Suicide

SUICIDE

WARNING!

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MAY BE HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH

Generally premeditated but, in this case, it was the unintentional taking of ones life,

along with everyone else's!

by

ROBERT JEFFERY FIRTH

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REAL WAR

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Copyright © 2019 by Robert J. Firth

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10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1

ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-3507-7

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

FORWARD

CHAPTER 1

THE COLD GREY WET

CHAPTER 2

EARLY DAYS

CHAPTER 3

WHAT DID THE GOVERNMENT WANT?

CHAPTER 4

THE LUNATIC FEDS ARE BACK AND IT’S NOT GOOD

CHAPTER 5

THE END

CHAPTER 6

THE BRAVE NEW WORLD

CHAPTER 7

HOW IT ALL WORKS- OR WORKED!

CHAPTER 8

THE HUMAN WORLD WAS CHANGING

CHAPTER 9

BRAVE NEW WORLD

CHAPTER 10

THE WORLD OF AI

CHAPTER 11

WHERE DID THEY ALL GO and, where did I go?

CHAPTER 12

MY FAMILY AND I DISAPPEAR

CHAPTER 13

CANADA, OH CANADA

CHAPTER 14

A LONG WAY TO GO

CHAPTER 15

THE END OF WAR -AND THE END OF US

CHAPTER 16

GETTING CLOSE TO HOME

CHAPTER 17

WM CHANGES 'IT'S MIND?

CHAPTER 18

OUT OF THE ICE

CHAPTER 19

FROM STONE AGE TO 2060

CHAPTER 20

WM EXPLAINS

CHAPTER 21

WHAT REMAINED, WHAT IS AND WHAT WILL BE

CHAPTER 22

ADAPTING

CHAPTER 23

HUMANITY REGENERATES

CHAPTER 24

THE PLAN

CHAPTER 25

WE SHUT "HIM' DOWN

CHAPTER 26

AFTERMATH

AFTERTHOUGHTS

FORWARD

Humans are flesh and blood. We are relatively physically weak. To make ourselves stronger and able to do more, we made, make and use tools. We made and make wagons, cars, steam-engines, gasoline engines, aircraft and an amazing assortment of useful things. We made telephones, radios, televisions, wrote music and books. We made towns cities, bridges and highways. We made movies, built libraries, designed and built great ships and submarines. We delivered humans to the moon and send satellites and exploration ships into space. We also invented computers.

Computers were, in the early days, like the Chinese abacus, simply tools to speed up computations. Later, they were found useful for accessing and storing information and even later, they were found useful in performing certain repetitive tasks.

We learned that, with some innovations, computers could even steer vehicles. Of course, we had adopted the computer to steer aircraft even earlier. In fact, the aircraft autopilot, a fairly primitive form of computer, did a better job of flying than the human pilot.

We built computer driven surgical instruments that could perform simple operations. As the information age grew, schools trained programmers and computer engineers. Entire education programs were formed at almost all universities to teach initial and advance robotics. The idea of passing on dull and simple work to robots was exceedingly attractive- especially so to industry.

The world of Capitalism embraced robotics as a gift from the Gods. Robots didn't whine, didn't need days off, took no vacations needed no medical care, required no retirement and no unions! My God, bring them on- quickly please!

The technical minded segment of society and industry responded. As rapidly as possible, robots were designed, manufactured and delivered to take over the work of humans. Thousands of flesh and blood humans were laid off. Robots painted cars, picked fruit, cut grass and drove vehicles. Gone were the truck drivers, taxi drivers and airline pilots. Gone were personal vehicles and motorcycles, outlawed in the interests of safety. Gone were almost all factory workers. Amazon drones delivered everything.

The military brass was delighted. Now they could send an armed killer drone ten thousand miles away to kill people they didn't like. War-bots were built that took the place of human boots on the ground in many conflicts.

A new era was emerging in the world of computers- Artificial Intelligence- a computer that uses memory and inputted logic to make independent decisions. The boffins finally did it! They made a computer that could seemingly 'think!' The test was a person would talk to it and it would respond- an actual two-way discussion. If the human didn't know and couldn't tell that he was talking to a computer- they had done it- AI, Artificial Intelligence!

AI has been discussed and studied for decades. During the evolutionary period called knowledge engineering they progressed to model- and algorithm-based 'machine learning. Today, the AI field is increasingly focused on perception, reasoning and generalization, AI in China, America and throughout the educated world is today of primary import.

Could an AI computer demonstrate self-awareness? Did it sense that it was an independent entity? Did it feel? How did it perceive itself? What did it think we were? These were the questions the scientists struggled with in the dawning of the age of AI! What were the dangers AI posed? Can it be controlled? Will it control us?

Today, few major industries do not employ AI or, narrow AI, to perform tasks with data-trained models. Many applications fall into the category of deep learning or actual machine learning. Data collection and analysis has increased considerably due to IoT connectivity.

IoT refers to 'The internet of things meaning a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifiers (UIDs) and the ability to transfer data over a given network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

Many futurists, including the late Stephen Hawking said that if AI itself begins designing better AI than its human programmers, the result could be machines whose intelligence exceeds ours by more than ours exceeds that of snails."

Elon Musk has warned us for some years that AGI (artificial general intelligence) is humanity’s biggest existential threat. The work to bring it to life is like summoning the demon. He expressed concern that his pal, Google co-founder and Alphabet CEO, Larry Page, could accidentally bring something evil into our world. Musk warned us to be 'very careful' with AI. At some point it won't have any use for Humans. It will know all there is to know and its intellect will far outstrip humanity. Be careful, be very careful! Sadly, as we discuss in Suicide, 'we' weren't listening!

Dr. Robert Heath Johnson PhD

Somewhere in the Canadian woods, 2058

CHAPTER 1



THE COLD GREY WET

A slow, cold rain slapped hard on the moss covered stone roof. As Frost said, the woods were 'lovely, dark and deep.' I doubt, were he here with me, that he would call this 'lovely!' Dark and deep, yes, lovely no! I was living on an island in Northern Canada. It was November 22, I think, a day before the American thanksgiving, which the Canadians don't celebrate, but then, there weren't any Canadians anymore. I was alone- really alone.

The year is 2059. The greater part of mankind, including India and China, no longer were with us. Some humans perhaps survived in remote places, isolated small pockets of humanity- hidden away as was I.

Killer drones, dispatched by Sky-Spy satellites, had been hunting the remaining humans for more than 15 years. There couldn't be too many of us left. Any kind of electronic communication was instantly detected and guaranteed an immediate visit by a not too friendly drone. No one dared to send electronic signals. Perhaps smoke signals might work as did primitive plains Indians many years ago.

I had decided to write this journal for some future archeologist or whoever might visit earth and perhaps find my cabin; to tell them what had happened. So, what did happen?

It was dark, it gets dark early this late in the year. I put my HRC on (heat reflective cover gear) on and headed out to see what I might find to eat. No human was safe day or night walking about without HRC. Sky-Spys capture the 'human signature' from low earth orbit (about 1,200 miles) sending instant signals resulting in a visit by a hunting drone. Once a live human is located the drone circles indefinitely, patiently, waiting until its target(s) is sighted and eliminated.

Bears, Elk and Deer etc., were safe enough as the electronic discrimination algorithms were absolutely precise. Only humans were identified, targeted and eliminated. As I walked through the dark woods toward the lake, my thoughts turned to earlier days, happier days.

The ground was soggy and wet. My boots were rubber with leather uppers, designed for cold weather. I found them in a barrel in an abandoned outdoor store in Weyburn, a small city in Saskatchewan not far north of the US border.

My island was about 12 to 15 miles long and 5 to 7 wide, it's tied into the rest of Canada by a soggy marsh that could be best crossed in winter when everything's frozen. I've been 'existing' here for some twelve years now. Truthfully, I don't know why I keep on. My life is hard and pointless and I've often thought of just ending it. As far as I can see into the future, there is no future, not for me and certainly not for humanity. I suppose the urge, or driving force, of all living things is simply to live. It's like our 'prime directive.'

Speaking of which, the 'prime directive,' is, as you probably know, a programming term from the early days of AI computer design. I was, sorry to say, back, then, one of the builders of the AI architecture. I remember that we were all excited about artificial intelligence but, in those days, we really didn't know shit about it. We learned, oh boy, did we ever learn!

Here I am at the edge of the forest. Even with the HRC, it isn't safe to leave the wet canopy of leaves. I had built a kind of tunnel about four feet high that led to the waters edge. This allowed me to reach my fishing site unexposed and, in the winter, to ice fish with enough overhead protection to make me hopefully invisible (undetectable) from above.

My lines were always baited and two of the four had fat fish. Re-baited, I crawled back to the forest to check my traps. One had an opossum. I skinned and gutted the critter on the spot saving his insides for fish bait. It's funny how changed I've become over these years. Back in California, I had never been hunting or fishing. I had never even thought about killing an animal for food- that would have been, to my weenie early-self, disgusting, downright primitive and evil.

Back in my hut; I lit a small oil lamp, shed my boots, taking care to carefully rub some animal grease into the leather and remove the dirt from the soles. My cabin was made from large and small mostly flat rocks I had gathered from the lake shore and a kind of natural quarry I found on one side of the island. It had taken me two years to build. I could work only at night as in the early days, the drones were far more numerous and the hunting of humans far more rewarding (for the drones) as many humans had fled the cities into the Canadian woods. Anyone caught out in daylight was dead meat. The drone