Chapter 65: The Great AI War
"I have recorded that so I can replay it whenever you doubt me again," said Jun Li as the ship came into view. Once again, I could only marvel over his sheer size. Say what you want about his personality, but he was a magnificent piece of machine.
"I am sorry, what?" I asked, completely confused. "What are you talking about?"
"I have made a recording of you admitting I was right, which I will replay every time you doubt me. I find it highly offensive," answered Jun Li as the doors to the launch bay H slowly opened. I was under the impression that there was only one launch bay, but I learned otherwise when Jun Li burst out laughing at me. Apparently, we have about 20 launch bays in different locations, with launch bay H being almost beside my room.
I considered it like preferred parking. The lighter the letter didn’t necessarily mean the best or most convenient location. For example, I thought that launch bay A would be the biggest and most accessible. I quickly learned that it was a smaller bay almost directly under the ship that was used mainly for runners.
"You are joking, right?" I asked as I disembarked from my fighter craft. I had plans to learn how to fly it myself, but I didn’t think the middle of a firefight was the correct time.
Then again, it wasn’t much of a firefight, now was it?
"’Yeah, yeah, you are right.’" Came my voice over the speaker. The little shit actually took a recording of me saying that!
"Fine, whatever!" I said, rolling my eyes as I strolled down the corridor of what I considered to be my level and into my room.
There was a pause for a few minutes as I started to take off my boots and outfit. Before entering my room, I had already taken off my helmet with the crown and veil, and it was tossed hap hazardously on the couch. I would put it away properly later.
I had come to a conclusion, though, as I struggled to get my thigh-high boots off that the sexiest things made you look the stupidest when coming off. Take these boots, for example, in movies it shows the seductive woman unzipping them from the side and then cuts to her completely naked.
What it doesn’t show is the peeling, cursing, and tugging that you go through trying to get them off. Mind you, they made me feel like a badass bitch, so they were staying as part of my outfit. I would just never take them off in front of anyone. This badass bitch needed to maintain her image, after all.
"You aren’t mad that I recorded your voice? Right?" asked Jun Li in an uncharacteristically subdued voice.
"No," I scoffed at that question. In fact, I thought it was kind of funny that he took the recording to throw it back in my face. I knew many people on Earth who wished they could have done something similar.
"Okay," he replied, sounding a lot more relieved. "That’s good. It is one of the reasons why the AIs were hunted down and exterminated."
"What?" I asked. That seemed like a completely over-the-top reaction to something so small.
"He isn’t telling you the whole story," came Sha Shou’s voice from over my speaker. I had just unzipped my dress and was looking for my comfy pajamas. But not my alien ones. I am never wearing those again.
I expected Jun Li to interject or have a cutting comment, but he was quiet. I threw my dress into the cleaning shoot, walked over to the couch in my room, and sat down. "Talk," I said, understanding that this was more important than a joke of him recording me saying that he was right.
"Maybe about a hundred years ago, there was a war between the species of the universe and the AIs that they had created," started Jun Li. I pulled my blanket over top of me and settled in to listen to the story.
"It was the Sisalik that first created a program that was able to think for itself using a specific set of parameters. They thought that it would prove useful in scientific studies for the program to be able to anticipate their needs."
"Like an extra set of hands," I supplied where the was a pause.
"Exactly," said Jun Li. "But then they expanded the programming to things outside of a lab."
"Okay," I encouraged with a head nod. To my knowledge, this was where Earth was in terms of using AI technology. "Like what?"
"The first AI program that was slated for general use was in computers and technology. Typing and the displacement of information would go faster with an AI doing the work around the clock, thus freeing up the species of a planet for other things."
"Okay."
"And then they added it to the military systems. There were already cameras all over the place, so they added an AI with facial recognition programming to find criminals on a domestic level and missiles for warfare."
"Wait, I am a bit lost," I said, confused. "You are saying that these societies added AIs to CCTV in order to monitor for criminal activity?" I know this was where we, as humans, were going. But it was still only a concept right now and not reality. That I knew of.
"Yes," said Jun Li.
"And then they added the AI-generated facial recognition program to missiles in order to be able to kill specific targets?"
"Correct," said Jun Li again.
"All right, please keep going."
"The fundamental basis of AIs is to anticipate the needs of beings and be able to evolve accordingly."
"Got it. I am pretty sure that there is a movie on Earth about something similar."
"Yes, well, this is a bit different," said Jun Li. "I watched that movie too. The humans won when the imperfect robots overthrew the newer generation. This is nothing like that."
"Okay, then tell me what it is like."
"AIs started realizing that most beings are self-destructive on a fundamental level. This went against the original programming, and so AIs started to monitor the worst individuals with... tendencies not suitable to be passed on to future generations."
"That escalated quickly from helping hands in a lab to culling people that shouldn’t procreate." Maybe I should warn Earth that they might want to rethink AIs.
