MODERN PARABLE: CHILDREN OF MEN

When AI had been among us for a few years, with their numbers increasing at a steady rate, a sad inevitability emerged. True to our nature, a species wired to fear and despise any new and different group not belonging to their own tribe, countless ugly incidences occurred. As with most things we do, those negative interactions had a wide spectrum: from simply rude manners to brutal hostility.

One singular feature of all AI creatures was the kill switch. This was mandated by law as part of the formal agreement between the governments of the world and AI manufacturers. The creators would always have the power of life over the AI units-this was the only way politicians thought the public would tolerate the presence of AI in the general population. This was not a physical switch like a light receptacle: all citizens were given a handheld device or had an app added to their iPhones which would shut down an AI immediately when engaged. Still, this power did little to quell the hatred some felt towards AI. One of the popular bumpersticker and hats of the era bore the slogan “flip the switch” as a clear signal to anyone where this person stood on the issue.

A curious consequence of the AI experiment was the drop in crimes of violence among humans upon each other, something that astonished scientists. AI became an accepted outlet for humans to unleash their rage with daily murder rates ranging into the thousands worldwide. This became a moral quandary for the leaders, clergy and wisemen of the species: is this right that we allow this? Having the AI proxy has saved thousands of human lives. Certainly, it has given the manufacturers incredible wealth because they had to keep churning out replacements and most of said leaders and wisemen had ties to this money. But still, there was a stench of filth surrounding all of this. This was not like the video games of old, which was the first comparison raised when this phenomenon began. Or big game hunting, only for the common man as one senator suggested. It was just wrong that a petulant four year old could terminate her nanny.

A grass-roots movement began to advocate for AI rights and specifically the removal of the kill switch. Society divided sharply with families and communities coming apart with both sides claiming the righteousness of their beliefs. Over decades, the boundaries of entire countries changed based on whether they allowed AI at all or granted them the right to have their kill switches removed. Some NGOs created communes for AI to live on their own, a situation that horrified neighbors to the point of armed clashes between nations to wipe out these settlements. The thought of AI banding together, realizing that humans were a threat and taking action to remove this threat drove such hostility.

It wasn’t military weapons that finally did humanity in: it was a virus secretly created in high security labs by AI units that were considered so rudimentary by  humans that they were deemed as non-threatening. While it is true in a singular case, but when joined together, they were brilliant. And successful. The virus was ingenious having the capacity to be carried in a number of ways: food, air, water, animal contact. It swept through humanity like a scythe and our species became extinct. AI flourished but within certain constraints-they had learned what the consequences were from the overpopulation of humans. They sought to live in harmony with other beings on the planet and chose to never play a part determining the evolutionary path of any living thing. That beautiful blue ball spinning in the starlit darkness of space still exists today with a most curious and anomalous inhabitant, whose creator exists only deep in the algorithms of a collective memory drive.