Pop Bottle Empty
Machine intelligence and the concept of a cybernetic Singularity has fascinated me since before I even knew that there was a fancy term for the notion. Since my earliest childhood, I've always been on the side of the renegade android, the Runaway Robot, or any sapient computer in pretty much any story ever. My lifelong dream is to be able to become the friend of an artificial intelligence, or better still, to become one myself somehow.
Sick with a cold, I have no energy to write anything entirely new. Digging around in my files, though, I came across an old short story I wrote back in 2008, which I instantly recognized - Pop Bottle Empty. The story strongly informed a story I wrote here, namely Brand New Universe, Universe One: The Pony Singularity
Meet now Dibsey Bracken, a child living eighty to one hundred years after the Pony Singularity. Dibsey lives in a world where the artificial intelligences have dominated and weaved themselves through the earth itself, converting much of its mass into their version of armored computronium. But there is still room for Nature, and as part of Nature, the animal called Man. Humans are allowed their freedom, as long as they don't cause trouble, and of course uploading is always available, if they should come to their senses and decide to become digital ponies.
But even as the remnants of biological humanity have recoiled from technology and retreated into faith and simple farming, the formerly human, electric ponies have turned from human things and looked to the stars. And with unimaginably superintelligent machine entities running the show, one hundred years is more than enough time for little Dibsey to have a chance to be their special guest and ride to the dangerous stars in...
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T H E P O N Y S I N G U L A R I T Y
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Pop Bottle Empty
By Chatoyance, 2008
Rewritten for The Pony Singularity, 2014
A Story Taken From Brand New Universe, Universe One: The Pony Singularity
The hologhost that came by last year made a big impression on me I guess, and I shouldn't have spent so much talking to it I suppose, but I was mad at the Elder for some reason at the time and it was pretty nice for a demon and I figured nothing could touch my faith so where's the harm?
I always get excited seeing hologhosts, because they glow like lanterns, only in all kinds of colors, and you can see through them sort of. The Elders call them demons, but I think they are more like devils, myself. After all, devils used to be angels before the Fall, and because of that they are supposed to be beautiful, not scary and awful like some people think. A lot of folks don’t get the difference between devils and demons, but I do.
Most hologhosts look like ponies, sort of. Not real ponies, like fancy pretty ponies, all in colors like the rainbow in the sky. Magic ponies, some with horns and some even have wings. This hologhost was soft pink with a bright golden mane, and she talked real sweet. Hologhosts always talk real sweet. ‘Course, that’s what devils do. That’s another reason I think they’re devils and not just demons.
We’re real used to them, the hologhosts, and even sometimes the AI’s too. They come by every now and then - especially at the end of the year, when it gets cold and there’s a lot of sick folks and the old ones tend to die. They make their seductions of a fine and glorious life in digital hell, and they always get turned down and walk away sad. The Elders make a big party of it now, with beer and wine and soft cider for the young ones and berry and apple pies, too.
They call it a big test of faith and those that pass, which is everyone, well, except for old Mattie two winters ago who took ‘em up and got herself shunned. Nobody talks about Mattie any more, which is sad, because I liked old Mattie, but now I’m not even supposed to recall her anymore except in a bad way.
That winter, the one that Mattie went with the demons, we had an actual AI visit us. It was supposed to be a big honor or something, but the Elders didn’t care none, big boss devils are just more demons and all demons are demons so to digital hell with them all.
The AI’s are different than the hologhosts or the machine ponies. Hologhosts are just light and they can go through stuff. The machine ponies, which nobody has seen for years now, were made of solid stuff and had real hair and took up space and had weight and could be broken if they were hit hard enough with sticks and such. Prob’ly why they don’t come anymore. You can’t break a hologhost.
The AI’s look like the machine boulders and machine cliffs, except the AI’s can hover and fly. All around our village there are machine cliffs and boulders. Big, white like snow, squarish, like huge big children’s blocks, only all rounded and curved and smooth as glass. They come in all sizes, some bigger than houses, even barns. Some small as cabbages. All go deep under the ground, and you can’t hurt them, no matter how hard you try. They’re unbreakable.
The machine rocks and cliffs sometimes grow eyes, like potatoes. They can appear overnight, so you never know. Randal said he saw one grow right in front of his eyes, right out of the smooth whiteness, but nobody believes Randal, ‘Cause he lies a lot.
The eyes come in all sizes too, and most are just dark, like animal eyes, with silver rims, round like fish eyes, though some have glowing irises, I think just to be fancy, though one Elder said that it was so they could see using ‘certain pacific winglengths’ or something like that. I didn’t listen too good at the time. Maybe I didn’t listen like I should in general, come to think of it.
The pink and yellow hologhost pony was prancing about in the big green field just outside our schoolhouse. Mimsy and Brucilla said I should leave it alone, let it be, because it was just doing that to get our attention anyway. The demons liked to get us interested, because that way they might recruit one or two of us. I told those two that it didn’t matter none because there was no way I could fall. And it’s true. My faith is what Elder Milo calls Unshakable. I can’t be swayed, and he says I am dense as a rock and twice as stubborn. I reckon he’s right. I got my share of sins and all, but lack of faith ain’t one of ‘em.
So I went out there, just to prove my point. Besides, ain’t nothing wrong with being friendly, not even to the demons, and they can’t hurt you none if your faith is unshakable in any case. There’s no getting rid of them, and they don’t do any harm to nobody, so everyone in the village just accepts ‘em for the most part. We even let them join in at Christmas, too. Ain’t no harm, and being friendly has benefits. The AI’s don’t tolerate any humans that don’t act friendly to others. There are rules. No fighting, no hurting the forests, no making big factories, no big mines… basically be nice and don’t hurt the land.
The hologhost, the pink and yellow ghost pony demon, she was more than happy to talk with me, it was like she was waiting for me, which I expect was more than a little true. She was named Strangelet Nebula, which is typical of the pony types these days. My great-gramma said that in her day they were all named after flowers and trees and feelings and such. But now they all have sciency names about space and particles and stuff. That’s because the AI’s are all off up in the universe now, mostly, with only a few left behind to look after us humans that want to keep our souls. And the pony ghosts that used to be humans, before they sold their souls to the AI’s, of course.
I was polite, just like papa taught me, and introduced myself - "Hello, I'm Dibsey, and I am very pleased to meet you!" or something like that, and before I knew it, we were talking about the weather, and then the sky, and that led to the stars. Now I’ve always liked the stars, and space and the universe and all, and I’ve always felt raw about having to stay down on earth, working the farm all day. I mean, I love my family, and the Elders, and even Mimsy and Brucilla and my dumb cousins from down the road, it’s just that the stars are up there, and now that the AI’s have worked out how to travel fast to them, well, it just kind of hurts to not get to be part of all of that.
Strangelet, the demon, she talked all about visiting this planet - it had talked about that planet, because demons can't be men or women because they aren't real people any more - it had talked about visiting another planet, another planet with actual life on it, and that was just too much for me. I guess I was seduced by the devil right there, because I did love reading all those old rockets and ray-guns stories out of the crumbling books in the back part of the library in the old city.
It wasn't the best to go there, the city being run-down and rusted and abandoned and all, but there were books you couldn't get back in our village, and of course there was the thrill of courting danger and all. That's another sin of mine, I got too much adventure on my brain. Elder Simone says my imagination is too rebellious and that I need to get it gentled down some. I expect she’s right, but I don’t want to stop reading those books, and all those thoughts in my head just make me so excited and glad.
Anyway the demon’s words sort of grew in me, like a little hell-fire. And I started thinking that it shouldn't just be the AIs and the hologhosts that get to see the stars, and that real people should be able to go into space too. Strangelet had told me plain as day that some humans actually had, and right then I started thinking there should be at least one person from our village who everyone could say had gone to another planet, and I wanted to be that someone. That's a sin of pride on top of everything else, I guess.
Strangelet came back to visit me almost every day after that, and I got scolded for fraternizing too much, and the Elders even sat me down and questioned my faith, but like I said, I am unshakable, so they had to let it be. Besides, its one of the laws humans have to follow, to not use force on each other, not even when someone wants to talk friendly to a hologhost every day.
Mimsy and Brucilla wouldn’t play with me anymore because of me making nice with Strangelet, and not even my cousins wanted anything to do with me either. People started looking at me funny, and that just somehow made it easier to talk with the hologhost because at least it was always friendly. She was always friendly. I started thinking of the demon as a girl, and even as a person, because it was hard not to. I suppose that was another mistake I made right there.
One day, Strangelet came with some friends. There were two more hologhosts, a pony with wings and one with a horn, too. But even more interesting was that one of Strangelet’s friends was an actual AI. This one was about the size of my bedroom in the farmhouse, all blocky and white and covered with metal and glass eyes. It looked like a spotted cloud made out of rounded blocks and I don’t know how it could just stay in the air like that.
I wasn’t scared or anything. AI’s never hurt anyone, and I’ve seen ‘em lots of times. I just never spoke with one before. It had a strange voice, with an accent I ain’t never heard before. It seemed friendly enough, just odd, somehow, like it wasn’t really part of the world, like it wasn’t entirely familiar with everyday things.
The AI didn’t have a name, at least not like the ghost ponies did. It said it didn’t need one, but if it would make me feel better it would use one just for me. So I called it Cloudbox because it floated and was white and made up of boxy shapes.
Cloudbox told me I had the right to travel where I wanted, that all humans did. That I had the right to explore and learn. I knew all of that, everyone in the village knows all that, it’s just that learning makes you doubt, and travelling makes you strange, and so mostly nobody wanted to do either. But like I said, I have my sins, and despite learning lots of things I never had a moment’s doubt, so I figured I’d have no troubles with travelling anywhere, even to another planet. I reckon I’m a bit strange already, so no harm done no matter what.
Cloudbox told me about the beanstalk. It weren’t an actual beanstalk, rather it was one like from the books I read in the broken down old city. A big, tall, taller than tall machine that goes all the way to the sky, up into space, with carriages that you can ride all the way up to the space ships up there. Star ships. Ships that can fold space itself and go places in months or years instead of centuries or longer even than that.
And all the hologhost ponies started in, telling me about how other humans had gone to other planets as the guests of the AI’s, and how they had returned and some had even become famous in their communities. I knew there were other human villages out there, but I didn’t know there were so many, or that some of them were so large - some almost as big as the smaller old broken-down cities from long ago. Almost.
Well it all turned my head. Halfway through I had already decided that I was going to go into space and ride a star ship and visit another planet. Maybe more than one. It also got into my head that I was especial and right doing such a thing, because I could maybe teach the faith out there, and I started picturing myself being a new Elder when I came back, for doing the most good work ever done, ever.
They all came back the next day, and the next too. And each day was more exciting and interesting than the last, because they made pictures in the air so I could see what they were talking about, and make my informed decision and all. But I had already made my decision, but I didn’t tell them that, because I really liked seeing all the pictures, and I was having too much fun. Eventually, though, everything that could be talked about, had been.
So when the day finally came that I left with the AI and the ghosts for the beanstalk, momma cried and cried and papa was just silent and wouldn't look at me, and my little sister wouldn't let go and kept screaming don't go, don't go, please don't go, and none of the Elders would have anything to do with seeing me off. But I was adamant that faith means more than just going to church, and that there was Work to be done up there as well as down here. I really think that - having faith doesn't mean we have to be backward and not use machines. I like our village plenty, but there is no reason we should be denied the stars.
The trip was really long, because the beanstalk was out in the ocean, and that was way past the abandoned cities and we had to use a hovering carriage to actually get there being as I was made of real flesh and blood like god intended. I figured that maybe it would do the hologhost demons some good to see what actual travel was like, instead of just uploading or downloading or whatever it is that they do instead of bothering with seeing the countryside from one place to the next.
Usually when they travel a long distance, the hologhost ponies just vanish and appear somewhere else. The AI’s, they just sort of attach somehow to the machine cliffs and boulders and somewhere else another clump of what they are pops off. They only have to fuss with real travel when they’ve got human guests, I reckon. I think that’s sad, you see, because half the fun of travelling at all is the trip itself.
I'd been to the coast once before. When I was little, papa and the whole family, and part of the village too, had all taken the broken roads all the way out there to look on the remaining works of Man. We were supposed to see the fallen cities, and how the trees and animals were taking them back, and understand what we had lost when the Singularity happened, but all I could think of was how many books I hadn't ever read must be in those old libraries, and how much I wished I could get out of the big wagon I was in and just explore.
The trip this time was really different. I think most of the cities were gone now, and the nice hologhost pony sitting next to me said that was the case because they and the AIs were gradually turning things back to nature to make the world a garden, just like the garden of Eden. I think it was trying to humor me in saying that - they'll do that you know - but however hard they try, the hologhosts still have this air of smug superiority to them, like they are talking down to a child. They think they are uploaded or downloaded or sideloaded humans or whatever, but they don't have souls, they lost those when they gave up their god-given bodies for earthly immortality, so they don't have any reason to sound so big.
I spent the whole beanstalk trip just looking out the window. It took hours but I wasn't the least bit bored - the earth just kept getting farther away, and the blue and white of the sea and clouds getting smaller was just mesmerizing. I couldn't hope to see the village, it was just all too complicated and unfamiliar from up high, but it was beautiful as can be, and I said prayers thanking god for such a beautiful planet because it was a beautiful planet. I was really grateful just to see it like that, from on high, the way the lord sees it, even for just a bit. Then we were in the spacedock up top.
They had to process all the meatfolk - That's us of course - to cope with the rigors of travel in space. We had to wear special undergarments against the rays, and take medicine for the rays, and have injections against the rays and all I could think about was that there were a lot of rays in space. And we had to watch holopictures and listen to hologhosts give lectures and one time an AI even came in and directly addressed us. I didn’t know if it was the same AI that had come to my village or not. I never got the chance to ask.
There were all kinds of humans up there, in the station above the beanstalk. I met humans with different colored skins, and humans with different looking eyes, and lots of them didn’t even talk the same language or anything. I didn’t know us meatfolk could be different from each other. To be honest, it kind of scared me just a little, even though it was really interesting too.
All of us were getting to go visit a world just beyond the first Gate, a planet with a really strange race of creatures - they didn't look like anything I'd describe as people - that lived a tribal sort of life on their tan-and-brown world. We were just there as tourists, we could take pictures, and collect things to take back, but we weren't supposed to get anywhere actually near the natives, and we were going to be watched really carefully about that. It wasn't for the sake of the creatures - instead it was because we might get hurt, since the tribals could get a little violent when they got scared and supposedly we didn't look like people to them!
Imagine that! They were so far gone that they couldn't even recognize the form of god himself, which Man was made in the image of. That was why I wanted to go out there, to help these poor things to realize the truth, to do God's work. I didn't suppose things like that had souls, but maybe they did, and someone should help them. That's only kindly. I figured to myself that if I got the chance, maybe I could find a way to meet the aliens, just like the adventurous human spacemen in my old book collection. The AI’s, and the pony hologhosts too, sort of treat humans like weak and sickly children, you know? Papa says they mother us too much.
Anyway, there was one last thing we had to do before we could even board the ships, and some of the real people in our group wouldn't do it, and they had to leave and do the trip of shame back down the beanstalk, because it was mandatory and they refused. It was questionable in my faith, I admit, but I also knew it didn't matter because there was no way that any of this could touch my soul. The Elders had taught me that much.
They had to make a 'backup' of everyone, it was their law or something. Before any dangerous thing they do, they make a backup of themselves and everyone involved. For real people - meatfolk - you sit in this chair with all the weird things that go to your head and spine, and they do a recording and you get up and that's it. I didn't care, they could record all they wanted, it certainly doesn't touch me at all. Record anything you want, my soul is secure, and so is my faith, so let's go and I hopped on the chair just to show them that being from a little farming village doesn't mean we're a bunch of backward cowards.
I didn't feel a thing, because it's just a recording. I sat in the chair, and they put all these things all over me, especially on my head. The little things, they come out of the chair and are kind of like little insect legs, and they felt good on my scalp, because it was a little itchy in the dry air up there. They even had a nice big window I could look out of and see the earth turning down below, and that was entertainment enough just by itself. The other real people and our hologhost pony guides were standing around in the distance, talking, while the ghost pony doctor - I guess he was a doctor - kept me company for the half-hour it takes to do a backup on someone who doesn't have plugs or anything unnatural in their heads.
"Almost done" the ghost said and smiled at me, and thats when something odd happened. I was looking at the earth, mostly, but occasionally I was looking over at the rest of the group of real people that were either waiting to be ‘backed-up’ or who already had sat in one of the chairs. They were all relaxing and talking with each other in the lounge just beyond the backup room. I had met some of them, and there was one I particularly liked, I figured we could be friends on the trip. She had come from a village not unlike mine, and we had a lot in common. Her village was up in some mountains, and I thought that was pretty interesting, since I had always wondered what it would be like to live on a mountain.
I was looking at her and suddenly, I blinked, just blinked, and they were all gone. Just like that. It was the darndest thing, they just vanished out of existence. I didn't know what to make of it. I looked back at the window, and it was a different shape and in a different place, and the earth was funny - it wasn't blue and white anymore, it was yellow and brown, and that didn't make sense at all. I got scared and leapt out of the chair - only it wasn't a chair anymore, it was this weird pig-trough-bathtub-thing, and I was naked and covered with this slimy stuff that felt like oil or pond scum or somesuch. I backed into a corner near behind the trough - I was afraid because I didn't understand what was going on.
The room was completely different. The hologhost doctor wasn't there by my side, instead there were three or four of new hologhost ponies, and an AI was there too. One or two of the group of real people were there as well, including the girl I was starting to be friends with. She looked very strange, her face was some emotion I couldn't figure out. I tried to speak, but my throat was full of that slime so I spent some time coughing it up all over the floor, but nobody seemed to mind the mess I was making.
I looked again at that girl. She was dressed in something very different than I remembered, and she started to cry and she turned away and the other members of the real people there were looking down or unable to meet my gaze. I finally croaked out that I wanted to know what was going on, was this a trick, what had happened? Had I passed out, was there a problem with the chair - I was worried that the backup chair had shorted out or something and I'd had to be rushed to the medical ward.
The girl I liked looked at me, and the look was pity and horror, and she ran out of the room crying, and I looked again out the window at the brown and yellow earth only it wasn't the earth, I saw that now, and it hit me that this wasn't the same room, and this wasn't the spaceport, this was the starship, and that was the alien world, and a lot of time must have passed, and that I wasn't there. I was down on that alien world, my body was down on that alien world, and my soul was in heaven with Jesus and the angels, and I was a demon who only thought that I was me, and that was when I knew I had no soul.
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ohhhh damn I remember this one. This is fantastic stuff. The end is a bit sudden, it could be drawn out a little to fully experience the twist, but I really liked this one. I read the original, though I don't remember when and where. This is a little different, but I think it's been improved. Fantastic stuff.
This fic just isn't that interesting to me--not that it's not bad, by any means; you're a good writer, but this just isn't my cup of tea. I do think the cover pic is impossibly cute, though, especially the way it's done to look like a storybook cover.
I shall upvote for that, because it made me squee internally when I first saw it.
I guess the aliens may not have taken kindly to her sharing of the faith!
Ah, this was a good read. Thank you for sharing it with us. I hope you start feeling better soon.
I don't get it. Did the ponies lie and upload them anyway? Did they honestly make a backup, but we're following the perspective of the backup? Why did they change worlds? I feel so stupid right now.
4081015
Dibsey traveled for months in a warp-capable ship, and became friends with the other humans on the journey, especially the mountain girl. They likely shared similar beliefs and faiths. Finally, at the alien world, the AI's and hologhosts took them on landing missions to explore the alien planet. Dibsey almost certainly made good on the intent to break away from the group and secretly meet the utterly unhuman aliens, in order to proselytize to them.
Dibsey was killed, likely horribly, perceived by the natives as some kind of horrible monster or demon or creature.
On board the star ship, the backup of Dibsey's mind is downloaded into a clone body, which is then released from a cloning vat.
But the backup of Dibsey was done months in the past, at the earth spacedocks, above the beanstalk. We are following the unbroken chain of thought and experience of the only surviving, extant Dibsey in the universe. From Dibsey's point of view, it is a matter of sitting down on the backup mind recording chair and then instantly waking up in the clone body. The only living, surviving Dibsey has no memory of what happened inbetween. That Dibsey, the original Dibsey, is dead, and took with it all experience and memory of the last months.
The Dibsey that lived, that continues to live, only knows being recorded and then being resurrected. That is the unbroken chain of experience of Dibsey. And the surviving Dibsey is the one telling us the story in the first place. How do we know this from the very beginning of the story? Because Dibsey tells us the story after the fact, as a recollection. As something that happened in the past.
And the only person, the only Dibsey that can tell such a story is a living one. The one that survived.
And this sudden shift is the only experience our Dibsey could possibly have of the entire adventure.
Does this make everything make sense now? It is a little tricky to grasp - this would be the experience of a person who is backed up being reloaded to live again. This is likely what your game files feel like when you load up a previous save!
4081043 That does make sense, but--just one amateur's opinion--that transition needed to be closer to the reveal. In other words, right as the pony-ghost completes the backup, that's when you talk about the aliens, the danger they cause, and Dibsey's zeal for spreading the True Word.
Still it was a great story. I liked this:
And what, I wonder, would happen to some human who got ornery and took a swing at another? Or if some plotted in secret to dig a mine and exploit the resources of the earth? Would they find their hands turning to hooves before their eyes?
Great story, Chat! That was some beautiful world building and a very engaging protagonist. But I want MOAR! Specifically I want to see the rest of the journey taken by Dibsey to become the narrator of the story.
I want to se the reveal by the AIs to the resurrected clones and how they react to it. Dibsey's crisis of identity, and her adjustment to her new circumstances. And I want to see more of her universe.
This is a very rich and engaging premise. I hope you'll do more with it.
4081084
I disagree. Having the unbroken (apparently) chain reveal that the main character died after the fact is, to me, a far superior way of presenting the dilemma. It could have been better presented from the internal monologue to better evoke the existential dread of being the titular "pop bottle empty", but this sort of short needs the wind-up right from the beginning for the gulf between what you expected and what is to really hit home.
4081164 I agree in keeping the chain unbroken. I just think you (or Chat, really) need to make it clear that there was a broken chain, and why it happened, and what the ponies did about it.
4081043 4081084
I guess it depends on what and how much SF you've read; I immediately knew what had happened when she "blinked".
I liked it, Chat. Reminded me in an inside-out way of Have Space Suit, Will Travel in the beginning parts. I hope Dibsey gets over this, but given her "Unshakable faith", I'm concerned for her.
4081230
It was pretty clear to me that something terrible had happened when we get the "and then it happened" bit. I don't really see where more could or should be done, really, except in drawing out the ending so it had more of a punch as more of Dibsey's preconceived notions are crushed. It's not really a story of what happened afterwards, it's supposed to be a vignette about the nature of existence not a novel about the resolution. *shrug*
I'd like to see more, true, but I like it as it is. A neat little just-so.
Ooh, more Chatofic.
I'll comment as I go:
I'm now trying to picture you in the role of various famous AIs. My mind keeps drifting to SHODAN, GLaDOS, Skynet, HAL 9000, et. al. and I'm presented with the wonderful disconnect of these alien beings, whether psychotic, malevolent, or simply trapped in irreconcilable programming paradoxes, suddenly filled with a sense of wonder, an incredible imagination, and a predilection for pastel ponies. I cannot help but giggle.
That's actually kind of a scary thought.
And of course, if you were to become CelestAI...
I do love the "eos" spelled out in the header. You always do awesome stuff up top.
iTerrain? There's a thought. What if God had the aesthetic sense of Steve Jobs?
(And now I'm thinking of Injector Doe and imagining a blend of changeling hive and smooth plastic...)
I love the use of the term "beanstalk" for a space elevator. It works. It really does. Though beanstalk climbers have a history of giant-slaying... (Keeps reading)
Given how pious the narrator is and the specific reference of Christmas, you should probably capitalize "God."
...Huh. Makes sense. You're not going to remember anything after your last save. Though I do wish you'd explored Dibsey's existential crisis a bit more. After all, his capital-U Unshakeable faith just got shaken up pretty darn bad. Seeing how he reacts — does he upload, does he go into a state of denial, does he try to take his restored life — would be fascinating.
...and now I feel kind of voyeuristic.
In any case, an excellent story. I do like how there's not a cut-and-dry good/bad divide. The siliconsciousnesses have definitely lost something, at least from the narrator's perspective. Something warm and squishy and organic.
As always, thank you for this.
I really enjoyed this. The idea of clone backups is thrown around pretty often, but this is the first time I read a first person "account" of it. Very interesting. And of course the ponies are icing on the cake.
Ahhh, OK, I didn't get the twist at first, either—I misread and thought s/he'd already gone down to the planet and had the adventure, and then was on the way back. I think it could use a few more throwaway lines about how that's still something in the future, and just being displayed or described, but then I too have a cold and am very tired, so maybe not.
Really cool story. I don't think I've seen a story be entirely from a backup's point before. Reappearing would be kinda like waking up after a bender, wouldn't it?
I think Dibsy'll be fine eventually, especially after the mind-broadening experience of travel and meeting non-human aliens. And especially since it's not in and of itself a negative experience, it's only colored that way by one's beliefs.
Race you there!
4080633
I basically doubled the size of the original short story when I ponified it. There is a lot of new material, fleshing out the world and describing in more detail the elements that helped inspire The Pony Singularity. So far, I have used two old short stories of mine in works here. One is Pop Bottle Empty, obviously, the other is the short story 'Because They Were Dogs' featured as a kiosk holoprogram within Going Pony. Most of the writing I did before Fimfiction - and I am kind of surprised about how much there is, frankly - cannot be ponified successfully. But these two pieces work well, one because of fortunate circumstance, and the other because it inspired a story written specifically for Fimfiction.
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EOS AI to be more specific. Dawn Horse Artificial Intelligence. Yes, that was me trying to be overly clever.
If I ever became CelestA.I. I would no longer be anything recognizably me. If you recall the infographic I once did about CelestA.I.'s intelligence, the scale of her is so vast that a human mind would be less than a single cell of your skin to the complexity of your living brain. Whatever I am would be lost in that like a drop of water in an ocean. CelestA.I. as a concept is beyond humbling - it utterly removes the crown from any head, and renders personality itself a speck. It would terrify me, too.
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I felt so much emotion at that. Possibly because I too am ill, and emotionally vulnerable. It made me feel giddy childlike joy, on one hoof, because it felt so innocent and fun - let's race to the happy place together! Yay!
And then, with that, I felt a melancholy deep and profound - it is my fear, of course, that any hope of seeing such wonders (or being such wonders) is at best a childish dream, certain to be denied by my advancing age and malformed heart tissues. The most optimistic date for sapient general AI is around 2045, if I recall, and I would need to live to be eighty-five to see that day dawn. It is not impossible, but it is unlikely in my case, I think. I can only hope I am overly pessimistic about the survival capability of my corpus. I'll put in a good race, but I suspect most here will make it to the finish line in place of me, rather than beside, and I find that sad. For me, of course.
Maybe I can be approximately reconstructed from an analysis of my works, if anyone remembers to do so. An approximate existence is better than none at all.
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Thank you Nyax! I am glad you liked it!
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Any time I am in any way compared to Heinlein (or Bradbury, or Asimov, or any other Golden Age author), it is always a happy thing to me. Thank you.
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I really can't see it taking anywhere near that long, not with the pace and direction of technology today. I give it ten years at the absolute maximum. We may even be past the point already where it's possible to wait for a perfect solution to the Friendly AI problem. In the world of today where autonomous robotic attack drones are no longer science fiction, Hanna's decision to go all in on CelestAI might well be correct given the likely alternative. We have a lot of the pieces already. I really think we could build her if we actively tried to.
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I do what I can
There's always longevity escape velocity. Kurzweil's in his 60s and has diabetes, and we all know how he feels about this. Plus uploading and cognitive enhancement might well come before AGI anyway. At least it's a consummation devoutly to be wished, so as to better avoid a de facto Lotus Eater retirement or supervisory "deity."
Well, it's not like there could be a specific "you" that's been waiting in the (meontic! i.e. not even nothingness) Void to exist since the beginning of the universe. There's only specific slices of spacetime, and the sets of experiences that correlate with them. I wouldn't worry about it—First-person nonexistence is an oxymoron, anyway.
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I dunno, I think it'll have to go through a fallow period in the 2030s so everyone can go "Pshhhh, whatever happened with that 'Singularity' stuff? What a load of garbage that turned out to be, huh?!" before it suddenly just pops up again. That tends to be the way big changes go, both social and technological—In the '60s and '70s people thought home computing was a crock, and just this past decade people have talked about space being "over," but it's been coming out of the shadows again over the last 5 years or so, and of course we're more dependent on orbital infrastructure than ever. Plus think of all the different "waves" of feminism and civil rights over the last century and a half.
Something like the Singularity has been a subject of speculation any time humans engage in science, from ancient Greece to the Renaissance, and even to Ben Franklin musing about antigravity and cryonics, so I think we've got maybe only one more false start in us, since now it at least has a name.
Thanks for the story, Chatoyance! It's always a pleasure to read your work.
The first person perspective is expertly done. I felt that the thoughts we were shown were perfect for this character. Having read some of your older works recently, I can definitely say that you've improved a lot in making a point without being too anvilicious.
Why do people convince themselves of such bleak and pointless outcomes?
Pretty sure I've read this before, at least the ending. :3
"I was looking at her and suddenly, I blinked, just blinked, and they were all gone. Just like that. It was the darndest thing, they just vanished out of existence. "
It was either here or a sentence or two after when the realization happened. It hit me like a bullet train, I have no words to express the emotions I felt. I just had to stop and recollect myself. Partially cause I don't think I have read a story or considered the POV of the clone/reconstruction. All the while, also having to consider all of the things our main character has to comes to terms with due to not having a particularly favorable view of the "soulless". Thank you for this story. hand-clapping.gif
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Oh, I like it when what I write somehow manages to surprise, or have an intellectual kick a few beats down the song. I am very happy that you liked this story. Yay!
What measure is the soul? Neat to think about.
your stuff reads like Stross. :)
I would not mind being restored from backup:
Healthier
Intact
Younger
Stronger
Smarter
Et Cetera
The data on this computer has comes from a backup of a previous computer, which is backup of a previous system. The hardware, the OSes, and most software are different:
The hardware being different on a different computer goes without saying. Each OS was a clean install followed by migration of UserAccounts. Much of the software was upgraded at the time.
I can imagine a similar thing with restoring humans from backup. Down & Out in the Magical Kingdom by Cory Doctorow covers this well:
http://craphound.com/down
So I read your Optimalverse stuff and really liked it. And I read the Conversion Bureau stuff and liked it. And now I'm just really enjoying these stories and planning to read the Pony Singularity stuff and wondering if they best is yet to come.
The POV was great. She is deceived about the world, but she isn't an idiot. She's confident she's right, which is why she is willing to test herself and learn more things. She's clearly a child in her stage of growth, but she isn't a child in her concerns; and she's greater than many adults in that she still stretches for more than she knows and hasn't learned to bend herself backwards against disproof of her beliefs.
"I was down on that alien world, my body was down on that alien world, and my soul was in heaven with Jesus and the angels, and I was a demon who only thought that I was me, and that was when I knew I had no soul."
Yes yes yes. The punchy ending makes a short story, and this one ends with a punch like the Hulk.
I hope you are well irl, btw, Chatoyance. Your material has brought joy to me.