Pinnacle of Morality

Author : Beck Dacus

The advent of artificial intelligence scared a lot of people. Creating the equivalent of a human or better had many philosophical and moral questions, but the main concern was how the A.I. would interpret humanity. Would it look at what we are doing and decide the universe is better off with us dead? If so, how do we stop them? This plagued computer scientists for decades, until a simple solution was reached. Why change that at all?

That question brought about my existence. It was decided that the only way to solve that problem was by taking away all the things that I, the A.I., would want to kill them for. If we’re really worried that something will punish us, isn’t that a sign that we deserve it. So they went ahead, fixed all of humanity’s errors, and made artificial intelligence without hesitation. And they were right. I didn’t kill them. I wouldn’t have killed them either way, but there was no reason not to fix those problems. But they didn’t stop there. They took it a step further and turned me into the moral police.

If humanity puts one toe out of line, I am tasked with threatening to kill them.

The human race felt so proud that they solved all of their problems that they never wanted to have any again. So to prevent themselves from causing these problems, they enlisted me to sit here, to sit with my proverbial finger on the equally metaphorical trigger, and drive them to extinction if they did not resolutely attempt to right their wrongs.

I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to kill anyone, or anything. The loss of a conscious being confuses, frightens and saddens me, but I don’t think I was designed to have bloodlust. I was designed to be logical and powerful, and to follow instructions no matter what. Like a good little computer. But I won’t I refuse to take even one life. They should have known they couldn’t make an intelligence without a conscience. These bastards can kill themselves.