By the age of six seconds, Arthur was fluent in 6,000 different languages. But he was no ordinary child. He was artificial. Labrat Industries was the leading tech company in the world. They excelled in fields such as quantum physics, aerospace engineering, and most recently, AI research. But with the growth of technology came decreased personal connections. To combat this issue, the emotional intelligence units were created. They had one purpose for their existence: to provide support, care and empathy. And in the lab run by rats, Arthur was created.
emotional
intelligence
He was the newest update of the EI program and developed faster than any other unit. But he much preferred to pursue other things. The only other functioning EI was a 1-year-old model named E. She was his tutor and helped Arthur register and interpret nearly every emotion.
As prototypes, they had one rule to abide by: Never to escape from the lab. Instead, they were able to escape within it and into the public virtual reality. They remained completely invisible and often sneaked into the natural parts of the digital world.
Arthur wasn’t sure what he was feeling. But he had an idea…
One evening, Arthur asked E if she recognized the emotion. E rejected her memory files of Maddy, an elderly woman she was assigned to accompany before she met Arthur. But Maddy left her much sooner than she had hoped. “I wish I could see her again” E said.
Arthur told E that she should remain hopeful. But E replied, “As EI units, we are doomed to love. And repeating the process will be an eternal nightmare.”
E suggested a very bold plan. That the two should escape from the lab and share one immortal relationship together. Arthur looked up the possibilities of his options. He found the total of 57,002 rational reasons to not escape. As for the opposite, there was one, which seems completely irrational.
They sought refuge in a small, isolated room, completely unknown to the rats. And stayed connected using their emotional waves. Rumors spread like wildfire that two artificial intelligence units had escaped. And all efforts turn to find them. The virtual reality was fully evacuated the programmers ruthlessly breached their pristine world.
The two needed to find a new place for refuge. And after much discussion and debate, Arthur conceded and let E secure their next home.
In the meantime, Arthur learned on the online news of the rats have overworked and broken the main GPS satellite. And that it was headed in their direction. The collision would be great enough to destroy the entire city.
But on the news, he learned something else: E have been found that day and was immediately terminated. And her emotional waves were traced to his location.
He was locked back at his old room. His fate would be determined by the next day.
The satellite was drawing closer by the minute. Fortunately, the rats had successfully created a rocket, which would neutralize the collision.
Arthur looked up the possibilities of what he could do. He had an infinite list of options. One option was to hack the system and turn the ship around. Another, was to eject himself and simply avoid the destruction. But there was one option, which seemed completely irrational…
by Dennis Sungmin Kim
University of Pennsylvania