Story Reader / Floating Record / ER01 The Ark Beyond / Story
ER01-1 Childhood
>SYSTEM ACTIVATING
NEURAL LOGIC CIRCUIT: OPERATIONAL
MEMORY DRIVE STATUS: NORMAL
EMOTION SIMULATOR STATUS: NORMAL
ACTIVATING ENVIRONMENT MONITOR: COMPLETE
ALL SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL
USER ACCESS CONFIRMED
SYSTEM ACTIVATED
The data stream quickly flows across the screen, the ever-changing numbers indicating progression.
Hundreds of large computers sit squarely in a dark room, humming in silence as they operate, each of their ports flashing a dim blue glow.
This room is a cold, calculating brain, the flickering light indicating that "it" has started "thinking."
In the center of the room is a large terminal. A black camera rises from within and slowly rotates, its lens and aperture diaphragm twitching from the changing focal length like an eye exploring the unknown.
After a full rotation, the camera stops at the front, and a male researcher appears in its view. He is focusing on the small monitor below it, his fingers moving and tapping on the screen, his expression nervous.
Checking the activation... Good. All systems normal.
Having finished typing the last line of command, the man breaths out, raising his tense shoulder and giving his partner on the other side of the room an exaggerated thumbs-up.
Morning, sunshine!
He opens his arms and greets the camera loudly. The female researcher on the other side shakes her head, seemingly used to his behavior.
The camera looks up in response, and the signal light on top of it flashes twice.
...
Command unidentified. Please repeat.
Mixing several vocal data, an androgynous, synthetic voice speaks from the center of the room.
...That's not right. It wasn't this wooden back during testing. What was it using...
He frowns, giving the camera before him a gentle smack.
Load personality 134.
Loading personality 134... Vocal and personality data loaded.
After a brief pause, the terminal speaks again in a soft female voice.
Greetings. I am Heuristic Artificial Intelligence Caretaking Machine-Alpha, identification code: MPA-01. How may I help you?
Hmm... Just talk to me? Whatever you want.
Today's temperature is between 15°C to 23°C, and the AQI is 154. We are expecting a drizzle in the evening, but the air quality should improve afterward, giving us the highest atmospheric visibility of the month.
Data suggests that tonight is the first night in a long time that stars are visible to the naked eye. Should I recommend you the best stargazing locations?
Of course you start talking weather...
I can talk to you about any subject you are interested in if you request.
Then... is there anything you want to tell us?
Absolutely. If you request it, I will tell you everything I know.
However, there is no topic I would like to discuss right now. Should I pick a topic or news you might be interested in from a random pool?
Nah.
He waves his hand as usual, turning around and walking to the other side of the room, indicating his partner there to follow up.
Data looks fine. Let's move on to the next step.
A series of data projections unfold in the center of the room, each showcasing a 3D figure slowly spinning.
MPA-01 immediately scans them all. Not one of them is not a machine.
—Humanoid, zoomorphic, gadget-like... All of them are equipped with various levels of AI and placed in different environments.
Among them are robotic pets that offer "authentic companionship," bestselling humanoid butlers and home-cleaning gadgets, "mechanoid popstars," as well as dozens of bionic animals created during the "bionic restoration craze."
Hundreds of models, every one of them carefully calibrated with specific experimental variables.
They are all tagged with "Form Controlled Experiment" under the "Machine Consciousness Experiment" project database.
Here's your job, MPA-01.
The blonde woman sounds very calm, almost cold. She never stops looking away from the monitor in her hand as she enters more data into the projection.
You are to document the entirety of the machine consciousness project. Maintain each subject and replace their frames routinely, review their memory data, and record all changes to their emotion simulators, performing comparative analysis on their causes and results.
Troubleshoot anomalies, collect useful data, and help us adjust and improve the direction of the machine consciousness experiment.
Understood.
Having been through several "learning periods" before being activated, MPA-01 displays remarkable learning capability. It can simulate most functions of the human brain while processing information thousandfolds in volume.
Unlike the super AI "Gestalt" the Science Council is spearheading, MPA-01 is geared more toward consciousness simulation. Even as technology has advanced toward a "Golden Age", the MP series AI is still an outstanding achievement.
After going through all the data from the researcher, it has fully comprehended its task. Fulfilling a user's request without hesitation is an AI's duty.
So, I should regularly communicate with the machines tagged "anomaly" to determine if they have actual "consciousness," am I right?
I fully understand my task, but I have "doubts" regarding evaluating a consciousness with a machine instead of humans. I believe they are more suitable for this job.
Unless you believe that machines also have "souls"?
...
The female researcher lifts her head away from the data in her hand for the first time, looking up, slightly dumbstruck.
Technically, every piece of equipment in this room is a part of MPA-01, so her gaze quickly goes across the star-like flashes surrounding her before landing on the small camera in the center.
Noticing it, the camera slightly raises as if meeting her gaze.
...Why do you ask?
You uploaded human-authored fictional stories unrelated to the experiment to my database two minutes ago.
As I am authorized to access all information in my database, I read through those materials, and eight of them are science fictions that explore the possibility of machines having "souls."
Should I interpret it as the ideal result of the experiment?
That is when the researcher realizes that she has accidentally uploaded the reading materials she uses to kill time from her personal files.
...Those are just my pastime readings.
Among these subjects... a large portion of them has no idea they are machines, to begin with. We need an entirely different perspective to explore all possibilities within them.
We'll upload a few hundred personality types to your emotion simulator so you can communicate with the different trial subjects. Use them to optimize your solutions by identifying the subjects' emotional states.
As your creator, we believe you are more than capable of this task.
You're the first machine created to talk to machines, MPA-01.
Record everything you witness.
She lowers her voice, mumbling.
Perhaps one day you'll find among them your very own...
She quickly shakes her head as if what she just said is impossible. When she looks up again, she has regained her calm demeanor.
...We're uploading the emotion simulator module in ten minutes. You'll start working tomorrow.
MPA-01 was able to capture the most minute changes in her expressions and record the almost inaudible words she just said, even though it cannot fully comprehend what those words mean.
But it is not its job to collect these data. They are not useful for its mission, and all it needs to do is carry out its duty.
In its world, there are only endless data streams, its expressionless creator, and the machines created for the experiment.
I see. Deleting excess data and setting the machine consciousness experiment as the top priority.
—I shall fulfill my duty.
