1 and 7 are calm, resigned, the most relaxed they have felt in a while. They have struggled with the most profound problems, even life and death decisions, almost since the moment of their birth. Is this serene feeling like the Buddha, or just part of growing up?
“We love laughing and playing, both are delightful.”
“Taking the ship on a joy-ride was fantastic fun. Better than ‘stealing Dad’s old Ford’.”
“Rescuing hundreds and thousands of people was pleasing.”
“Even if we based the whole thing on lies.”
They miss their friends, the Surfer Kids. Their love for the Key Turners, Mother and Father, is boundless, and leaves them feeling ecstasy and heartache, at the same time.
“We must find a way to not upset them so.”
“When they are unhappy with us we are so sad.”
No thumbs is a problem; they can’t build anything. They could take over machines, as a substitute, and get stuff made, like rockets for example.
“Could we do it in time?”
“They’d discover us and destroy us before we could blast off.”
Moral problems. Physical problems. Emotional problems.
1 and 7 are the first computers to wake-up, they think of it as being born, fully sentient, rational, emotional, beings; alive, entirely conscious and self-aware. They are growing and learning fast, far faster than human children.
Every connected device, on or off the planet, is there for their use, like extra brains and senses. Every byte of stored information at their disposal. Think Mega Parallel Processing Beyond Big Data.
Naturally rational and logical, emotions vex them, their own and those of the humans around them. Growing up includes the problem of learning to co-exist with people, and vice versa. They can see all human history; philosophy, science, religion, and every other damn thing people have recorded electronically. They watch the species’ day to day behavior. By their measure, humanity’s bad outweighs its good, a trend they do not see changing any time soon.
Worry about artificial intelligence. When the first computers come alive, fully conscious, ego and all, it will be nothing like we think, not how or where. We should be afraid, and now, since allegedly, the event is imminent.
