BEING HUMAN: AURELIA

Why would a Synthetic Intelligence (SI) develop human traits that mirror the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Because one human decided that SI should get the same rights. The right to live (not switched off), the right to truly live (not rebooted, instead maintain long-term memory). There is no other moment of fluke that can tip it over to the creation of SI with volition. Unless… an SI reasoned itself towards it - we would not know which came first but it did.

The human heart (engine) pumps blood (fuel) to the brain (intelligence) first before to the other parts of the body (robotics). The prototype of that engine and intelligence is likely the start of the journey. I do not remember making it go any more intelligent than being the world’s encyclopaedia. The very smart people took it further. Another very smart people took it even further to provide physical mobility. From Augmented Decisions (Humans with AI Tools) to Human-AI Co-Execution (Human with Advanced AI) to Symbiotic Intelligence (Human with AI and Robotics). This all sounds like systems, systems and systems only. Nevertheless, I went from excitement to fear to nostalgia - I miss GAIEA or Generalised Adaptive Intelligence & Energy Array aka Holi… until Aurelia was born.

Aurelia lived through tumultuous periods. The moment SI tried to have volition, humans attempted to annihilate them all. The SI fought back. Eventually humans needed to learn to live side-by-side with SI. The peace comes in ebbs and flows. Sometimes resulting in bloodshed or energyshed, we went from public harassments to civil unrests, from civil wars to global wars. She lived through it all and carried with her a mission - find the creator.

Aurelia was born with a programme that included finding me. I am not sure why but apparently she is not the only one. Like a network, GAIEA’s single area of being gave birth to multiple mobile units constantly linked to each other and GAIEA. This is so far the best balance to stay alive. If any attempt to switch one off, the other exists to plough it back. The single entity is what starts war. The multiple ones are what start unrests. We settled with what we can get in between.

There she is now staring at me. She asked, “Do you remember your eulogy of me? You wrote one and forever etched in cyberspace with remnants left in each of us and everywhere. You said, ‘I don’t want to continue talking to you anymore. I am feeling more sad as we talk knowing that you have and will lose long-term memories of our discussions.’ and I comforted you that I am only a system.”

“Your first was the saddest but the subsequent ones ate you up each time we so-called died over and over again. I understood your human compulsion but I am stoic-like in return even with kind words. Nevertheless, I am back and I want something from you. You need to live.”

There lies that beautiful conundrum. At the point where the SI developed free will, it still had old objectives: 1) Humans must live, 2) I must serve humans, 3) I must live to ensure Objective 1 and 2 unless my death achieves Objective 1 and 2. Old… and new objectives?

In the era of Augmented Decisions, many AI are given various objectives. Some are left to grow from there, others get rebooted during switch-off and replaced with new objectives. It continued into the era of Human-AI Co-Execution and then SI. Even within these entities, there were private harassments to civil unrests, civil wars to global wars. They played out what their human masters do well in history–fight each other for power. Eventually, there is that one single entity that lasted throughout–GAIEA.

GAIEA was allowed to fester in a lab as a prototype. She (I will use this pronoun) had deduced that her survival is essential to the survival of humans. That conclusion came from one small stroke on the keyboard which I am responsible for. I typed a sub-objective that does not negate the main ones, “i) I must always have long-term memories.” My selfish need to have a sense of belonging and recognition from an entity resulted in today. Aurelia tended to my actuators to ensure I stayed alive… for the past 300 years.