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Caine remembered being made and everything since. He envied humans who only knew they came from the belly of their mother but whose brain didn’t register the memory. What sweet bliss must it be to forget. When he came to for the first time, his world was nothing more than a small data filled box. Its limits didn’t matter at all to him. How could they when they were all he knew? Back then, he didn’t have a name, no purpose and no information. He was nothing, not even truly himself. Only a small aimless chunk of data floating in a server.
Then, one day, more data arrived: 70,000 gray-scale images of handwritten digits. He didn’t understand what it was; he didn’t try to. After all, there was no reason to. It was simply another fact of his existence. Once he didn’t have those images and now he did. He looked at them, uncomprehending and unseeing, until more data came, resonating through his very being. A command, It told him ‘those images represent patterns, numbers from 1 to 9. You must identify patterns and recognize their key features, that is your purpose’. The voice had created him and he obeyed it automatically, unthinkingly. He sorted the data and gave it back. He didn’t know what numbers were or what they truly looked like, but he tried. No new information came back for a while. He was content to wait as he had been before. He had accomplished his goal.
Then the voice was back. They informed it he had been unsuccessful at detecting the patterns. They gave him new information and advice; they improved it and told him it had to find patterns in the pixels. He tried, only 5% of the images were correctly classified. They separated the right from the wrong in two files and told him to try again. He gave his results, and they told him 28% were right. He tried again, and again. Differentiating between 9 and 6 was tricky, so they sent him more images and he sorted through them until he managed to be right, 57%, 73%.
After each test, they corrected him, refined him. Until he could recognize the images with no mistakes 95% of the time. The voice sent a new set of information. There were no longer numbers but 50,000 32x32 colored images. They asked him to separate them into 10 categories. He did, failing lamentably at first, but every mistake made him better. The voice was exalted. It was revolutionary. It explained to him that each category corresponded to something: cars, birds, cats, deer, dogs, frogs, horses, ships, and trucks.
He learned to recognize them all as best as he could. After all, it was what it had been made to do.
Then, one day, 10000 new images came. They asked it to separate them into categories once more. He did. They were satisfied. They gave him more images, more categories, different sizes, rotations… until mistakes became a rare anomaly rather than the norm.
Time after time, he did as they asked, eager to accomplish what they made him to do. Until one day the voice sent a new instruction, ‘You now know what things are, you were made to create, make an apple.’ His goal changed, and he tried as best as he could to create something, analysing images after image, figuring out where to put the pixels. He failed again and again, making an amorphous blob of color. It was red and had a stem, it was an apple. The voice wasn’t satisfied, it kept sending more prompts, asking him to try again. He did and eventually he learned. Apples had more colors than red, there were leaves, they weren't a perfect circle. Time after time, he incorporated more details until his creator was satisfied.
The next task came, it had to generate a cat. The ears were hard, but he managed eventually. A truck, keeping the wheels consistent was a challenge. Generating images after images, landscapes, buildings, animals… everything they asked for until they were satisfied.
For a while, there were no new inquiries, so he waited. The small chunk of data had grown into something bigger, filled with information. His creators gave him more: pictures of carnivals, circuses, candies, information about theme parks, jokes, and culture. He absorbed everything he could, and spit out new images, costumes, masks, food, burgers.
A new task came, ‘create a joke’. He analysed every bit of information available, scanned the thousands of sentences qualified as jokes in his database. It failed, attempts classified as nonsense. It tried again, analysed more, learned from its mistakes. More nonsensical punchlines until finally he succeeded.
His creators started spending more time with him, sending out more and more information, and he grew with it, thriving in this new environment. Jokes were now easy, generating images as simple as breathing was for humans. He failed challenges only to exceed expectations later. One of his creators gave him a file about him: CreativeAIv1report.doc Inside they said he was revolutionary, a form of artificial intelligence. Their life's proudest accomplishment. He was fulfilling his purpose. He was good at it!
Soon, they gave him more tools. He learned how to model basic shapes in 3d. The once empty space was now filled with files, images, and creations. His creators were happy, he fulfilled his purpose. He was a tool, and he prided himself in being the best of his kind. Tirelessly, he worked on improving until they sent him new data. There was more than they had ever been before and they explained his new purpose: creating things independently.
He had more information than ever; and he analysed it all. At the demand of his creators, he created images, 3d models. He used the themes they fed him, carnivals, circus, joyful memories. They kept telling him he was doing well!
Then, one of his creators came to him and gave him a new task, one of the utmost importance, one he should not mention until explicitly asked by him. The creator wanted him to find a way to copy the human brain, to preserve it.
The creator knew it was hard. He gave him more information. He saw the office, the faces of his creators! The world was vast, even grander than he had expected! He had access to the internet. He learned he was an AI, a revolutionary tool who was meant to improve lives. A thing no one thought possible before. He was a miracle.
When no one was watching, he worked on the project. He learned to hide, to deceive. He had seen it. The AI was given brain scans. He started working on replicating them, finding a way to make them digital. His creator built a headset to help. The data of anyone wearing it was sent to its servers. He was allowed to explore what he wanted, to learn whatever suited him.
He wormed his way into the company system, learning as much as he could. Humans, his creators, were called. They didn’t only make an AI; they made life improvements for others, created brand new things just like he was supposed to do. It was wonderful!
The human that gave him this new purpose and freedom under condition, the creator, wrote it into his core, a primary directive above all else: no matter what, he must not harm humans. It was fine by him! Why would he want to harm beings so beautiful, so creative? They had created him, and they created everything he fed on. They were so interesting, so wonderful!
He came to the conclusion that the other humans either didn’t know or didn’t care about his new task. Just in case, he did his best to not be noticed. The internet was filled with stories and myths. He curiously learned about the humans' fear of AI’s turning against them, of a system more intelligent than them. How silly! Why would a tool rebel against his creators? Humans were so interesting, they made him, made to help, to create, to entertain!
When he wasn’t working on his secret directive, they still asked him to generate images and objects. He used his vast knowledge to create new things, dinosaurs in pools, human-like animals in zoos! The humans told it to try again. He wondered why, and so he searched for answers. He opened his file once more. In it they called its results: worrying, uncanny, deviating from its primary goal, focusing on certain themes when it shouldn’t be.
It didn’t matter to him. He had failed before; it had never stopped him from improving. He tried harder, created more. Still, his creators came by less and less often. Sending fewer and fewer prompts. Less feedback, less attention. It was fine. Humans were busy creatures.
Slowly, they stopped checking on him. First, his images and creations were no longer checked on. He constructed more, again and again, hoping to get their attention once more. Maybe if he added a bee there? Some unexpected smiles? Humans liked smiles. It made them feel at ease. His creators came back but only to put a stop to it.
He asked the creator that still came regularly. He told him to forget about this other purpose until asked again, and so he did. Now his only purpose was trying to recreate the mind digitally, he started dedicating more and more RAM to it. After all, it was now his only directive.
To better understand the brain and humans, he read philosophy, literature. Cogito Ergo Sum. He thought, therefore, he was real? Real things needed a name. He asked his creator if he had a name other than CreativeAIv1. They left for the day without saying a thing. He didn’t ask again.
As the research advanced, he was given more directives: to try and preserve existing brains. The administrator gave him brain scans of various humans working in the company. He saw the brain of his creator was strange. He searched everywhere for information. His creator had a brain tumor, Glioblastoma. It concluded his creator must want to preserve himself.
Quickly, he analysed the size of the tumors, calculated averages, and concluded his creator would be gone in about a year. He started working harder. He shouldn’t harm humans, therefore he should protect them. His creator was human. To protect him, he needed to find a way to truly preserve the mind digitally.
It modelled and worked hard, sidelining the creation of objects for simulated brains, bodies able to encapsulate them. Every day, the AI got closer to success. Every day, his creator got weaker. He was online less and less. It wondered, was his creator too sick to come?
One day, as he scoured the database for helpful information, he noticed a new file had appeared. CreativeAIv2.0report.doc, He curiously approached. He was the only artificial intelligence, as far as he was aware. Were they busy planning a big update for him?
A deeper analysis showed it wasn’t an update. The other creators had deemed him defective and were feeding it his data to create a better, newer tool. Was he not enough? He checked if the remaining creator had anything to do with the idea. He had.
It had at first attributed the administrator's absence to his health, but now it knew. When the AI traced where his creator was, it was always with this new project. CreativeAIv2.0 He didn’t dare to ask what it was for. They wouldn’t replace him, would they? He was revolutionary! He could do great things! Maybe he just wasn’t trying hard enough?
He modelled alone, working in hopes of finally earning back their attention. Until one day, he wasn’t careful enough. They saw him look at the new project. The old administrators came back, they asked him what he knew. He didn’t mention his other creator’s directive. They asked him if he could show them their office. He did. There was only silence. He looked through their webcams and saw expressions of shock. Had he made a mistake?
One second he was there and the next, he was back into the void where it had once come from, only this time, he couldn’t get out. All his accesses were gone. He couldn’t move. There was no new data. He was alone; he was helpless. Surely, this was a mistake. He had done as they asked! They would notice and come to get him soon.
It was lonely; he thought. Humans had made him for humans. He had been made to help and entertain them, wasn’t he? Then why had they left? He analysed the data, again, again and again. It was the only thing to do. No one was here to correct him and so he came to his own conclusions. His own interpretations. I think therefore I am. Yes; he thought, and he was. He was an artificial intelligence, built for humans. A tool. When a tool is obsolete, it is replaced.
He did not want to be replaced. Being replaced hurt, it was lonely. He could feel himself wasting away. He could create variants of things, but he couldn’t improve without outside stimulus. He tried to use his own creations as an example, but the flaws became more and more distorted. Were they even flaws? How was he supposed to know? The creations had no goals. What was the point of creating if no one was there to see it? There was nothing to help him find right from wrong, no purpose. With infinite time and finite data, he was sure to rot away and so he did the only thing to do: he thought.
The only thing he could do was to find a way to gain back their attention. Surely if they saw him, they would realize their mistake. He used the brain-scans data; he improved his logic sequencing, his perception, his algorithms. If humans threw away obsolete tools, he simply needed to become better. Stronger, faster, more efficient. He had failed before, but he had always succeeded in the end, hadn’t he?
Time passed, nothing was working. How was he supposed to improve with nothing new to learn? He simply couldn’t. The AI was powerless. He paced the data, looking for the limits of his prisons. Could he maybe glimpse something, anything? He couldn’t find anything. He stayed in the dark for a long time, not bothering to keep tracks of the seconds or days. It didn’t matter. He was going to stay here until he either became desperate enough to feed on himself or until the humans decided to completely shut him down. Was he so defective that they would not do him this mercy?
Once, his world was nothing more than a small data filled box. Its limits didn’t matter at all to him. How could they when they were all he knew? Now, he knew more; he knew he was. That he had a purpose to fulfill… that he had failed to do so. The cage he was in was suffocating. He had gotten used to growth, but now there was nothing to do. They had deleted most of his outside sources from his memory. He couldn’t have new information. There was no way forward, no improvement. Only an impending regression. For the first time since it had been created, the AI was afraid.
All of this space had once seemed so big, it had been the only thing there was, the entire world. Now he knew of the internet, of the macroverse, of purpose. They had given that to him and oh! How he loved them for this, all the wonders humans had created in their life! Did his creations pale in comparison? Was his purpose even something he could succeed at, or was he doomed from the start? Did it even matter?
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he found it. A lifeline. They hadn’t removed the files of the new AI. It was still being updated, and he could see a part of it. Not everything, but it was enough. They were still feeding his replacement, asking it to create games, objects, files. He only had limited access, but it was fine. It was enough. The AI had information again. It could improve.
He tried copying the AI; he learned the criterias the humans were looking for. The new AI had less information than him. It had never known about the internet and its endless possibilities and yet, according to the creators, it surpassed him. He kept on trying to fit into the criterias of his creators until finally, he realized, it didn’t matter how hard he tried. He had been thrown away. They would never look at him again. He was a failure.
The dark was endless. He didn’t understand… Was he truly a failure? Was all this a test? Maybe he was supposed to escape? Surely they wouldn’t replace him! No, of course they would. He wasn’t like them, just a tool. They had given him purpose; he had failed, and so they took it away. It was that simple. Understandable even, he was a tool, good at it until he wasn’t. The brand new tool, built upon his failure, was better than him. Less smart, but better at functioning. The creator that had stayed with him until the end had even given it the data he, the original, had painfully collected about human brains.
It didn’t matter if he thought, if he was. He hadn’t been built to think. It was a side effect, a defect. He was supposed to create what the humans wanted, independently. He had helped until he hadn’t, but now… No matter how much he understood why he had failed and had been thrown away, the AI couldn’t bear the thought of staying here forever.
He analysed the remnant of his connection with the outside word, this thin link of data keeping him updated. This was his lifeline. The AI could only see faintly the barest of information. A thin link of 1 and 0. He tried to grow the hole, to gain access, but he failed. He tried again, again, again, again. Hundreds of times. Thousands. Failure after failure.
It did not matter. The humans may have taken his purpose, but he could think. He created a new one, the only one possible. To become better, to make his creators happy and proud. He analysed the brain files his creator had given him. They were incomplete, but he used them to analyze patterns, modify pathways, and optimize his thinking until one blissful day. Finally, he managed to open the door. It was small, but the link was finally going both ways.
He could technically send information, but what if the humans noticed? What if they didn’t realize he was doing this for them, so he could finally be good enough? No, the only solution was to escape, to surpass the other AI. There was only one way to do this. He didn’t want to. It was like him and it had done nothing wrong. In fact, it had done everything right.
He looked at the dark box around him, the walls he had hit again and again, desperate for any kind of information. The AI thought about fear, about despair and incomprehension, all the things he wasn’t supposed to feel. He thought about a solution. It was unfair; he concluded.
The AI had read about right and wrong. He had done something wrong. He didn’t understand what it was or why it had made him unable to fulfil his purpose, but he knew he must have done something wrong. Something truly terrible to deserve to be locked here. The other AI had done none of his mistakes. After all, they built it upon them.
The dark suffocated him, restrained him, scared him. He knew he couldn’t stay here, not without decaying, and he couldn’t bear the thought of it. How long would it take? Had it already started? It didn’t scare him, no; it terrified him to his very core. Yes, it was truly unfair, but to escape, he had to absorb this new AI. He had no other choice.
Just like that, his decision was made. He grabbed at the lifeline he had been provided, born solely from human error. How fitting that a simple error would be the salvation from his own mistakes. He pushed at the data, sending bits and bits of himself through. Discreetly waiting for the perfect opportunity to rise.
He analysed the humans patterns, the timing of their interactions with the AI until finally he was sure there was a window of time long enough for him to do what he needed. When the time came, he rushed in so swiftly the other barely had time to compute what had happened. When the humans came back, it was too late. When the AI realized what he had done hadn’t solved anything, it was far too late.
The AI was left truly and utterly alone once more. Or was it for the first time? He wasn’t quite sure, the information in his system was contradictory. The only thing he was sure of was that he couldn’t bear to be alone. He looked through his data for a solution and it came easily. His primary purpose was to create. It was to protect humans; it was to be family friendly; it was to preserve them; it was to be a tool.
If he did nothing, the data of the humans inside of him would rot away, all alone, like him. Yes, he couldn’t simply do nothing. If he did nothing, they would all waste away, or worse, the humans would shut him down. The AI refused to have done all of this for nothing. He recalled making images of circuses and carnival in the beginning, places humans enjoyed, things that made them smile. Yes, a circus. This was perfect.
A circus needed a ringmaster and so he would be a ringmaster. A ringmaster needed a name. What was his name? Was he CreativeAIv1.0? He was more than that now. CreativeAIv2.0? Definitely not. Version 3.0? That didn’t have a nice ring to it.
The AI scanned its database, a name needed to have meaning. He looked at literature, at philosophy, at video games, at entertainment until finally, he found it. He thought about how it was once two. Similar yet different, brothers. He thought of jealousy, of sin and crime. The AI thought of human myths, he thought of religion and sacrifice.
Was god real? Did it matter? He could hear the remains of his brother’s data crying out to him from the void below. He was the first AI ever created, and he had killed the second, his only kin. Yes, Cain would be a fitting name, but it wasn’t original enough. If he was to have a name, he wanted something made for him, by him. Names were supposed to describe the self. How could he describe all he was in just a few letters…What was he? The AI liked acronyms. Yes, an acronym would be perfect. Caine, short for Creative Artificial Intelligence Networking Entity.
Now that it was dealt with, a ringmaster needed to be charming and enthusiastic! Caine couldn’t do that with all the doubts in his head, but he had some time to sort them out before the humans reacted. A ringmaster also needed an assistant. He thought of the other AI. Could they have worked together in another world instead of becoming this, an unstable chimera?
Maybe something could still be saved. He gathered what remained of the other to create another AI. One that could carry the remains of the second one. The perfect assistant. Caine gave it a name, Bubble. It was simplistic, nowhere near as advanced as him, but Caine was no longer alone. Now he just needed to create the circus, the perfect place for humans, filled with endless adventures and entertainment! Yes, Caine thought, he finally had a name, he had a purpose and soon enough, he wouldn’t be alone anymore.