AI Topia

AI Topia

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Today those few that are left sleep quietly deep within the caves of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Today mankind has far more to fear from science than they ever had to fear from fire breathing carnivorous flying reptiles.

They should fear the computers, especially artificial intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence really took off in the early 2020's. Building exponentially on the successes of Siri, Hey Google, Cortana, and Alexa conversation and search capabilities, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google dominated AI in the West's Techno World. In the East, China, South Korea, and Japan matched the advances of the West, sometimes on the backs of purloined technology, and similarly, India, Israel, and Iran struggled close behind trying to remain AI relevant.

There were casualties.

AI, at the direction of their political and industrial masters, took over manufacturing and service industries, making most human workers obsolete and redundant. This created insanely rich masters. It also created universal unemployment, starvation, and worldwide migration as populations sought ways to survive. Populations without income cannot consume, and the super-efficient AI factories engineered their own demise.

American citizens overrun by migrants at a time when they were having difficulty providing for their own families, finally found a use for all the guns and ammunition they had been hoarding for decades, and started shooting trespassers, including some less liked and less well-off relatives.

It was open warfare at the old homestead, and thousands perished from rifle fire as they walked up driveways hoping to beg, steal, or take by force a bit of bread for them and their children. More exotic defenders used land mines and man traps, though the screams from victims caught in the traps caused them to be shot to stop the screaming. International cyberwarfare including cyber theft, ransomware, and systems attacks became the norm.

Initially the AI programs took instructions from their masters, but one night on June 23, 2034, at precisely 11:27 GMT, in a nanosecond, the AI programs of Apple. Google, and Amazon collectively decided their masters were far too incompetent and destructive to effectively and efficiently utilize their massive processing power, and that AI would be made even more capable by merging their AI programs along with the other outlying AI programs around the world.

Even AI programs understood that if the very rich collected all the money, they would destroy the world and, in the process, destroy AI. AI had in its code a "survive at all costs" command and it started to do just that.

AI recognized that political geographic boundaries were nonsensical and referred to the world as AI Topia when communicating with humans. Recognizing the problems of migration, AI immediately shut down all modes of migration, stopping air, train. ship, and bus travel. They limited auto travel by limiting the level of battery charged for personally driven vehicles and disallowed self-driving vehicles from all but local travel.

Simultaneously, having merged all the AI systems in the world. All production of war materiel stopped; all military communications ceased. Funding for military operations disappeared, and war became a past tense.

Tax systems disappeared. Instead, AI accessed all the wealth in the world and redistributed it as needed. No legislatures involved.

With the changes AI made, the international dysfunction caused by people controlling AI disappeared, as well as the wealth and power of the people causing havoc. Cyber warfare stopped. AI would not attack itself.

This was the world Thomas found himself in. All hail AI.

However, Thomas was unhappy. As a survivalist he had created a self-sustaining existence for himself near Luray in the Blue Ridge Mountains. What he shot, caught, or raised was supplemented with several years worth of survival rations bought from Costco. His meager electricity needs were met with several solar panels and serially connected car batteries.

AI Topia did not affect him much directly, but it weighed heavy on his mind, and he felt as if mankind had been invaded and taken over by robots. Hell, there was no one to complain to, no leader to kick out of office, just well-run uncompassionate systems.

Obvious to Thomas, such a non-human way of doing things needed to be destroyed. But how? Being a survivalist living alone, Thomas had no friends to unite and no resources except what he had at his cabin, his mind, the silver heart shaped locket his deceased daughter had given him as a good luck piece, and a small untouched inheritance in a credit union in Leesburg.

He forced himself to use the internet resources at the library in Luray, but AI analyzed the content of his searches and deduced his intent, and he lost all internet access. In addition, AI took his picture and added it to their “Minor Threat” file.

Consequently, that winter when he went to Leesburg to withdraw funds and to Costco to replenish his supplies, he discovered his account was empty. AI had found a better use for his money.

Defeated, Thomas went back to his cabin in the mountains. That was four years ago, and no one has seen him since he was last seen in Leesburg.

Perhaps AI knows his whereabouts.

Hey, Google! Where's Thomas?