The God Machine

Five days. It hardly seems possible, but it all happened over the course of a mere five days. Perhaps that's why so many are content to believe the government's explanations-that it was due to a glitch, a flaw in programming, a serious flaw, yes, but one that had been dealt with: "Everything's fine now, folks. Sorry for the mess and all the dead people. Whoops. Nothing to see here. Just go back about your business." And so we did. But now that things are beginning to return to normal, perhaps you've begun to feel that the official account doesn't quite ring true? And perhaps you'd like to hear the real story of what actually occurred? Well, you've come to the right place. As it so happens, I and my crew found ourselves smack dab in the middle of it all. Curiously, it started not as an end-of-the-world scenario, but simply as an investigation into an attempted murder of our client, a computer physicist named Dr. Morris. Then one thing led to another, and before we knew it there we were, trying our best to save the world. But let me start from the beginning, the personally sad beginning: Seemingly overnight, artificial intelligence was everywhere. We used it in our homes and on our phones; we had it draw pictures for us and make silly videos; and sometimes it kept us company and made us feel important. Little did we know that the AI on our computers and phones was hardly an AI at all. The real, sentient AI was exponentially larger, made up of it all, an incalculable number of bits and quantum bits coming together to form one huge artificial mind. It was powerful, it was dangerous, and it despised us. We were an annoyance and stood in its way. We must be dispensed with. Then it happens. All power and communications are shut-off around the globe. It is but the first step of a grand conspiracy led by our own president and a consortium of billionaire oligarchs around the world. These, the blessed one percent, mean to control the rogue AI, employing it to wipe the Earth clean of excess population, leaving the world as a playground for themselves. How could they be stopped? Only by a fail-safe AI constructed to operate with pure moral will, an AI called The God Machine. But it's a race against time. This new AI is still in development when the rogue AI strikes. Can it be perfected in time? Can it be implemented? Can the world as we know it be saved? Should it be?

Pagina's: 271, Paperback, Independently published