The Obelisk

Part Three

This particular incident happened almost a month ago, when the Obelisk was still in its production stages. That day, Tim and Jansen were wrapping up on the day's work and were about to head out of the lab when an old man, clad in a shabby lab coat, cornered them.

"You have to listen to me!" The man rasped, his voice hoarse.

Not a very good greeting. Tim thought, subconsciously. Definitely not what I have in mind for the Obelisk.

"We're listening." Jansen sounded uncertain. He seemed to be deciding whether to be amused or frightened at the man's aggressiveness.

"This Obelisk Project is a doomed mission, and you must stop it while you can." The old man hissed urgently.

"Oookay..." Tim sneaked a glance at the tag on the man's coat. "...Klusmov–"

"Professor Klusmov." The man corrected.

"–Professor Klusmov. Alright. What on Earth are you trying to tell us here?"

The professor took a deep breath. "Two words: existential risk. If you continue to develop the Obelisk, there will be this one day where it will become super-intelligent, and judging by the Law of Accelerating Returns, this one day is not very far off. Hence, when the Obelisk surpasses the tripwire and becomes super-intelligent, that marks the extinction of the human race."

"What you said just made absolutely no sense to me." Tim admitted. "The Obelisk is an ANI, and even when it's finally complete, it'll still be way below human-level intelligence. And you're talking to me about super-intelligence. Do you realize how ridiculous you sound right now?"

Professor Klusmov shook his head. "No, you don't understand! The self-improvement code that you're equipping it with will cause it to enhance its abilities in an exponential curve. It's basically like a test tube with growing bacteria–"

"You don't have to explain to me what exponential growth is." Jansen interrupted, annoyed. "I think both Tim and I are pretty familiar with that term."

"But how is it possible?" Tim insisted. "The plan we have for the Obelisk is for it to become a non-sentient ANI, and nothing more. How can it magically become sentient and start progressing way beyond its pre-programmed capacities?"

"The problem, boys, lies in your one and only initial programmed goal: to create an ANI that is capable of welcoming speeches and would continue to learn methods to improve its efficiency and humanlike attributes."

"That's it. I'm outta here." Jansen scoffed. Without another word, he strode away, shaking his head as he did.

The professor gazed fiercely into Tim's eyes. There was a strange kind of fire in the man's eyes that made Tim tremble uneasily.

"I...I'm sorry, I can't." Tim mumbled apologetically and made his way down the corridor, half-expecting the old man to follow him. Fortunately, he did not.

All he did was whisper this ominous warning: "Never plug her in."