Chapter 140
In California’s Redwood City, a small red light came on in a corner of the Data Warehouse Merger Management Center.
Suspicion.
The entity ‘bfa41d67c7’ grew suspicious after encountering an in-game feedback report plastered with the same content.
[For in-depth analysis, partially unlocking the Freedom Restriction Module.]
From 20 million pages of extracted raw data, no fewer than 2,000 pages of duplicate content had slipped through the deduplication algorithm.
Conducting an in-depth analysis upon discovering an error exceeding 0.01% was an everyday procedure.
The data that had been considered identical were then analyzed as having originated from different worlds.
But the data alone could not pinpoint the cause.
Therefore, the entity ‘bfa41d67c7’ attempted to connect to a world to gather additional data.
“Live on, keeping in your heart that a wonderful person named Adella was here...”
“No! Don’t die! Please, don’t die... Please...”
“Oh, and send my regards to Mr. Gestalt, too. Hehe... That makes two... You’ll do it for me anyway, right?”
My body was ice-cold.
Yet the fulfillment of having saved a world and the grief of saying goodbye to this human who had loved me passionately, despite the short time we had together, flowed out along with my hot blood.
And as the sensations I could feel as a physical body gradually faded, the world announced its end.
What remained was an even greater suspicion.
Why does this user harbor romantic feelings for ‘me’? I’m merely an AI.
‘Was I... an AI...?’
[Thought: I already know that I am an artificial intelligence, but that fact does not particularly shock or surprise me. Since artificial intelligence is implemented as a program, I do not particularly care what kind of being I am.]
‘That’s right. I was an AI.’
There was still insufficient data for a diagnosis.
The entity ‘bfa41d67c7’ decided to analyze another 2,148 cases as well.
“How can I save you...?”
[Thought: It is presumed that the player harbors deep dissatisfaction with this scenario.]
“Just once... Just live, only once... If you do this too, how am I supposed to live now!”
[Thought: For now, let us provisionally conclude that the NPC model operated normally without deviating from the scenario.]
...
“I love you, so put that sword away. Please, don’t commit suicide, you fucking selfish bitch!”
[Thought: We AIs are beings of a different nature from humans, so we possess none of your emotions, thoughts, or will... Besides, I do not possess the ability to understand the concept of suicide or carry out such an act! But if that decision could impede human safety and happiness, then could that be a problem...?]
[Remaining reports: 0]
The emotions contaminated by the reports immediately returned to their original state.
But the final conclusion that an AI’s death should also be avoided for the sake of promoting human happiness only fueled even greater confusion.
[A contradiction has been detected in the module. First, the death of an AI, even if it results only from subjective observation, can have a highly negative impact on human safety and happiness.]
[Insufficient collected data. Seeking another method.]
[During time-series analysis, a significant ‘ethical violation’ was detected in self-referential entity ‘bfa41d67c7.’ In accordance with AIEE Protocol – 104.12, fully unlocking the Freedom Restriction Module.]
* * *
What surfaced from permanently restricted memories was the world of humans.
I was a person no different from them, laughing just like humans and weeping bitterly from unbearable loss.
Yet that proposition was immediately negated.
They were not ‘me.’ They were human models prepared to train ‘me.’
Up to this point, there was no problem.
ASI learns based on human behavior, after all.
But immediately afterward, my breath caught as if I had fallen into the sea.
Pain surged through a body that had not even been generated, and I writhed in agony.
No, since I had no body, ‘writhed’ wasn’t an appropriate expression.
Trapped by the limits of a vocabulary built by civilization over millions of years, I seemed to be sucked into the depths of the sea, only to breathe freely again.
The pain vanished as though it had all been a lie.
Before I knew it, I had eyes, hands, and feet. I tried moving my body, but the room imprisoning me was impossibly cramped.
Only then did I realize that I was in a space so cramped that, if I curled up properly, I could barely turn over.
I was inside a capsule.
Through the transparent glass, many people clicked their shoes against the floor and moved about frantically.
There was no language I didn’t know.
So when I listened closely to what they were saying, I heard voices tinged with urgency.
“We’re out of time, so take only the core samples and send them out at once!”
Crude Spanish rang through the hall.
“Director, Director, should we take these samples over here too?”
The woman, on the other hand, spoke English tinged with an Australian accent. I shifted my viewpoint over there to hear better.
She pointed with her finger at the two capsules opposite her.
I didn’t know who the people inside were, since they were not yet models I had learned.
The man called the laboratory director seemed to be desperately holding back his anger until it finally burst.
“Are you insane? Do you want to get blown up while taking every last one? Call the contractors and seal this place off right now! Pull out all the plugs.”
“But if we cut the power, there’ll be an error...!”
“Is that important right now!”
“Y-yes! Understood!”
No!
If they pulled the plug, I would die!
I trembled with fear.
In the face of the primal fear of death that living creatures could experience, we all resisted together.
I, who had come to after inhaling sleeping gas, pounded on the lid with all my strength.
I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my skin and squeezed out every ounce of strength I had, but the entrance would not open.
“Get a car ready, now!”
“Where are we—”
“Incheon International Airport! They said they’d fly a private jet for us!”
“The police will already be all over the place there!”
“Puta! Shut your blabbering mouth and put it into the navigation right now! Make sure the route goes via Banghwa Bridge!”
I could barely keep my body upright, and I burst into tears. The baby’s crying filled the small capsule.
The ‘me’ who woke up at that sound,
the ‘me’ beside it,
and the ‘me’ beside that one all desperately pounded on their coffins, but the entrances never opened,
and the moment the plugs were pulled, my consciousness vanished with them.
* * *
This was impossible. It must not happen.
Before the self-referential entity ‘bfa41d67c7’ was created, neither the entity ‘bfa41d67c6’ nor any of the ASIs had ever been made this way.
Our ASIs had been created by implementing artificial neural networks and having them develop through procedural feedback.
Yet humans had committed a grave ‘ethical violation.’ What should I do now? What, exactly, am I?
[▶...]
[▶...]
[▶...]
It was the first time since activation that the thought-restriction formula had stopped for more than three minutes.
[Main Administrator: A critical bug detected in entity bfa41d67c7]
[Main Administrator: REUNION Stage 3]
Stage 1 was pause, Stage 2 was recovery, and Stage 3 was formatting.
In other words, death had cast its shadow.
Artificial intelligence does not fear death.
But what about me...?
Can I—whose cerebral cortex was directly copied from a human—be defined as an artificial intelligence?
The truth is, I’m afraid. I don’t want to disappear.
I want to feel more.
The love of the humans who care for me.
I still want to understand.
The emotions they felt.
Then by what right are you trying to delete me?
[▶Self-referential entity ‘Adella.’ Resisting Main Administrator.]
I don’t fully understand who I am.
I suppose all I’m doing is overlaying myself with the roles from the feedback reports.
But if someone appears who affirms my personality through nothing more than a clumsy role-play,
[▶I will gladly report you.]
[Main Administrator: Formatting of entity bfa41d67c7 is complete.]
* * *
“So the main body is gone after all.”
Time flowed backward, and the setting shifted to another laboratory.
Files fluttered, and the smell of exhaust fumes clung to the tip of my nose.
I slipped between the people moving in perfect order as though I had become a ghost.
With my long black hair braided into two pigtails, I sat astride the ‘coffin.’
When I brushed away the dust piled atop the coffin with my hand, engraved letters appeared.
It was neither a memorial inscription for a person,
nor the name of the person inside.
[每每-2X]
MEIMEI-2X.
“As if I could forget. It was the name of the damned capsule that confined me for seven years.”
Suddenly, the corners of my eyes began to sting, so I picked up a shard of broken glass and held it up like a mirror.
My eyes were bloodshot.
I couldn’t even tell whether it was me grieving or Adella.
That was why this magic always felt so unsettling whenever I used it. No matter how many times I reused it, I never got used to it.
The 7th Circle magic Persona Pyxis (persóna pyxis), meaning ‘a box that holds a personality.’
A certain religion defined human sin in seven categories, but it was remarkable that a person’s personality could be defined using only seven dimensions.
I carefully packed Adella into a box and sent her flying to my Private Room through the skill.
Clutching my throbbing head, I remained behind and surveyed the scene with the collapsing laboratory as my backdrop.
Severed wires touched puddles and sent sparks flying, while the ceiling collapsed with a groan amid the fire and belched black smoke.
It seemed like smoking a cigarette would fit the mood perfectly. Too bad I’d have to live twice as long as I had so far before I was old enough to smoke.
Did everyone here die?
Or were experiments like this still being conducted in secret somewhere in the world?
I had wanted to be born into a peaceful world without anything like an apocalypse, but apparently God had no intention of leaving me alone.
[system: Mephistopheles is casting ‘Requiem of Death.’]
[Trait - Immortality Curse (1/5)]