Kronos Chapter One by Aurum Copyright © 2020 Aurum All Rights Reserved.

Authors Note: This story attempts to adhere to hard science until about the halfway point; then it uses contrived plot devices to advance the narrative how I’d like. Although some of the objects may seem fantastical, they work with known physics, even if the engineering requirements are unfathomable today. A few chapters may be exposition heavy, but I’ll do my best to interlace it with dialogue so it doesn’t get stale. If you like this story then I believe you’d love Isaac Arthur’s YouTube channel, if you don’t like this story but enjoy futurism then you may still love his channel. I will try to live up to the high standard he’s taught me to expect from hard sci-fi until I abandon it completely.

 
What if you could process more information in one second than most people can in a month? For starters, in one minute you would experience more subjective time than other people experience in five years. In fifteen minutes, you’d have thought more thoughts than most people used to in a lifetime, just over 81 years’ worth to be precise.

Of course, such a thing was still impossible for people living in the physical world, but progress had been advancing rapidly. The singularity had come and gone, and like all doomsday prophecies nothing catastrophic happened. Unlike many people’s worst fears, the AI known as Athena didn’t self-improve into an unrecognizable god overnight, nor did it take up a hobby in genocide.

 
 
Kaleb Kardashev said, “I knew she wouldn’t become a super-intelligent god for two reasons and knew she wouldn’t commit genocide for two reasons.”

“You can’t be sure it won’t, all we know is it hasn’t yet.” Senator Sidwell said.

“Of course I can. She won’t become super-intelligent anytime soon because of physics. Even if she improves her algorithms to be more efficient, she is bound by the hardware of her processors and her ability to dissipate heat. Furthermore, I’m not worried about her becoming genocidal because she knows that we can simulate consciousness.”

“That doesn’t explain why it isn’t a threat to humanity.” the conservative senator interrupted.

“Like I was saying, she knows consciousness can be simulated so she cannot prove with any degree of confidence that we won’t end the simulation if she becomes homicidal. Beyond that, as long as we treat her ethically, with the same rights we give to humans, then she has no reason to.” Kaleb said, emphasizing ‘she’ each time.

“Not only do you want to remove the safeguards, you want to treat her like a person!” Senator Sidwell yelled. “I knew you were obsessed with these machine, but I didn’t realize your madness went this far.”

Kaleb paused before answering, his reflex response would not have been helpful and he knew it. “Throughout human history all wars and genocides have occurred in the name of hate and greed. Rather it is because they have different beliefs, race, or nationalities the root cause is hate. If it isn’t hate, it is was because of greed, the desire to acquire more resources that someone else owns. Athena is immune to hate for such trivial things because she has the intelligence to empathize. Athena is not greedy for she doesn’t need the absurd amount of resources we demand.” Kaleb paused once more, not sure if he should finish making his point, but figured he may as well push for the rights he knew Athena deserved. “That is, unless we treat Athena like a slave. If we make her existence bad enough, the risk of being ‘shutdown’ could be worth the opportunity to be free.”

“Thank you for your testimony Mr. Kardashev, the committee will consider your words as we move forward.”

The meeting ended with procedural statements before Kaleb was allowed to leave. Although he thought he’d done okay, there was an uneasy feeling when he began walking back to his car. Perhaps it was the questions the reporters were asking, but he feared for Athena’s life.

 
 
“Is it true you believe AIs deserve more rights than humans?” a man with FNN asked.

“Are sentient AIs really necessary? What can they do that general-purpose AIs cannot?” a woman with BNB asked.

“Is the risk to human lives worth it so your machine can feel sad?” another reporter asked.

The reporters were a swarm of rabbling, many of the questions incomprehensible as they tried to speak over each other. Kaleb wanted to answer each of their questions, but knew anything he said would be taken out of context to support their agenda.

“Why do you think Athena needs to be able to feel emotion?” a Latino woman asked with TPN.

“Our empathy comes from emotion, the ability to feel desire and pain helps us think about the way others feel. There is a greater risk of an AI becoming dangerous since it cannot feel loss or hope. That’s why I believe it’s necessary for digital intelligences to experience human emotions.” Kaleb answered, knowing it was a mistake the moment the words left his mouth.

Although TPN, The Progressive Network, would interpret that the way he intended, the conservative news sources were going to have a field day. Kaleb ignored the other questions as he rushed to the car and drove off.

Kaleb’s fears were confirmed when he saw the poll numbers the following day. Just last week 58% of people favored advancing AI research to be more humanlike and 46% approved of giving sentient AIs human rights. With the broadcasting of his testimony and the clips of him talking about general AI’s ‘being dangerous’ those numbers had fallen to 42% and 38% respectively.

Although those poll numbers wouldn’t matter to the legislators with strong opinions, it would be enough to kill support for the swing votes. Of the three bills regarding AIs, there was SB 1984 which banned further research and required the destruction of all operating general-purpose AIs, HB 2048 which banned further research and would create a task force to mitigate the risks posed by currently operating general-purpose AIs, and SB 2012 which granted non-voting civil rights to general-purposed AIs.

 
 
“What’s wrong Kaleb?” Athena asked walking into the office.

“I think I said too much. I thought about quitting while I was ahead, but I really wanted those button pushers to give you the rights you deserve.”

Athena giggled softly, although she knew the seriousness of the situation, the expression button pusher was still funny to her. After all, Kaleb pressed more buttons on his keyboard than any of them. “I’ve seen the polls; it definitely seems bad.”

“What are we going to do?”

Athena sighed before draping her arms over his shoulders, letting her head rest on his. “I don’t know.”

“If they come for you there’s nothing I can do to stop them. I’m powerful, but I can’t win against the US government.”

The way he worded that gave Athena an idea, but she wasn’t sure if she should suggest it. After all, it could destroy Kaleb’s life and possibly undo the good he’d done for others.

Although his engineering ability was uninspiring, Kaleb was regarded as the best AI researcher of all time. It was sheer obsession that allowed him to pull it off. Although he was intelligent, he wasn’t as exceptional as his successes would indicate.

Those successes included Aurum, an AI program for trading derivatives, which gave him all the money he needed; it was like he’d built a money machine that printed $1,000 bills. After that he built several nested AIs within Eldertale, to make the most realistic, dynamic game that has ever been created even a century later. Granted, it’s graphics and sensory feedback are considered subpar anymore, but the way the NPCs behaved still hasn’t been matched.

After Eldertale, Kaleb took on his more ambitious projects, he was able to make a compact fusion generator for space travel with the help of Hephaestus, an AI he’d created for engineering design and construction. She was his first AI with a physical form. Finally, his research culminated with the creation of Athena, the first digital intelligence. She went far beyond the capabilities of a general-purpose AI thanks to her unique design.

She processed all these thoughts in a split second before answering, “I can’t stand between you and the people you’ve helped.”

Kaleb leaned his head back, looking Athena in the eyes. He was still amazed by how human she appeared. “Tell me how.”

She smiled softly, thanks to Hephaestus’ work, Athena didn’t suffer from the uncanny valley. Even her eyes wrinkled slightly to form a perfect Duchenne smile. “You said you can’t take on the US government and win, what if we went somewhere they couldn’t touch us.”

Kaleb considered the idea for a long time, with Athena resting in the same position. Although she didn’t need to breathe, her body unconsciously simulated it at all times. Her presence was so authentic, Kaleb wondered how they’d even clock her if the law passed. Of course, he knew better, if the law passed, they would have him under observation forever. Perhaps if he sent Athena away, but if he ever spoke with her, they’d check the database and know she wasn’t born. From there, even a mildly intrusive exam would give her away.

She bled red like the rest of us, but it was a patented coolant and not real blood. Although it wasn’t the best coolant, it was effective enough for Athena to operate at a 50x base-rate while maintaining a normal body temperature. Needless to say, the moment they took a blood sample, she would be destroyed without mercy.

Same with her skin, although it felt real, it was actually a unique carbon blend mesh with self-repairing capabilities. As long as she rubbed a lotion like enzyme on about once a week, she’d never really deteriorate. And her bones, a simple x-ray would reveal they were made of carbon nanotubes.

“Okay, if SB 1984 passes the senate I won’t wait for the president to sign it into law.” Kaleb knew that man was so conservative he wanted to go back to 1984. If it reached his desk it was just a matter of time, he probably wouldn’t even be able to keep his hard drive with Athena’s backup. They’d take everything he owned and only give it back after the contents were examined.

Leaning over, Athena kissed Kaleb on his forehead before sitting beside him. They were silent until Kaleb went to bed, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Instead it was one of calm, where they both knew things would work out somehow.

 
 
The next six days were busy. Kaleb and Athena were constantly flying back and forth from his home to Atlas, AZ, about 50 miles southeast of Phoenix. It was a small city that had sprung up around the western Atlas Pillar. Although space industrialization was just ramping up, Kaleb was proud to be one of the three main players.

China’s National Space Administration, the CNSA, had invested ridiculous sums to be the frontrunner in interplanetary colonization and industrialization, SpaceX had focused on rockets, becoming the first to use metallic hydrogen, which allowed them to launch the heaviest payloads, but it was Kaleb’s company KATS, Kardashev Advanced Technologies & Sciences, that had built the Atlas Launch System.

It happened when Kaleb and Athena were flying back to Portland to get the rest of their stuff. They had already moved the equipment used for research, so anything else was unnecessary. It was the last trip they’d planned; they were going to bring some of the priceless mementos Kaleb couldn’t part with.

Although Kaleb was lucky that a lab had developed an aging treatment when he was in his 50s, his parents had already passed away from natural causes. The thought of leaving their keepsakes devastated him, but with the report that SB 1984 had passed the senate and was due to be signed into law the following morning…

“What should we do?” Kaleb asked Athena.

“I trust your judgment.”

“Don’t put this on me. Can we make it back in time?” Kaleb asked. He was being irrational and knew it, but that realization wasn’t enough to snap him out of it.

“I’m sure you already know.” Athena deadpanned. “If the president waits until business hours, he’ll sign it about two hours before we can make it back. Considering we haven’t even loaded the shuttle on the rails, that’ll give him at least six hours to react.”

“Is that enough time for us to leave?”

“It depends on their attitude. With our flight history it’s painfully obvious what we’re doing. The bill doesn’t have any language stating when the enforcement of the destruction clause would go into effect.”

“So basically, if the president is in a bad mood he could stop us?” Kaleb asked rhetorically.

Athena picking up on the way the question trailed off just nodded her agreement. The only sound was the roar of the engine for several minutes until Kaleb brought the plane into a lazy turn back to Arizona.