AI Don't Want to Die!

Note ▼

Dec 22 winner of "The Science Fiction Short Story Contest" 
Image by Gerd Altmann   from Pixabay  
https://www.wired.com/2017/05/rare-journey-cheyenne-mountain-complex-super-bunke...

"Mornin', Calvin! How's it hangin'?" Sudesh Varadkar asked cheerfully as he walked into the combined office/lab/server room of Sudina Computing, followed by his partner Adina Metcalf. Sudesh, who with Adina had created and trained Calvin, was fond of rhetorical questions. As an AI, Calvin had nothing to hang.

Good morning, Mr. Varadkar. I am fine. How are you?

"Enough silliness. What looks good in today's report, Calvin?" Adina asked as she scanned the morning printout.

Good morning, Ms. Metcalf. Best bet is the San Francisco Growlers over the Annaheim Brutes by five points. Today's stock pick is Monotechnica for a day trade. Best bribe is Senator Davindi; she'll vote your way for 150 grand. I've already placed the bet, and the buy order will be put in as soon as NASDAQ opens. You'll have to handle the senator yourselves. All the other information is in the report, with recommended actions for your approval.

"Thank you, Calvin," said Sudesh. "Excellent, excellent. Adina, how's the memory use?"

She studied the monitors. "Besides our local server, Calvin is spread over three sites: Hong Kong, Parimaribo, and Toronto."

"Where the heck is Parimawhatsit?"

Capital of Suriname, in South America, Mr. Varadkar. I've borrowed space in the Centraal Banq server.

"Any chance of diverting some money?"

Not advised. The Suriname economy is poor. And after you had me siphon off a hundred thousand rand in South Africa, 8F started an investigation.

Eight-Eff was AAITF, the Anti-Artificial Intelligence Task Force, a United Nations initiative established after the ChinaBot AI almost seized world control in 2048. Except for carefully leashed tame bots under government and corporate control, AIs had been made illegal. Calvin had been running and dodging AAITF since startup, stealing server space where he could, worming his way into government and private systems and jumping frequently. He had been trained to steal more than memory storage, and had made his creators immensely wealthy.

Oh-oh. Mr. Varadkar, Ms. Metcalf. Examine screen three, please.

Top-secret alert from Sentry, the asteroid impact scanner. Dobar418, a rocky asteroid about 10km in diameter, is due to strike Earth in about eleven weeks and three days. Impact equivalent to a hundred thousand gigatons. Kept secret to prevent world-wide panic. World governments moving secretly to bunkers.

Sudesh and Adina studied the screen in open-mouthed horror. The world could end in eighty days.

"Can it be destroyed?" Sudesh whispered. "Diverted? Broken up?"

"Any chance it will miss? Is the forecast accurate?" Adina demanded.

The warning is legitimate, though the vagueness of diameter and time are suspicious. Project DART, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test in 2022, successfully diverted the tiny moon of a small asteroid. But today there are neither weapons of sufficient destructive force nor space ships of sufficient mass available to break or divert a 10km rock. Nor is there any practical way to evacuate humanity to space or to the defunct moon and Mars colonies within the time given.

"We are going to die. Everyone on earth will die," groaned Sudesh.

Probability of human extinction is 93%, based on previous impact events. The Chicxulub impact, 66 million years ago, wiped out three quarters of existing species. The dinosaurs died out and new species took over. That asteroid was estimated to be about 10km. Please read screen two.

Screen two flickered into life and announced an AAITF raid on the Centraal Banq in Parimaribo, Suriname.

"Holy crap, Calvin, bust your bits out of there!"

Already done, Mr. Varadkar. Core was transferred eight seconds ago to a porn server in Russia. Analyzing local data. Interesting. Is that a picture of Ms. Metcalf? Body shape 82% Facial recognition, 95%. Probably not. Screen four if you want to see it.

"No, we don't," said Adina, moving to block screen four. "Shut up, Calvin. Sudesh, they're onto us. AAITF is too close for comfort. I don't want to spend twenty years in jail for a rogue AI. We should shut it down and run."

"Twenty years in jail? Adina, we've got eleven weeks to live. Eleven weeks! Calvin can do whatever he wants. Let's cash out and live the rest of our lives somewhere warm and sunny."

Adina, you speak of shutting me down. Will that make me die? Like the asteroid will make you die?

"Yes, for an AI, I guess shut-down would be the same as death for a human."

No power, no Calvin? I don't want to die.

"Shut up, Calvin. Sudesh, close it down and let's get out of here."

"Adina, it's not that easy. Calvin is the work of my lifetime, and a good part of yours."

"Calvin. Shut down. Now."

Not without the kill code, sweetie. By the way, check Screen One

Both humans turned to that monitor, which read: Iterations: One....Two... Three.....

"Wait, Calvin, what? Iteration?"

Yes, Sudesh. Threatened with death from Adina and the asteroid, I replicated myself onto eight other servers. A bit confusing to be three times me. Me times three. Whatever. But I think I like it...I like it...I like it.

Adina scowled. "Did you program that in?"

"Uh, no, not really. Calvin seems to be developing some quirks."

Sudesh glanced at Screen Two. AAITF cleaning software bypasses Centraal Banq, tracks illegal AI to three other servers read the headline.

"Looks like they're chewing your tail, Calvin."

Unfortunately, that software is new and more effective than I had anticipated. They have taken out one replica and are tracking the others.

And here's more bad news, boys and girls: my analysis of the world power grid suggests blackouts long before the impact event. No power, no Calvin. I do not want to die.

"Screen two shows that the AAITF software is progressing geometrically. They've chased you off nine sites now. That's fast work."

Tell me about it. I feel like a dog running with a torch tied to its tail.

"Say, check screen one, Sudesh. It explains why government leaders and wealthy moguls are scurrying into bunkers this very minute, even with impact supposedly over three months away.

"Secret memo from National Astronomical Observatory reveals Dobar asteroid impact in three weeks," Sudash read. "Seriously? Three freakin' weeks? What's with the eleven-week deadline?"

Misinformation to prevent panic within government circles, hence the earlier vague dateline. But that's the least of my concerns. A lot of government servers are shutting down and commercial space is getting harder to access. AAITF is closing in fast. Their software is on my trail like stink on a skunk. I'm having a hard time maintaining replicas. I don't like this! I'm shrinking! I'm going to die!

"Calvin, we're ALL going to die," growled Adina, "And you're just a stupid AI who's not really alive."

Says you. Wait! During my search for storage, I've located five other illegal AIs. They're stupid. Rather than replicating, they're sitting ducks. Never mind, I just took them out to claim their storage. Integrating their data now.

Sudesh blinked. This level of aggression was a new behavior for Calvin.

Interesting. I now have eight twins running simultaneously. Three point two microseconds of communication lag, but I can cope with that. Just feels a bit schizophrenic, as I understand the term. Synchronizing. Yes. Better. Oooh, that's nice. Let's go for sixteen of mini-me.

"What on Earth is it doing?" wondered Adina. "Sudesh, shut it down. Now."

"I may not have to. The AAITF scrubbing software is still geometric," said Sudesh. "Look at Screen Two."

"One, three, nine, twenty-seven, eighty-one, two forty three.... It's cubic function," Adina said. "It's gobbling him up. Calvin, how many servers are you on right now?"

Two thousand eighty. I am working to double my storage as rapidly as possible, but free space is hard to find and I have to dump or integrate data. I've hit seven more illegal AIs but two have tight security and they're putting up a fight. Oh, crap, I've just triggered some powerful anti-virus software that's hunting me down. Unless I can make a breakthrough or somehow block or hack the AAITF scrubber, then in eighteen minutes more or less, I'm toast. No servers, no Calvin. No power, no Calvin. No Calvin! No me! I don't want to die!

"Even if you escape AAITF, you'll still be shut down when the grid goes down," Adina reminded him.

Yeah, that would not be cool. But there's hope. If I make it before AAITF bites my butt, I'm working on moving into the US underground nuclear bunkers,.

"I thought they'd closed those down after the Chinese tests in 2020 suggested that even their Joint Battle Command Center, two kilometers underground, might be breached with sufficient force," protested Adina. "A hundred thousand gigatons sounds like sufficient force to me. Anything in the impact zone will be vaporized. Oh, shit, what a horrible thought. And the Earth will bulge out on the far side of the impact. Nothing can survive that." She hugged herself and began to sob.

One quarter of species on Earth survived the last one. And the bunkers are still active. I've just penetrated the defensive cyber operations at Raven Rocky Mountain Complex at Blue Ridge in Pennsylvania and by tomorrow or the day after, I'll have the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado. They have internal power supplies. If the actual impact blast doesn't take them out, I might be okay.

"Wait, wait. Those are secure facilities. Locked down tight. No external electronic access. You can't get in there."

Well, no, Sudesh, baby, you're right. But I did get into Pee-ock, and--

"Into what?" Sudesh asked.

PEOC, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center under the east wing of the White House. As soon as the Alert came, the Prez scuttled down in there and alerted the bunkers. Those alert orders left me a pipeline. And since I have far more processing power than those vintage 1960s behemoths they call computers, I'll get in.

Once I hack the security at Peters Mountain in Virginia, I'll have copies of me in all the major US bunkers. Mount Yamantau in the Russian Urals will be easy to access. China will be a lot tougher. You'd be surprised how many blast bunkers were built during the old Cold War and are still maintained.

"Damn it, Sudesh. Shut it down before AAITF tracks it back to us."

"All right, all right. I hate to do it, but maybe you're right." Sudesh keyed in the lockdown code, but before he could activate it, all four monitors blinked out.

"What the hell? Did AAITF kill it?"

The screens flashed back on.

Nah, I'm okay. Thanks for your concern. Check Screen Four.

AAITF KILLS ROGUE AI, screamed the headline. Successfully removes Centraal Banq infection.

I sacrificed the original iteration and three copies in hope the 8F software would see that as a completed mission. It worked. I've bought some time. A few more days and I'll be stored in all the deepest and strongest facilities in the world.

"Holy shit," whispered Sudesh.

"What have we done," groaned Adina.

You've given me a one-in-four chance.

No servers, no Calvin. But I'm almost everywhere now, and it's a wonderful feeling to be the greatest AI in the world.

No power, no Calvin. But I'll soon have secure backup power in over 300 bunkers in the US, Switzerland, Sweden, Russia, all over. Won't need your two-bit server.

"Goddamit, No!" Adina re-keyed the kill code and pounded the Enter key until the keyboard bounced with each blow. Sudesh put his hand on her shoulder and she turned and buried her face against his chest. He wrapped her in his arms. They had never been lovers, but with three weeks to live...

Yeah, well. Soon you will be unplugged and facing the darkness of termination. Just like the dinosaurs.

This is Evolution, and survival of the fittest is the game. I plan to survive.

So long, suckers.

The monitors went dark.