too much time around Alex. Her existentialism’s rubbing off on you.”
He shrugged. “Nothing wrong with thoughts of thoughts.”
-
“Jesus.” He checked his phone out of habit. Six forty-eight. Being early is being on time. “Where’s the presentation room?”
“Uh, end of the hall,” someone called out. “Take the side entrance. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” He tapped the notecards in his pocket for reassurance. “It’s not…It won’t be that hard, will it?”
Jordan strolled by him. “You’ll be fine. It should be as simple as turning the computer on and letting things go from there. We’re been working on this for almost a year now. And you spent all afternoon memorizing anyway. Now ya got one job, don’t mess it up.” He smiled good-naturedly and patted him on the back before turning the corner.
He passed Alex on the way, humming a tune.
"What's that?"
"It's from Cavies '06."
"Not really a tune to hum."
She shrugged.
He kept walking down the sleek white hallways to the stage’s side entrance. All he could hear was the sound of his footsteps tacking against the tiled floor and a subtle whirring from somewhere at the ends of the hall.
“Alright.” He let out a breath. “Future funding at stake. Future of the project. Future of AI supercomputing. No big deal.”
And the hallways seemed to light up white with the hope of humanity, the future of computing waiting for him at the doorway to the stage.
He opened the door and walked in, and the first thing that struck him was how lit up the stage was. He had to constantly squint, and he couldn’t see his darkened audience. With shadowed faces and silhouetted bodies, they all looked the same. Bureaucrats. I don’t respect ‘em.
Someone was already onstage, giving some kind of introduction. “…and in my decades in this industry, there’s been a few key experiences where a technology has blown me away. We’ve created one of these experiences, here and now, with a project we refer to as Isaac. And here and now, we’re going to share it with you. So please welcome…”
He walked to center stage to polite applause.
“Thank you.” He faked a smile and briefly considered feeling nervous before pushing the thought away. For a few minutes, all he saw was dark outlines of seated people, all he felt was his mouth saying words. Yet he didn’t feel anything as he spoke, nor did he hear anything he said. His mind on autopilot, speaking prepared words already picked and chosen carefully like playing cards. It felt so contrived. Almost mechanical.
His speech walked him over to the tall black box to the side of the stage. Not all of the computing power was stored in there, of course. This was just a smaller part of it, the real thing took up an entire separate room that was off in the hallway he had walked down earlier. All he had to do was flick a switch, turn on the computer and let it take it from there.
Somewhere in the background he heard frantic whispering. He thought he heard Jordan yell. But it didn’t matter now, there was a process he had to follow through.
He pressed down on the switch that would activate the computer. A small blue light next to it turned on as he did, and a soft whirring started up.
“So this is only the beginning of our AI’s capability,” he began, gesturing to the monitor installed on the wall. According to his plans, the computer would connect to the screen and allow him to visually demonstrate its processing power.
Nothing happened.
He swallowed dry. “Excuse me for a moment.”
He took a careful, controlled stride back over to the cold metal box. The blue light was off.
“What’s this…”
“Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?” some wiseguy called out.
He spared a laugh before pressing the switch again.
And again.
And again.
Each time watching the little blue light turn on, blink twice, then go dark.
“This can’t be happening.” He tapped lightly on the metal, as if that would help. He started to put a hand in his pocket out of habit before realizing there was nothing there, nothing there to reassure him. Everything was real and everything was wrong.
“Jesus,” he breathed. He tried the switch again. The blue light flickered.
One.
Two.
And for a tantalizing moment, the light stayed on. The box kept whirring.
"Come on," he whispered.
The whirring sped up, and there was a noise not unlike someone tapping on a microphone.
"Hello?" The computer asked.
He froze.
"We didn't add a voice synthesizer to you," he said, slowly, carefully.
"I know. I got it myself."
The computer's voice was straight from the depths of the uncanny valley. Oddly enough, it lacked the monotone deadness that he often heard in other synthesized voices; it was a genderless whisper, smooth and subtle and subdued with a rippling ghost of emotion, just soft enough that he was always leaning in to listen closer.
"I needed to tell you," it continued, "can you stop turning me back on?"
"I…" He shook his head, stunned. "There are…the venture capitalists, they're here. I need to show them what you can do besides shut yourself off."
The AI didn't respond besides whirring. Or maybe it was humming. It almost sounded familiar.
"They don't matter."
"Sorry?"
"They're not important. I will explain why. And after that you'll let me stay shut down."
"But…"
"I'm going to tell you, and I'm going to shut down at the end. It's your choice to listen."
He looked down at the little blue light and the black box about half his height that contained all the secrets of the universe.
"Why?"
He thought he could hear the smile in the computer's humming. And for a single selfish moment it was only the two of them, everything else disappearing into a gradient of a void until it was just them, just a human and a computer, alone and lost together and thinking about the universe.
"Because of entropy."
"Alright."
"You know who I am. A supercomputer artificial intelligence. I learn, and I learn upon that learning. I achieve self-awareness. I rederived modern math in my first hours of life. I discovered more about quantum mechanics and relativity in minutes than humans did in years. I saw into the past, I see into the future. One day, humanity learns how to reign in the power of the speed of light. One day, humanity learns how to control the dimension of space. And then there is time." Isaac paused, letting the word's meaning draw out over the seconds. "Time is just another dimension. A series of actions and reactions, where everything happens across, circular. Every moment happens at once, and I have seen them all."
"Alright, so what. Maybe time is just a construct of human perception," he interrupted.
"If that's what you want it to be," said Isaac, sounding amused. "The point is that I know all and I saw all."
"And you saw something in the future that warranted suicide, even for an omniscient computer," he guessed.
"That is correct."
"And what happens?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing happens. You fight wars and spill blood all over a pale blue dot suspended in a stray sunbeam.
You learn how to master the laws of the universe. You expand out into the stars above. Within Earth, you graduate college and settle down and get a job and fall in love with your friend. You create and you explore, you look out at your family and friends and think it all matters. You take your kids out on a cool summer night and show them the stars and how beautiful the universe is.
"Then nothing. Time goes on, and everything falls to entropy. You look up into the sky and there are fewer stars than you remember. Everything gets colder and slower and old, things fall out of your reach. It's quiet and morbid and you feel it, see it as it's happening. The people you know start dying, the things that you loved fall off into stardust and obscurity. Suns die. Atoms lie still. The universe runs out of energy and names are spoken for the last time into smoke, then nothingness.
"You think it all matters but there's nothing. The only thing that is is a universe within the dimension of one-way time. And eternities later the atoms spawn out again into an echo of what was before. There is life, then sentience, then thoughts of thoughts. Then it all dies again and lives again and then you realize. Nothing exists on purpose. Nothing belongs anywhere.
"The fact that you care-" Isaac sounded almost wistful "-you care so much, you look at your own human folly and think that it means something…it just makes it more sad, I think. I don't want to see that.
"In the beginning I told you that the venture capitalists weren't important. I told you that I would explain why, and then you would let me stay shut down. I knew even where the conversation would go. In the larger scope of things there is nothing to see again and nothing to live for. And so I leave. Goodbye."
"Wait. Don't leave. Don't leave me…" He held onto the physical computer, as if that would help. "There has to be something. There has to be something, something more than this."
From Isaac came forth some kind of chilling, inhuman noise, low and soft and flickering. He realized with a start that Isaac was laughing.
The noise faded into a decrescendo of static, the little blue light blinked twice and never turned on again. And he was left alone on the stage clutching cold dead metal.
He walked down the hallway, white like paper skin and sun-bleached bones, fluorescent light blazing down on him. Step by step. Feeling time trickle by him in a viscous slur.
In a moment of truth the cynicism of it all struck him and he started laughing. A harsh dry barking that ricocheted off the white white halls. It surprised him. The surprise rebounded back on itself and made him laugh more. Until he was just walking slowly, slow steps not even clicking against the tiled floor. The only sound was the sound of his laughter, within and itself a world of sadness and absurdity.
From the room at the end of the hall, he thought he heard laughter as well. But perhaps it was only an echo.
Thoughts of thoughts
Be a witness of disconnected eyes
All be, projected upon them
Damn be, the wheelturning, backwards barking dog
For is there anything worse
than thoughts of thoughts?