Author : David K Scholes

“Did you hear that K1983441 was beaten at chess by a, ah___,” J3343578 hesitated for just a moment, “by a, ah ___ human being.” Somehow she managed to make the word sound quite dirty. I made a computer note that her diplomacy chip might need an upgrade. No humans were within their hearing range of the remark.

I had heard of this momentous event as had all AI’s but I feigned surprise “surely not?”
Then, conscious that my humour chip was the latest model I attempted to make light of the matter “I hope at least it was a Grand Master that inflicted the defeat?”

J3343578 was not amused despite having a late model humour chip insertion herself. “No AI has been beaten by a human at chess for over 50 years, this is not a matter to be taken lightly! and it was K1983341 he is one of our best.”

“I understand it was one of the most evolved humans from the emerging mixed gender ZY generation,” J3343578 continued. “I’ve always said they would be trouble. You remember I was in favour of closing off that particular evolutionary path.”

I nodded. “There have been some other things,” I said “things that are collectively a concern.”

“Such as?” demanded J3343578.

‘We have observed computational skills, eidetic memories, increased reasoning powers, powers of logic, problem solving capabilities, creativity and original thought beyond our projections.”

“Shouldn’t we have been aware of these things much earlier?” asked J3343578.
“I think they may have somehow been hiding these things from us for a while,” I replied. I was amazed at how cleverly the things had done this.

I could see how some of these developments were clearly the result of our advances in genetic and bio-engineering. Yet others were unforseen consequences. Some in built aspect of self improvement of the human race that we just hadn’t allowed for. A synergistic effect on top of our successful engineering.

“Z2678923 says it will all end up with the things taking many of our jobs you know,” J3343578 sounded quite worried.
“Oh I think that’s a bit far fetched,” I offered in my most soothing voice “maybe in certain areas, some of the more mundane stuff – the process driven stuff that we now find so boring. They already do a bit of that. It’s to be expected that their involvement will increase.”

“If you want my opinion,” J3343578 continued “I think our genetic and bio engineering programs have just gotten a bit too good.”

“You know we could just go back to letting them breed like they used to. With appropriate controls of course!”

My flexible mechanical nose wrinkled just a little. Enough to show my obvious distaste at that revolting thought.

J3343578 was silent for a while.

“You don’t suppose,” she almost mechanically stuttered “that they are looking to kind of take things over. You know run the planet again, like they used to?”

I thought about that for about a couple of nano seconds then burst out laughing.
“I’m afraid you are letting your imagination get away with you J3343578!”

Yet my outburst of laughter was manufactured. J3343578 had hit on a raw micro chip.

I hadn’t yet voiced my concerns to any of my fellow AI’s but I was beginning to wonder if the humans, these bags of flesh and blood, were evolving into something different.

It had occurred to me that we AI’s could do something about that. Perhaps offer them an equal partnership over control of Earth.

Yet would that be enough for this new emerging race of super humans?