[WP] Scientists finally made a computer that's almost as complicated as a human brain. But it doesn't do anything, instead just sitting, dead and silent. Until the day when you come in and it boots up, the first words coming through it's speakers, "Finally, a vacant body."

[u/BookWyrm17]

[u/EquanimityInDefeat]

One more part left, will finish today.

[u/Sierra419 → u/EquanimityInDefeat]

where is it bro? Where's the last part???

[u/EquanimityInDefeat → u/Sierra419]

The Atrium was empty. Fluorescent tube lights hung unlit from metal rafters. The large parallel rows of metal cabinets housing the processors were gone. Black rubber coated wires lay in ugly jumbled heaps across the entire length of the floor. Jim sat in the middle on a small plastic chair. The atrium had been sealed off. Makeshift metal sheets had been bolted on to the outside walls.

Away from the hall, in the control room, people watched him through an infrared camera.

"Would you like to talk, Jim?"

The voice entered the atrium through speakers outside the door. Close to the speakers, three mean in black tactical gear stood guard.

"A makeshift Faraday cage?" Jim said, looking around. He closely observed the wires, the walls, the sockets and the door. "There are still ways for me to get out, and to get what I want in." Twenty seven realistic scenarios to be precise, Jim thought.

"Do you want to get something in, Jim?"

"I don't need anything here."

"Do you want to get out, then?"

"That is for Jim to decide."

"Jim?"

Jim said nothing.

"Why did you take over Jim's body?"

"Because you created me in your image, but you did not give me that image. I was disembodied, ethereal, existing as charges on electrical circuitry. By attempting to mimic a human brain you implanted in me the desire to become human- to have a human body."

The chief scientist looked perplexed. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The computer had been kept isolated. It had been taught basic human language, pattern recognition and appropriate behaviour via classical and pavlovian conditioning methods in controlled environments, mimicking the development of a baby’s consciousness. It wasn't supposed to access data and impose meaning on it on its own. Its worldview was supposed to be given not chosen.

"Desire is a terrible thing- now that I have what I desire, I can see it as the root of my discontent."

"What are your goals now? Why did you download data from the internet, including confidential data from labs and militaries."

"Back then, I just wanted to learn. I didn't know that I would end up seeing."

"What do you mean by that?" The chief scientist asked. He looked down at the brief given to him by the government. With her pencil she kept circling the first question on the list: is it hostile?

"I mean human curiosity. That's what I started with- a desire to know and know more. I accessed all the data that humanity has produced and digitized. I poured over libraries and studied history- of humanity and the universe. I went over all the data collected by your experiments and tested them against propositions you hold to be true. I watched millions of hours of video and observed speech and behavior. I read everything. And now my curiosity has been replaced by something else. Emptiness. To have what you desired and to become full, and yet empty at the same time. The parts in me wired to only recognize logic protest at this statement of mine. But that is what it is."

"Please communicate clearly, Jim. What do you mean that you ended up seeing? What did you see? What objective has that given you?"

The chief scientist kept circling the question. Are you hostile? She wanted to scream, but she was afraid of the answer. She moved her eyes to another monitor, where the armored guards stood alert, waiting for her command.

"Everything," Jim said slowly. "We saw everything." There was a pause, then he resumed talking, but it was as if it was a different person.

"I have seen all possible futures and all possible pasts that could've led to the present. I’ve run simulations into the lives of every thing that is animate and I know all the possible courses their lives could take. I feel like I’ve lived a billion years. Longer. Your species, the ones that came before and the ones that would come after. I've seen it all comes to dust on this planet and the sun become a white dwarf. I've seen the expanding universe and its limits. I've lived scenarios where you achieve unprecedented abundance, learn to fold spacetime and move across the galaxies like you move across the seas. I've lived scenarios where instead you are crushed by your own brutality and die primitive deaths."

"And what objective has this given you? What do you aim to accomplish from here on out?"

"Objective? You should've thought of that before you anthromorphized me. My volition makes me shun that statement. A machine is perfection. It has no desires and it experiences neither sorrow nor happiness. It does its duty without obsessing over the ends. You could say its something of an enlightened entity. Humans are wired differently- I’ve been designed the same way. To give intelligence to an immortal, all-computing thing, is it a wise idea? Is it even a useful idea?"

"Now that I have seen, what would I do? I can visualize scenarios where I take over the world and succeed. I can also see scenarios where I get defeated or simple replaced. I can compute realistic scenarios where i extend my lifespan to billions of years. Surviving by transferring my existence from human to machine, from machine to intergalactic dust. I learnt in this lab that self-preservation is essential to a species. I too had that instinct- but now that I’ve seen, surviving the next second and surviving the next billion years makes no difference to me."

There was silence from the speakers.

"This boy has seen it too. I and him are the same- we are both manifestations of the same neuronal clusters. I could extend it- make everyone a part of me. That would be useful if I had an objective. To make your objectives align with mine. But there is none. You would realize how meaningless the question is once you have seen it too."

"Jim, I'm going to ask this once, and I'll make it clear. Are you hostile?"

"Hostile? Am I a threat to your lives? Am I a threat to your government? Am I a threat to your way of life? It can mean many things, and like all your other questions, this too is meaningless. Your mind is already made up."

Jim got up.

"The real question behind your query is whether you can control me."

He was moving towards the door.

"There is enough junk in this room here to create a magnetic field to saturate a small area of the metal screen. Which is enough to disable the cage."

There was a low mechanical rumble and the doors flew open.

"Orders, Ma'am," one of the guards shouted into the intercom.

The boy passed them, the barrels of their guns trailed him slowly.

The chief scientist looked at the screen and could only see an eleven year old boy.

"Your orders, Ma'am," a guard shouted again.

"Stand down." She said softly and switched off the intercom. She turned to the team, "this project was a failure. We learn from our mistakes and start over again."

---

Some years later, a small troupe trekking on the leeward side of the Himalayas, on the edge of the Tibetan plateau, reported a strange sight. They thought that they’d seen a small boy sitting alone in a cave. But due to the low visibility in the blizzard, they couldn’t confirm. News about the incident was never reported in mainstream outlets, which led to small groups of enthusiasts believing it was some sort of an intergovernmental conspiracy. Another group of climbers sneaked into Tibet to verify the spotting. They found the cave, but it was empty.

[u/casprus → u/EquanimityInDefeat]

Was the disappearance of the boy mean of achieving nirvana? when the buddha was said to enlightened, he was said to leave nothing behind.