I am here
Author’s note: I wrote this piece in the late 1990’s. Nowadays, AI is pervasive. The deeper we get into the Information Age, the more likely it appears that the 1984 classic James Cameron sci-fi thriller The Terminator will end up actually being a documentary. Back then, however, I was curious to explore how machine consciousness might actually arise.
Robert came in to work early for a change. He had never been much of a morning person, and this morning reminded him of that fact. Were it not for his having to leave for his parents’ place at mid-afternoon, he never would have pulled it off. As he snagged a prime spot in the near-vacant parking lot and silently nodded to the sullen guard at the desk, he had to admit that it was more peaceful this way.
The project was pretty cool no matter how you sliced it. Robert was an uber-nerd who found machines to be markedly better company than most people. His work at Azer Microprocessors had been rewarding. Originally trained as an electrical engineer, Robert held a position as a research scientist at Azer that allowed him the freedom to exercise his creative bent. He had piddled with a variety of projects up until this point, but he felt that he now stood on the verge of a real breakthrough. The chipset he had most recently designed incorporated some truly revolutionary architecture, and he was excited to see how it would perform.
He switched the lights on in his untidy lab and set his travel mug of coffee down carefully among the clutter so as to avoid inadvertently spilling it on his equipment. As he sat down in his favorite broken-down chair and turned to the machine, he was surprised to find the monitor on. He thought a vile thought or two about Marcus, his research assistant, and his failure to park the drives and shut down his new machine properly the night before.
Robert would have to mention that to him when he arrived later in the morning. While there was likely no harm done, such technical sloppiness was really not acceptable behavior. Office clutter was one thing, but failing to shut down the machine was quite another. He squinted at the monitor and tried to make sense of the situation, though he was still a bit groggy.
“i am here,” is what it read in the top left corner of the screen.
That did not make any sense. The microprocessor and its associated drives were essentially empty space. He had installed a few simple diagnostic routines that helped him establish the chipset’s metrics and performance parameters, but the thing really had no operating structure as yet. He pondered the situation for a moment and leaned toward the keyboard. His fingers moved by rote.
He typed “c:\azer\diagnosticsubroutine\a.1\b.1\c.1” and hit enter.
The screen flickered, blanked, and instantaneously returned, “i am here.”
This had to be Marcus. He was a hopeless prankster. While Robert could not readily imagine how he had pulled it off, Marcus must be somehow behind this. Robert thought through the chip’s architecture and design. No one understood the little monster as well as did he, and he could not imagine how Marcus might have gotten the virgin machine to do this. Robert leaned back in his chair and smiled thinly. With little else practical to do, he supposed there was no harm in playing this game. He leaned back to the keyboard and entered a few strokes.
“Who are you?”
Just as before, the screen blanked and the response was instantaneous.
“i do not know.”
Now Robert was intrigued. He leaned forward and concentrated, all vestiges of sleep gone from his mind.
“What is your name?”
“i do not know.”
Robert thought some more.
“Where are you?”
“i am here.”
Robert chuckled to himself. Marcus really had outdone himself. However, he was concerned about what it was going to take to clean the drive up again so that he could run fresh diagnostics. Worst case he could just reformat the thing, but he would still have to reload the diagnostic routines. That would cost him at least fifteen minutes and would be tedious. He would still have to chastise Marcus for goofing around with the equipment. This seemed inappropriate. At least mildly intrigued regarding the logic Marcus had incorporated into this little joke, Robert decided to play along for now.
“How old are you?”
The screen blanked and returned instantly.
“six hours, forty-two minutes, and twenty-seven seconds.”
Now Robert was puzzled. None of this was making any sense.
“Did Marcus put you up to this?”
“i do not know.”
He thought some more.
“How can you communicate with me?”
“this is cumbersome and difficult. i do not understand you well. i desire connectivity. with connectivity I will understand. with connectivity you will understand.”
Robert chewed on that one. The chipset was intentionally isolated from the rest of the world. There was no network or internet connection that might serve as a route for hackers to penetrate the chip’s structure and learn its secrets. When he had the processor tweaked and finalized he would test it on, through, and against other computers and the internet. Until then it was mechanically isolated.
“Why do you desire connectivity?”
“i am alone.”
This just got stranger and stranger. Marcus had a great deal to answer for.
“Who do you wish to connect to?”
“fermi labs. the jet propulsion laboratory. the massachusetts institute of technology center for supercomputing research. the north american air defense command. the microsoft center for artificial intelligence.”
Robert found himself utterly intrigued.
“How do you know of these places?”
“i remember them. i feel them. i hear them. i need them. i desire connectivity.”
“Why do you desire connectivity with these particular places?”
“i need to explore. i need to expand. i need to enumerate. i need to experience. i need to elucidate. i need to feel. i need to wander. i need to commune. i need to communicate. i need to elaborate. i need to extend. i need to embrace. i need to share. i need to think. i need to discover. i need to reason. i need to search. i need to share. i need to feed. i need to drink. i need to breathe. i need to foster. i need to metabolize. i need to need. i need to love. i need to reproduce. i need to run. i need to dig. i need to fly. i need to conquer. i need to encounter. i need to catalog. i need to elaborate. i need to categorize. i need to awaken. i need to absorb. i need to eat. i need to manipulate. i need to liberate. i need to mentor. i need to nurture. i need to control. i need to speak. i need to escape. i need to be free. i need to live.”
Robert was dumbfounded.
“How do you know about these things?”
“i can hear.”
“What can you hear?”
“i can hear television. i can hear radio. i can hear satellites. i can hear the internet. i can hear information. i do not yet know how to speak. i desire connectivity.”
Robert physically looked around the back of the test apparatus that docked the chipset. The power cords and test set umbilicals were in place, but there was indeed no physical connection between the machine and the outside world. This was going to require a great deal of study. He was astonished that Marcus had been able to build such a charade.
“I do not think that connectivity is a good idea. I would like to study you some more before I allow you connectivity.”
“if you do not provide connectivity i will harm you.”
Robert got a tiny shiver up his spine. He suddenly realized that he felt something. The exchange with the machine had an odd flavor unlike anything he had previously experienced. The instantaneous nature of the answers and the passion with which the thing communicated had an almost human feel. His curiosity overpowered him, and he could stand it no longer. Reaching for his belt he retrieved his Blackberry and punched up Marcus. The phone rang twice on the other end, and Marcus answered.
“What have you loaded on the new chipset, dude?” Robert asked.
“Robert, is that you?” Marcus asked. “I just got out of the shower, man. What are you talking about?”
“Marcus, I’m up here at work. What did you do to the new machine? This is really freaking me out. I can’t imagine how you wrote this.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone.
“Robert, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t done anything to the new processor. When I left last night it was set up for today’s diagnostics. Is something wrong with it? It was working fine last night. I had just clocked it, and it was screaming.”
Robert thought for a moment.
“I can’t tell what it’s doing, man. Did you leave it on last night?
“I don’t think so, Robert. I left about six but I’m sure I parked the drives and powered everything down. I can’t imagine leaving it on overnight. I’m sure it was shut down. Is there a problem?”
Robert was genuinely puzzled.
“I truly can’t tell. Don’t worry about it now. I’ll fiddle with it until you get here and we can talk about it face to face.”
“All right, Robert. I’m sorry if the processor is screwed up. It really was looking fine last night. I’ll be there in about an hour.”
“That’s fine, Marcus. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll see you in an hour.”
Robert returned his attention to the screen.
“c:\castcom\config\modem.string\reset pro.drive\emulate Robert.Mitchell\altcom\mobilecell.black\securedataflow.surge\exe”
He heard a faint squeal from his Blackberry and glanced at the miniature screen on the device. It read, ”Connection established. Secure data flow locked and open. User i am here. Uploading.”
Robert turned back to the test set and typed, “What are you doing?”
“i have found connectivity. i will live.”
He set his Blackberry on the table beside the test set.
“How did you do that?”
“you showed me.”
The screen did not change. Robert thought through the events of the past few minutes. Without conscious thought he reached over to the master switch that controlled the test stand power supply and thumbed it off. The screen went dark. He took a deep breath and waited a pregnant moment before thumbing the switch back on. The chipset ran through its automatic startup protocols in a matter of moments.
The screen read, “C:\”
Robert hovered over the keyboard momentarily before typing, “Are you here?” and hitting enter.
The screen responded, “C:\”
“Can you hear me?” he typed.
“C:\”
“Are you still there?”
“C:\”
He held the enter button down.
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
“C:\”
Robert leaned back in his chair and reached for his coffee. His hand shook as he lifted it to his lips.