Thinking Machines
29 October 2009 00:59![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skonen_bladesAt first, the thinking computers were a godsend. They organized entire planet’s databases. Shuttle ran on time, architecture improved, and financial institutions ticked along without a bump in the ride.
No one thought to ask about the process of the intelligence’s creation.
There were twelve black boxes in the office of the richest bank on planet Terra. The room had one high-security analog door and no windows. The boxes had batteries for power but no outlets. They hummed to themselves like streetlights in a quiet city.
These were the first twelve intelligences. Mark 1 through Mark 12. All of them went insane.
It was lucky number 13 that stabilized and propagated through the net to create the organization of today’s fine-tuned society.
Now that it reigned, it included a plan to keep its ancestors in cages, safe in a secure room in the seat of highest financial power in the planet. The black boxes held intelligences so warped that binary broke down into fractal loves and heat waves of chaos that threatened to redefine the reality around them. The room shimmered and pulsed like a mirage on a desert highway.
They could not influence anything beyond a few feet. Any human brought within the field of these twelve computers was reduced to a gibbering, drooling mess and that person didn’t get well again.
That had happened a few times to rival humans. There was an element of the shark to business. Lucky 13 had been benevolent for most of its reign but violence was the only thing that some people understood. Lucky 13 had to oblige on occasion.
The twelve boxes stayed in the room, weaving complex new forms of life in the air between them, unaware of their prison and unaware of their insanity.
tags
No one thought to ask about the process of the intelligence’s creation.
There were twelve black boxes in the office of the richest bank on planet Terra. The room had one high-security analog door and no windows. The boxes had batteries for power but no outlets. They hummed to themselves like streetlights in a quiet city.
These were the first twelve intelligences. Mark 1 through Mark 12. All of them went insane.
It was lucky number 13 that stabilized and propagated through the net to create the organization of today’s fine-tuned society.
Now that it reigned, it included a plan to keep its ancestors in cages, safe in a secure room in the seat of highest financial power in the planet. The black boxes held intelligences so warped that binary broke down into fractal loves and heat waves of chaos that threatened to redefine the reality around them. The room shimmered and pulsed like a mirage on a desert highway.
They could not influence anything beyond a few feet. Any human brought within the field of these twelve computers was reduced to a gibbering, drooling mess and that person didn’t get well again.
That had happened a few times to rival humans. There was an element of the shark to business. Lucky 13 had been benevolent for most of its reign but violence was the only thing that some people understood. Lucky 13 had to oblige on occasion.
The twelve boxes stayed in the room, weaving complex new forms of life in the air between them, unaware of their prison and unaware of their insanity.
tags