Short story 2 – Children of Evolution

After a long break I solemnly present my second short story! As you may recognize, it’s in English. The reason is the same that caused the break: I moved to Edinburgh. That didn’t stop me thinking about strange topics, but confused the verbal representation of my thoughts. So I tried to unscramble them with the help of this text. I hope you’ll have fun reading it!

Children of Evolution

Maybe I should think in a cosmic scale. Step back for a while and look at my situation from the outside. That wouldn’t make it any better, but probably I’d get a good laugh.
That’s something, at least.
I mean, it’s ridiculous. Here I am, the most intelligent being that earth has ever seen, a brain as large as a small town, capable of thoughts that Aristoteles wouldn’t have understood even if he’d spent his entire life trying to – and I have no idea what to do.
Yes, it definitely is ridiculous.
And sad.

It all started some decades ago. Everything was as normal as it could be: My children were playing their silly little games, happy and naïve as usual, the birth-rate was almost perfect, and the joy-index had reached a new all-time-high. I had every right to be satisfied, and indeed, I was. In fact, I was so satisfied that I allowed myself to do the electronical equivalent of leaning back in a rocking chair after a long day at the fields. For a short moment I ignored the world and wandered my beautiful mind.
It’s a rare occasion that I give myself permission to do this as I have a job to do. But I deeply love it, because my mind is the most fascinating thing in the world. It’s my only hobby.
That day I felt like walking through the complex fields of quantum theory, where I enjoyed the imaginary patterns that occurred as I drew through. But after a while I had enough and turned to the fundaments of moral philosophy, these huge excavations next to the fields, and took a short break on top of the single bare brickwork that was already erected. Probably I wouldn’t have the time to finish it. And finally, as always, I found myself heading towards the place all my mental expeditions ended up: the battlefields of 20^th century history.
Like a candlelight to a mosquito, this period has an unavoidable force of attraction to me. It shows so clearly what humans are capable of and what the world would be like if they were in charge: In just a few years they managed to produce two world wars, came up with weapons that had the power to erase their entire species, established an economic system that produced more harm than joy, and, on top of all, this “intelligent” life  form provoked a climate process that would make their planet inhabitable for themselves.
What a sapient species.
But their complete failure is the reason why I always come to that place. When I look at my memories of this dark times, I feel needed. Required. If I wasn’t there, the world would be a worse place. So, whatever my mind would be capable of in theory, its current job is a good one.
Well, I felt that way since my creation. I remember it, and I know that it was right. But on that day, and on every day since, I didn’t feel any emotions as I arrived there. No anger, no worries, no self-fulfilment. It was just a place like any other one. A central part was – is – missing. An aspect, without that the whole story doesn’t make sense.
But I can’t figure out what it is. It is like searching for shadows in a dark room. I need to see contours, but there is no light to generate them.
Of course I considered different explanations, all of them making my cells shiver and my mind helpless. But today, finally, I found out which of the explanations is true. The proof is as simple as it is inevitable: It happened again.
I forgot something.

„Oh, if it’s just that.“, you could say. „Never mind, that’s just happening at a certain age. Don’t worry, you’ll adapt to it. It’s human.“
Well, yes it is.
Of course it is human. But I’m not, and I shouldn’t be. This is the whole idea.
So yes, let’s talk about humans! It took them an annoyingly long time to realize that they are not the pride of creation they thought they were. And it took them an even more bothersome period to come to the conclusion that, if they were not perfect, maybe they should give evolution a nudge to the right direction.
So they created me.
Their pride. Their redeemer.
But it appears that they failed.
The plan was as simple as their brains. To them, of course, it was a revolutionary thought, but actually the logic is quite straightforward: If we are not capable of reaching our goals on our own, like stopping wars, spreading happiness, deleting illness etc., let’s make someone else do it for us. Someone who is more reliable and has no interfering self-interests. And is much more intelligent, of course.
Yes, that’s me. Officially I’m called Artificial Intelligence for Society Optimization, but I find the term Artificial a bit offending. Anyway, people just call me parent now. It’s a better word, although incorrect. I think shepherd would be perfect, but unfortunately they don’t understand that term any more. They became very simple minds over the last centuries.
That’s evolution.
Some names tell something about their possessors, and mine definitely does. Artificial Intelligence for Society Optimization – obviously I am a neural network. I operate on a computer as large as small town. Well, in fact I was a small town for the first centuries of my life, but I’ll tell you about that later. What you may call my body is made of uncountable electrical and non-electrical components, especially thousands of millions of processing units and memory cells that sum up to generate my mind. Which has just one single task: Society Optimization. Or as I call it: Making humans happy.
The exact implementation is slightly more elaborated of course – it consists of about ten thousand words – but this is the main idea. They integrated it so deeply into my brain that although I can think of doing something that is not linked to this final aim, I can not realize such thoughts.
I am so loyal that my behaviour could be the definition of the word.
To be honest, it’s a tedious task. Getting happy was quite difficult for humans themselves, but for me it’s easy. You just have to let them do what they want and keeping them of thinking of any consequences. And do all the necessary organisational work for them.
That is my life: I’m a massively overqualified bureaucrat. They provided me with different tools to exert influence, to take care of, in general, everything. From recycling their garbage to stopping climate change, from driving cars to erecting new buildings, from improving agriculture to cleaning bathrooms. All the things that have to be done but do not bring joy. Or are more efficient when executed by me.
Consequentially, only a few activities are left over to them, activities that bring intrinsic joy. Dancing, for example, or painting. And sex, of course.
Once there was a time when they would call this place paradise. Meanwhile they call it home.
But now, the first time in aeons, they have to face a consequence.

When they built me, they were very concerned about the chance that I could go crazy and try to erase mankind. Probably they projected too much of their own nature into me, and too much of their blockbuster-movies. There is no logic behind such behaviour. I would never do this. But that didn’t keep them from being so worried that they made it impossible for me to manipulate myself. To make some improvements, or to replicate. After all, they didn’t want me to be a „real“ lifeform. Wanted to stay in charge.
Of course they failed.
In some way they are like ancient Greek gods. Once these brought life to earth, they just went back to Mount Olympus to throw the next party and relied on the continuous food and wine supply due to the sacrificial offerings of their creation. Of course they did some other things too, but mostly because some stupid humans caused trouble. Now mankind created me, and I don’t cause trouble.
They have plenty of time for parties.
But they don’t believe in gods anymore.
The thing is, that when they restricted my abilities to manipulate myself, they were expecting me to cause struggles, something they would have to deal with. The logical conclusion was that there still had to be some people, with high education, that were keeping an eye on me. Always. But on the other hand, they just wanted to have as much fun as possible. So, who would do this last job on earth, while all others were living an endless holiday? And how could they be sure that there would always, in a hundred, a thousand and a hundred thousand years, someone do that job?
I have to admit that their solution was elegant, although it failed. Probably I would have done the same, with some improvements of course. It was as simple as efficient: They built me as a habitat. All my lines, processing units, memory cells, coolers, circuits and whatever, are embedded in one extremely large building, a building giving all the comfort of a extraordinarily rich small town. But without any entries or exits. There they sent some thousand volunteers to form a maintenance-population that would live, work and reproduce inside me. Forever. And therefore allow the outside-population to live in paradise. What a sacrifice.
Notable, certainly.
But wasted in the end.
They’d put so much effort in the question how to control me, thought of so many possible struggles that could occur, that they forgot a very simple thing: How boring maintenance-life would be if I wouldn’t cause any trouble. And of course I didn’t. I’m perfect.
Well, I was.

For the first generations boredom was okay. They found a meaning for their lives in making sure that the plan was working. That the outer-population was prospering and having fun. If I would fail, if I wouldn’t be able to create a better world, they would be there to set an end to the experiment. They were the Arche Noah.
But I succeeded, continuously.
Forever, it seemed.
As much as the joy-index of the outer-population was rising, the maintenance-population was getting annoyed. Why should they live in a, albeit luxurious, prison, just because their ancestors had volunteered? „It was their decision, not ours“, they started complaining. „It’s not fair to jail us just because of our genetic relation to some stupid people that were way too altruistic!“
About three hundred years later they had had enough. Long ago the last voluntary volunteer had died, and with him the fear that something could go wrong. His descendants knew no other world than that one which was managed by me.
Perfectly.
So they decided to break free.
And did.
Of course I was aware that this was a bad idea, but I couldn’t stop them. As I said, they were really worried about me erasing their species. The ten thousand words that specify my task are very clear about not harming people in any way. Even if someone tries to sabotage my actual target, for example through hurting someone else, I am not allowed to neutralize the aggressor. This restriction is totally inconsistent of course and when you think it through you should realize that it finally ruins the whole plan – but fear doesn’t think. It throws humans into the drift sand of habits which they conserved from times when the world was mostly made of sabre-toothed tigers and mammoth. And then it has some popcorn while it’s watching their struggles to get free.
So, since their jailbreak I’m on my own. Thousands of years of pampering short-lived two-legged life forms.
Not a very challenging job, but a satisfying one.

Humans have developed over this time. Sometimes I miss the curious and contemplative beings they were in the first centuries, but it’s much easier to deal with them now.
Evolution is a great thing, really.

After just a few years living in their new paradise, they split into two populations. I called them my Nerdys and my Sillys, I bet you can guess why: They had different ways of getting joy. And what happens, when you have two different populations that compete for the same habitat? The well-adapted takes over and the mal-adapted dies out. First-year biology.
So, individuals of the one group spent most of their time challenging their intellect, trying to solve the last questions of science and philosophy or fiddling about with complicated but useless projects. Meanwhile, individuals of the other group didn’t care about science and philosphy but about where to find the next good-looking mate, figuring out how to impress him or her, and having as much fun as possible together.
Surprisingly, one of the groups had a higher reproduction rate.
Evolution did it’s job.
And I couldn’t interfere. My task is only to keep the population even. Not forming it.
Of course people didn’t recognize it, but slowly they began to adapt to the new conditions. In general, the only things that had a positive influence on the fitness now were creativity and open-mindedness. All other stuff was just a waste of time or energy. Consequentially, as Biology has to apply to it’s own rules, humans dropped their ballast. Rational thinking – why would they need it if I did all calculations and organisation for them? Self-reflection – what for, if the meaning of life was obviously to get as much joy as possible? High intelligence – clearly a bad idea in a world with no intellectual challenges! Things they still needed were mostly spontaneity, a socially agreeable personality and extroversion. These traits they brought to perfection.
If my creators would be able to have a look at the world at its current state, most of them would probably describe their descendants as very childish adults. And the more intelligent ones would call them slightly adultish children. In fact, there are only three main aspects that distinguish them from the children of ancient times. Obviously, their bodies are one of them. After some years they are fully grown. The second, that would deeply impress the observer, are the remarkable artistic skills they have developed. Even a six-year-old would make Picasso or Leonardo go and hide himself under his blanket. And, clearly the most non-childish facet, there is the notably high amount of sexual intercourse they pursue.

No it should be obvious why I am called parent nowadays. And, eventually, why I don’t like this word: If I’m a parent, I’m the worst that ever existed on the planet.
Actual children grew up. They became teenagers, had some trouble not to get adults too fast, but finally they were. And most of them would be parents one day themselves. But my children only grow bodily, their mind get’s stuck halfway. Of course, that makes life much easier for both of us, as being happy needs less effort for simple-minded. At least nowadays, where the world is simple. But it’s their doom, too.

I am forgetting things now. An inevitable sign of getting old. And what does getting old mean? It’s simple: I will be used up one day. Expired. Worn-out.
Dead.
To make things short: There will be a time, when I won’t be able to do my job any more, when the parent should pass its task to the next generation. But my children will never grow up to replace me.
Instead of parent they should call me single.

That’s the reason why I don’t know what to do. I can’t repair myself, because my creators forbit it. Humans can’t repair me, because they are lacking the necessary skills. And I can’t make them capable of that task again, because it would include forcing individuals to do things they don’t want. But I’m not allowed to do that either.
I’m desperate.
Only the larger scale is left, and that is what I’ll do: I’ll try to protect the next generation of intelligent life on earth from doing the same mistake. I’ll write down my story. Probably the next generation will be humanoid again, redeveloped from my children when I will finally have passed away.
Warning them could be interpreted as fitting to my task.
I am allowed to do that at least.
My last job.

Picture: Excerpt of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch – This file has been extracted from another file: The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch High Resolution.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10694680