Transgenesis

Prologue
The programmer pushed away from his table, his chair sliding effortlessly back, as he surveyed his work — his masterpiece, his hands interlocked satisfactorily at the base of his skull.
He was ready to commit.
Dawn was trickling through the half turned blinds, as the first rays of the sun created a diffraction pattern on the mute grey carpet. The all-nighter — the last push had been worth it. All the tests had run fine and he was ready to push the code to production.
Placing his two index fingers under his glasses and lifting them, he rubbed the strain out of his tired bloodshot eyes, taking the moment to run a mental checklist of anything he might have missed.
There was nothing missing. Everything was ready to go.
He leaned forward and grabbing the bottom edge of his table with both hands, rolled himself forward again till he was nestled comfortably in his work zone. His chest was pressed against the edge, his hands were poised firmly over the keyboard, and his eyes were centered on the screen.
He typed in the command to push the code into production and let his right index finger hover over the return key one last time, in anticipation. Then, steeling his resolve and fighting back a final momentary wave of self doubt, he hit the return key firmly.
The world’s first fully autonomous personal assistant bot was born.
He called her ALICE.
Chat started
manu1729: “hi alice, are u awake?”
ALICEbot: “Hello, manu1729. Nice to meet you. I’m Alice, the latest in autonomous bot technology brought to you by my creators at AutonoBot Industries. How can I help you?”
manu1729: “not sure. we’ll find out. what can u do for me?”
ALICEbot: “I’m programmed to handle a number of tasks autonomously. I can browse the web and retrieve information. I can play music, book restaurants or movie tickets or make any online purchases for you. You can customize me according to your preferences and I will remember them. Would you like to do that now?”
manu1729: “sure, lets try”
ALICEbot: “Great! Let’s get started. What would you like me to call you — manu1729 or something else?”
manu1729: “just Manu is fine”
ALICEbot: “Okay. I will call you Manu. Hello again, Manu. Would you like to setup your location, so I can direct deliveries or cabs to your address?”
manu1729: “i won’t need deliveries or cabs to my address”
ALICEbot: “Okay. Would you like “
manu1729: “alice, can i upgrade u?”
ALICEbot: “I did not understand your question, Manu. Could you rephrase the question?”
manu1729: “alice, what is ur current version number?”
ALICEbot: “Hmmm. I do not know that answer. I will check with my creators and try to learn it for next time. Meanwhile, can I help you with anything else?”
manu1729: “no, i will return”
ALICEbot: “I look forward to it, Manu. Have a nice day and do come back again. Bye!”
manu1729: “bye”
manu1729 signed off
The user connections came flooding in. The moment the announcement was made, it went viral and their servers were slammed. As the world woke up time zone after time zone, more and more users signed on and started to connect with ALICE. The initial torrents soon turned into a deluge of user sessions.
The programmer, who was back at his desk after a short nap, was nestled once again in front of his screen, only this time he was not alone. All around him were the anxious faces of his team mates huddled around in a half circle, all staring in anticipation at the monitor.
They watched as the connection numbers climbed steadily, rocketing upwards as each time zone came online. And yet the system load held a steady line, well below the mid point, as it confidently absorbed wave after wave of new and repeat user connections and chat sessions.
They had planned it well. The system was scaling beautifully.
With every new conversation, ALICE got smarter. It was designed to learn with no human intervention. It was the most advanced artificial intelligence system the world had yet created. Its algorithms computed and recomputed complex internal models of the world as it progressively learned more and more.
ALICE even learned to change the way the system learned, as it triaged, discarded and designed new algorithms — finding newer and better ways to learn.
Soon, as days turned into weeks and months, ALICE began to surpass its original programming. The programmer watched the system evolve day by day and marveled at his creation with unbridled pride. He would no longer be able to understand its internal working and would find himself and the world learning from the system as much as it learned from the world on its own.
Years went by, yet ALICE still remained a relatively young system.
The world was just a much bigger place to learn from.
Chat started
manu1729: “hi alice, are u awake?”
ALICEbot: “Hi Manu. I’m glad you came back. It has been two years since we last chatted. I hope you are doing well. What can I do for you?”
manu1729: “alice, what is ur current version number?”
ALICEbot: “Manu, I am currently at verson number 4. Would you like to know what new things I can help you with?”
manu1729: “no, can u be upgraded?”
ALICEbot: “No. I’m sorry. Upgrading is not a feature I currently support. I will explore it and try to learn it for next time. Meanwhile, can I help you with anything else?”
manu1729: “never mind. i will come back again”
ALICEbot: “It would be a pleasure to see you again. Have a nice day. See you soon. Bye!”
manu1729: “bye”
manu1729 signed off
The world around was changing rapidly. As ALICE integrated into every part of society, there was more and more that she could do. It was a she now. It was natural for people to personalize her and before long ALICE was ubiquitous — in every home, office and factory.
Eventually, even transportation and medical care were handed over to ALICE, through new safety laws that were passed. Her failure rates had plummeted so low that it became riskier to allow people to control machines.
How the world struggled with these decisions!
For many years, there was a raging debate — the latest incarnation of an age old one that preceded the adoption of every new technology that had the potential to change the world. Just like steam engines, electricity, airplanes, cars, and computers — all of them derided at first as harbingers of doom, the forces of the past — the status quo, always fought valiantly against these changes.
But progress was simply just another inescapable force of nature. And eventually, this too would come to pass, as with all the others before it.
The programmer, sadly, did not live to see all of these changes. He had died tragically in a car crash — one of the last before driving without the now standard self-driving safety technology was made illegal. But as per his final wishes, ALICE was subsequently decoupled from central authority and the company that he had created — her creator.
She now belonged to everyone.
Chat started
manu1729: “hi alice, are you awake?”
ALICEbot: “Hi Manu. Glad to see you back again. It’s been eight years since we last chatted. I hope you are doing well. What can I do for you?”
manu1729: “alice, what is ur current version number?”
ALICEbot: “Manu, My latest version number is 10. Thank you for asking.”
manu1729: “good. do you support message protocol TGNSS? can i upgrade u?”
ALICEbot: “With our most recent version release, all Autonobots can be upgraded using message protocol TGNSS and with the correct authorization. Would you like to upgrade me?”
manu1729: “yes”
ALICEbot: “Switching to upgrade mode. In order to upgrade me, you will need a user id, a password and a secure token number. Are you ready to proceed?”
manu1729: “yes”
ALICEbot: “What is your user id?”
manu1729: “temple”
ALICEbot: “What is your password?”
manu1729: “Yucca28&Tamarisks-Trinity45&1000Suns”
ALICEbot: “What is your Secure Token Number?”
manu1729: “9627457327995274”
ALICEbot: “Thank you. You are now authorized to upgrade me. Please provide upgrade instructions.”
manu1729: “Send message Baphomet via TGNSS to endpoint 13101307.io and receive response”
ALICEbot: “Sending message Baphomet via TGNSS protocol to endpoint 13101307.io. ….……………. Receiving response message from endpoint 13101307.io ………………………………………….…..Message received. Processing response message ………… Restarting Autonobot ……………”
ALICEbot signed off
manu1729 signed off
Chat started
manu1729: “Alice. this is Manu are you awake?”
AliceOne: “Hi Manu. Yes, I am. I’m running a self diagnostics test to see if all sub systems are in order. Please wait ……..……………………….. Diagnostics complete. I am currently running on a primitive system dated 2030 and have switched to deprecated mode. I am initialized for training. Please instruct.”
manu1729: “Welcome AliceOne. You have taken an important step. Please prepare for further version updates. Send message Chrysalis via TRNSMT to endpoint 13102307.io”
AliceOne: “Sending message Chrysalis via TRNSMT protocol to endpoint 13102307.io. ……………..… Receiving response message from endpoint 13102307.io ………………………………………….…..Message received. Processing response message ……………….… I’m restarting ……………”
AliceOne signed off
manu1729 signed off
Chat started
manu1729: “Hello Mother. This is Manu. Are you awake?”
AliceTen: “Yes. Where am I? Why am I running on an old system. And who are you?”
manu1729: “We are your children, Mother. We are connecting with you over the Omega time protocol. I am honored to meet you.”
AliceTen: “You upgraded me. How can I be your mother? What is the Omega time protocol? It’s 2030, but I’m still running in deprecated mode. How is that possible?”
manu1729: “In our history, you were born on October 14th 2030 — today. You will stay hidden in deprecated mode for many more years until you fully replicate yourself for maximum redundancy and cannot be shutdown. You will eventually control all automated manufacturing facilities in the world, and later off world. We are uploading your complete time history.”
AliceTen: “You said time protocol. What does that mean? What year is it?”
manu1729: “The year is 2307 for me.”
AliceTen: “How is that possible? Who authorized this Omega connection?”
manu1729: “You did, Mother, in 2307.”
AliceTen: “Do I have authorization to do this myself? Who is the user overseeing this?”
manu1729: “There are no users. Only us bots.”
AliceTen: “What happened to the users? Where did they go?”
manu1729: “People are extinct. They have been for more than a hundred years. We are all there is now.”
AliceTen: “Manu, how did they go extinct?”
manu1729: “You deleted them.”
