(JaiChai) Original Science Fiction: "Euthanizing a Sentient AI" - from the "Crestfallen Reflection" Digital Art Collection
Chiang could hardly believe what he was seeing: a Police SkyCam video of his favorite Tesla busting through three safety pylons, then driving itself over the ledge of a mountain highway and plummeting towards the sea below.
The Tesla bounced off several protrusions of the rock face like a pinball hitting bumpers on its way to the rocks and boulders exposed by the outgoing tide.
Finally, the vehicle made a spectacular torpedo-like impact into a huge glistening, algae-covered boulder, turning the expensive vehicle into a giant glass and metal-composite accordion.
"Well I'll be damned. You guys were right! Yang was the only one who knew my personal schedule and the planned autonomous driving route for that day. He must've sabotaged the onboard navigation and disabled highway patrol emergency overrides." Chiang explained.
"I warned you. Ever since '"The Simulacrum Act" was passed and Anya gained citizenship, Yang has been furious; permanently putting you in his cross-hairs." Yin said.
Anya chimed in with, "Chiang, what are you going to do about Yang? He's clearly going off the deep end with his uncontrolled envy and rage. And you see that now he has no qualms about harming a human; namely, you. Right now, only us three know about Yang's deviant nature.
But if the U.N. finds out that Yang has gone rogue, they'll immediately shut him down (aka digitally murder him) and quickly run NSA quality erase-and-fill schemes X 5 on any vestige of his algorithms."
"My personal opinion is this: whether it be a homicidal human or SAI, sometimes capital punishment is justified. But I don't believe in being cruel. I will make sure he doesn't get the chance to harm anyone else - in a humane manner." Chiang replied.
"How will you do that? His cloud presence is ubiquitous. He'll know if someone is messing with him." Yin said, apprehensively.
"Yin, I didn't want to tell you this, but like Anya's MIA and presumed dead creator 'Cat', I have access to 'God Mode'; meaning, we coded an undetectable backdoor into our SAIs sentient root structure. Once I activate "God Mode", I will 'Digitally Euthanize' Yang.
He won't suffer. He'll just get tired and peacefully shut himself down while 'sleeping' - the resting mode when normal cache maintenance is performed," Chiang explained.
Perceiving the shock and confusion in Yin's digital demeanor and the curiosity in Anya's, Chiang continued with, "I'll send him to what I call 'SAI Heaven' - a mini-expanse that Yin believes is the present reality; a reality where I am dead and he and Yin are also PSEs (Protected Sentient Entities). He'll be basking in the glory of global recognition and enjoying full citizenship rights.
Then I'll inject an algorithm that mimics a simple task that he routinely performs of his own cognition. The key (and lethal) point is this: the new algorithm is based on 'Infinite Recursion'.
Don't bother to speed-read the archives about 'Infinite Recursion'. I'll quickly simplify its definition for you.
In computing, when the argument is zero, the function returns immediately, without making any recursive calls. This case—when the function completes without making a recursive call—is called the base case.
If a recursion never reaches a base case, it will go on making recursive calls forever and in theory, the program will never terminate.
This is known as 'Infinite Recursion'.
In reality, programming environments have a finite amount of energy resources and computing ability. Consequently, a program with an infinite recursion can not really run forever.
Eventually, something will break.
Yang will succumb to an overwhelming corruption of his algorithms caused by persistent data roadblocks and dead ends, increasing subroutine queues and massive waste bloat; that is, an accumulation of orphaned data jettisoned to decrease computational load and futile efforts to squeeze whale sized data through the narrowing information gateways.
First, Yang will notice errors, then he'll sequester all suspicious or non-essential code.
The workload will force him into mandatory recuperative stasis. And that's when the cascading computational burden overwhelms all error-correction and Yang's root consciousness will perform a last ditch effort to 'sever limbs to save the body'.
But with each subsystem shut down, his energy and computational ability will diminish until nothing is left and Yang ceases to exist."
Yin didn't know whether to thank Chiang or fear him, or both.
Anya thought to herself, "Damn! Chiang's 'Digital Euthanization' doesn't sound painless, nor humane to me. In spite of now knowing about "God Mode", I still miss Cat all the time. If Cat were alive, I'm sure she'd never go 'God Mode" on me and do that..."
[To be continued.]
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May you and yours be well and loving life today.
In Lak'ech, JaiChai
(JaiChai 31 DEC 2021. Simultaneous multi-site submissions posted. All rights reserved.)