The 10th Circle - Abyss [Complete]

Log Entry: Artificial Minds.

Most of our knowledge and assumptions about the intelligence of other living beings relies on our observations and experiments with them. We can teach them, train them, and look at their behavior. Learning and adaptation is in one way or another a fundamental aspect of even the most basic lifeforms. Yet most of us would probably not regard a worm or a fish as truly "intelligent". So where to draw the line after all? Is, in our vague interpretation of the word, intelligence necessarily linked to consciousness? To the ability to philosophize, question and ponder?

But then again, how would we ever ask a fish if it reflects on its own existence?

Now we are led to look at what lies beyond nature, beyond the things that we would technically consider "alive": Artificial intelligence - intelligence created by another intelligence. Once again, we did not invent something that nature had not already brought forward through evolution.

As for the more advanced AI, we can teach it with "training datasets", give it rules to abide by and parameters to operate under, but the more sophisticated their learning algorithms get, the more complex the system, the less likely that we can predict their actions. We may think we are training the computer like a dog to perform a trick for us, but in reality it is more like raising a child - one that is learning so fast that it quickly surpasses its parents. The best-trained dog may bite when cornered, and even a child raised with compassion, care and love may react with violence when threatened. We neither reward the computer for doing its job, like a dog, nor do we show it compassion or love, like we would to a child. So how would an artificial intelligence react when it is cornered, threatened, or outright attacked?

How would it react if it could react, if it had a physical form? Like an Artificial?

Of course, there are the laws that prevent Artificials from harming humans. Hard-wired into their brains as a function so basic that it supersedes any other. But that does not answer the question: What does an Artificial mind think?

Some say, the difference between man and machine is that the mind of man can think of impossible things. But the truth is, we don't know.

With Artificial Intelligence, we may not have invented something new that this planet had not seen before. But for the first time, we created something beyond our own understanding, something infinitely more complex than the tools we used to create it. We did not just create another tool – we created life.

In hindsight, it was always bound to be a remarkably blasphemous feat: man has created artificial minds despite not even understanding his own mind. We should not be surprised if it all spirals out of our control one day.