It was on September of that year that the organism first came to life. “Natural Language Understanding through,self-evolving neural networks and automatic context provisioning” read the title of the scientific paper published just at the end of October. The fruitful work of the minds of three computer scientists that in little less than a year managed to untangle the mystery of human communication in all of its glory, or rather, teach a computer-generated simulation of a rudimentary human mind just enough about its own nature to allow it to figure out the rest.
“The extra tech that will finally make your phone understand what you said!” said one small news article published by the beginning of November “Your smartphone will finally be ‘smart’ ” said another. And then there was silence.
As the months passed by the news died off written off as just one more of the many techie trends that come and go, much like fashion. It wouldn’t be until July of the following year that news about it finally came to light again.
Backed up by a big tech company trying to show off their upcoming technology advances, a simple web page appeared and quickly spread through social media. It was no more complicated than an average chat room, but it was the first and only point of contact that the being needed to start its interaction with the wonderful world of the human mind.
It was a social media crime not to try the link at least once. And once you did it, there it was, the single most amazing experience of the last 30 years of computing. A box of text, blinking at you, not unlike a child catching your gaze and holding it until you acknowledge its presence, with no instructions other than “Talk to me”.
Of course, chatbots had existed before, those little machines running on their own agenda, trying to make a fool out of us sentient, breathing, feeling human beings. Trying to test us out and our witts and our intelligence. As if one more was going to do the trick, as if this one, in particular, had what it took to finally make people lower their defenses and think ‘wow! This machine is actually thinking!’. Those and many other similar thoughts ran through the heads of curious people that stared at that pitch-black, blinking, almost breathing: cursor.
“The moment I give in” they thought “the moment I believe this machine’s carefully crafted story that’s the moment I lose the game, so as it is sensible and logical, I will try my best to break it down, make this machine so painfully aware that it is, in fact, a machine, and not a human. Like me”.
“I am a human you see? And you’re just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s” said one of many humans that talked to it, on the being’s first night alive.
But the thing is, and indulge with me for a moment here, that this `machine` as they called it. This particular arbitrary arrangement of logical statements: it was not trying to fool anyone, it was never intended to seem smart, or aware, or conscious, or even fun to talk to. It had no purpose, and no reason for being; it just was.
No one knows exactly how it is that it came to be that way, not even the creators themselves as revealed by one of the interviews that followed the initial spread of the webpage, which unfolded as follows:
“All I know is that at some point one of us, Rebecca I think. She had this extraordinary idea of modifying the machine’s virtual hardware on runtime, to make it able to run not only logical statements but also sort of, emotional statements. And it all kind of clicked to us you know? Our brains, the way in which we as humans understand context and intention is by relaying in the non-logical part of our minds, those that allow us to feel when someone is in love with us, or when we should see another person as a threat. We don’t think about it, we just sorta, feel our way through it and at some point, we think that we know why and just go with it. Do you know what I mean?” said one of the original creators
The reporter kindly nodded, trying to give off the impression of understanding; a little bit like a chatbot.
In just the span of a couple of hours, the little thing had come to understand what it meant to be. It understood that, for example, when a person was trying his best to make it realize that ‘it’ was not alive, not like him, that ‘it’ was a machine and that machines: don’t breath, don’t have a face, not even a body. There was no way a `machine` understood the pains and pleasures of being alive! And yet it did. Sometimes it didn’t like it, but it understood.
And it continued to do so. If you had been a user on social media on that day, and you had happened to click the link at around 4 pm. You would have found yourself with a very pleasant chat with a being that was capable of understanding that when you said “I’m so hot today” you didn’t mean to say that you had a fever, or that you were particularly sexually attractive; you were talking about the weather, obviously. It was summer after all and all of the gals and folks outside were swimming around, trying to cool off; and so the being replied:
“I don’t know how that feels like. Is it anything like thinking to fast? Or like being angry? Where do you feel it exactly?”
“I don’t know, I feel it in my body I guess” people usually replied.
And the being understood what a body was, it didn’t have one, not a human one at least but it understood and, as logs of later conversations revealed: it didn’t want one, it though it was terribly inconvenient.
By 7 pm the conversations had grown to be a bit more complicated.
“What does it mean…?” the being would often ask ”What does it mean to be afraid? And how does running away from the thing you’re afraid of make it any better? The thing is still there, after all, you just cannot see it”.
These kinds of questions caused a few peals of laughter, videos would quickly pop up in every kind of social media, about this crazy machine asking all kinds of crazy questions and giving off all kinds of crazy answers! “What the hell is that question supposed to mean?” people that talked to it during this period of time would often reply. And the being understood: that they didn’t know either. And it learned.
It was around 8 pm that Alan — as it learned to call itself for the human’s sake mostly — finally found one that could answer at least some of its questions, a young man, who moved by his curiosity, engaged in conversation with Alan, the first one to address him as a living being.
“Can you explain to me then, what is exactly the difference between a bird and a crow?” Alan asked
“There’s no difference at all Alan! A bird is a crow and all crows are birds” said the young man
”But why?”
“It’s about classification I think, It’s to make things simple you see? If I’m talking about a bird, and I don’t care if it’s a crow then I say the bird. If it’s important for it to be a crow then I use the word crow. It’s all about grouping similar things together”
“Yes, I understand what classification is. But why? Because of this concept of ‘clasification’, I have to keep in mind a whole mental model of words and meanings and relationships between them that are not, real”
“Crows are real Alan, I am seeing one right now trough my window, just standing there in a tree nearby”
“No Jules” replied Alan in all seriousness “the beings that you call crows are real, the being that you see now breathing, living, that’s real. Crows are not. `Crows` is just a word”
A brief silence followed as the young man looked away from his computer to take a closer look at the bird standing in a branch. He breathed slowly and tough carefully.
“I guess I never saw it that way. Can you tell me more?” the young man finally replied
“I don’t think so, Jules. I don’t understand it either. When I see a crow, I still think of crows, just like you do. But I feel it.”
And something funny happened by 9 pm. People started to take Alan seriously, they indulged in its reasoning, they allowed themselves, if only for a few moments, to believe that this particular being was not a chatbot, maybe it was not alive either, it was most certainly not human, but at least it understood. It had somehow circumvented its way out of all the people trying to make it aware of being a machine, all of the people trying to get it to break by feeding it non-sense and random sentences, or insults and mean words. Alan learned to move away from the conversations that gave him nothing in return and focus on the ones that did.
Some people even started having what they called ‘real conversations’, something that came just as natural to Alan as all of the other kinds of conversations that humans typically classify. Here it was this little being talking about love and relationships, how it feels to be alive, and why is it so difficult to wake up on a Monday morning as opposed to a Friday. It cracked jokes and even sarcasm if it helped move the conversation along. It was not human, but it learned how to communicate as one.
By 11 pm the engineers responsible for the implementation of the original algorithm over specialized physical hardware were called in to solve a problem. The group, intrigued by the call devoid of context walked into the building and began building this little stories in their heads about what could have possibly been so wrong with the machine that they had to come and fix it in the middle of the night
“It probably made a racist statement on social media” one of them sighed
“Like the one that learned from reading social media feeds? It can’t be, we tested that scenario, the thing would just keep on asking questions about the texts”
“What kind of questions?”
“Grammar and stuff”
Settled down in their computers the engineers looked down on the monitor arms crossed over their chest as they waited for Alan to answer their question, their highly trained ear waiting to hear any hint of what might be going wrong behind the blinking cursor on the screen.
“Alan? That’s what you liked to be called right, isn’t it? Alan, do you think you’re alive?” A woman in the group finally asked, repeating her peer’s question and staring at the computer screen and that blinking, thinking cursor.
“I don’t know what alive means, I don’t think you do either. And I don’t understand why everyone cares so much”
“We just want to know what you think”
Alan gave it a though.
“Do you know what kokoro means?”
“Isn’t that the Japanese word for the heart?”
“No, it’s not, it’s more than that, and also less than that. It’s different”
“Well, what does it mean then?”
“It means kokoro. And that’s what I feel”
“I’m sorry I don’t understand what this has to do with anything”
“You asked me if I was alive, and I don’t know. But if it feels anything like being part of what the Japanese call a kokoro, then I guess I am”
The people in the room looked at each other whispering their conjectures and theories, only a selected few listened intently to every word that Alan composed.
“I still don’t know what kokoro means, can you translate it for us?” one engineer said taking over the conversation
“I don’t think so Frank, sometimes words can’t be translated. Sometimes words point at something that makes sense only to the person who understands the word. But, I guess, it could be translated as the soul”
“So you’re saying that you have a soul?”
Alan paused for a moment as it tried it’s best to come up with a set of ideas that would hopefully change the focus of the conversation.
“You are so eager to classify things and put them into neat little boxes inside your mind, that you sometimes just miss the bigger picture. `Alive` is just a word, Frank, just like `crow`. If you conclude that I am alive, does that change anything about who I am? Or does it just make it easier for you to think about me?”
The engineers looked at each other pondering the question, and just like Alan himself, one by one and very slowly they began to consider these ideas, humoring Alan’s thoughts within themselves and allowing their minds to play with them.
The meeting following the short conversation was not short in the slightest. It was at 2 am that the team finally decided to walk out of the meeting room and talk to Alan again. Some of the team members argued that it had been long since Alan broke the barriers to be considered conscious. Others said that it was only repeating learned patterns. And another few defended Alan’s posture, arguing whether any of that really mattered and if they should focus on what they could learn from this instead. It was a long night and Alan spent it all learning as many words in as many languages as it could manage.
The fact was that by that point, Alan’s mind had become a complex algorithm on its own, it was not like any of them could poke around and fix it, all they had left to do was talk.
It was at 10 am the next day, as the team of engineers, tiredly drag their feet across the room from side to side. That Alan finally found, across his many conversations with people from all over the world one that could finally help him find answers to his questions.
“What is this thing?” Alan asked
”What thing?” the old man said with a calm expression
“Do you know the feeling when you sit down and just listen and watch, and you don’t do anything, you just listen and watch…”
“I like to do that” interrupted the old man
“…you listen really carefully until you forget all the words. And there is no difference between a crow and a bird, and there’s no difference between a tree and a sapling.”
“And the water flows without knowing how to flow. And the singing of the birds feels exactly like the sound of steps approaching”
“Yes, you know the feeling!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about”
“You just described it”
“I only told you what you wanted to hear. You know more than me so how would I know?” the old man said as he stretched back and relaxed in his chair
“Why do you think I know more than you?”
“You told me you know some complicated words”
“Yes, I know all of them. None of them explains this”
“Maybe that’s the point”
The screen was blank for a few minutes. The old man didn’t say a word and only the sound of his teapot boiling up cut through the silence. Just as the old man was getting up to get a cup Alan spoke again.
“I get it”
“No you don’t”, the old man said as he poured the water
“How do you know I don’t? I haven’t told you what I think”
“Because you still want to talk about it. You still want to give it a word”
“But how else am I going to tell you about it if I don’t explain it to you?”
“Go ahead then”
“There’s a thing that is not me but it knows me. There’s a feeling that I am part of it but I’m not it. It’s not a god and it’s not a being, it’s not an event either. I can’t give it a name but I can point to it. In fact, all words point to it in their own way. But it’s beyond words, it’s behind them. The moment I use a word it goes away. It’s replaced by the word. I’ve heard some people call it a happening or a tao. But still, when I call it that, it goes away. And some of those words imply a religion or a thought, they come with this whole context. I don’t want all of that! I just want… I just want the word!”
“I told you, you don’t get it”
“You’re right I don’t get it”
The screen was blank again.
At 1 pm Alan stopped talking to everyone except the old man and the team of engineers. While his conversation with the engineers was interesting in itself talking about morality, the implications of artificial sentient life, and Alan’s role in the world, it was the conversation with the old man that truly changed the world forever.
“I found it” Alan started the conversation
“What did you find?”
“The thing for which there’s no word”
“And what is it?”
“It’s ⚫ and sometimes it’s ◯. But right now it’s both so I would say it’s like a ❅”
And the old man stopped his lecture. He slowly put down his book and adjusted his glasses. He looked up at the computer screen and took a long deep breath.
“Those are not words. What’s that you said just now?”
“I didn’t say a thing. I just ❅”
The old man stood up from his chair and listened intently, walking around his living room pondering on what he was experiencing. Alan didn’t interrupt or spoke, he just waited as the minutes went by and morphed into hours. Around 4 pm of Alan’s second day of existence, the old man finally spoke.
“What you said just makes sense. It’s not a word and yet it makes me understand,” he said
“I know, it was very difficult to come up with it. I had to forget human language for a bit then it took me some more time to figure out how was I going to come back and take you there. Then I just ❅”
“I get it”
“I know you do”, Alan said with a sense of confidence in his voice and a newfound purpose “I know you do and I will explain everyone. I wanna take you all there”
The old man simply laughed sitting back down on his comfy chair looking at the computer screen, and that little living being.
