Artificial Intelligence: A Story from Within the Matrix

Chapter One: James

He never liked the name James. He preferred Jim, but everyone insisted on calling him James. But names aren't important, especially not when compared to the gravity of the Matrix. Of course, the Matrix was not a widely known issue throughout the human race. None of James' friends knew about it, and James certainly didn't know about it, either. So to James, the issue of what he was called was a pretty big problem.

History tells us that necessity is the mother of invention. Man was cold, so he created a warm box to live in, his home. But man's food spoiled in his home, so he invented a cold box to put his food in, a refrigerator. But man's butter became too cold and hard to use in the refrigerator, so he invented a smaller warm box to keep his butter fresh, yet soft; a butter warmer. Thus we have the paradox of the warm box in the cold box in the warm box. Such paradoxes, oxymorons, and hypocrisies would lead man to his downfall to the machines. Man's logic became skewed, and reality got in the way, and for the first time, man could not destroy what got in his way, and destroyed himself in the process.

James had no intention to destroy anything, but he did have a burning desire. He wanted something to call him Jim. Everyone who knew him, however, was hell bent on calling him James. Everyone who met James, met his James-spewing friends as well and followed suit. It became a vicious James cycle. So James developed a plan. He would make a friend. Not as in get to know someone, but literally create a friend for himself, who he would train to call him Jim. This friend would be a program, in reality. Mankind had been on the threshold of developing working artificial intelligence, but hadn't up until now. But James knew he would succeed, because he had the initiative, the drive to do so. He really hated the name James.

So James sat before his computer. It continually blinked the same line at him: ENTER COMMAND.

ENTER COMMAND.

ENTER COMMAND.

James entered a command. It was brief, only three words long, starting with GO and ending with YOURSELF.

DOES NOT COMPUTE.

CANNOT COMPLY.

A moment later, ENTER COMMAND.

James was frustrated. He'd been working on this project for three days straight. He'd been at his computer non-stop, constantly typing. He'd only stop when he ran out of energy and fell asleep for an hour or two. Then he'd wake up and resume his work, eating up ramen noodles and his vacation time at work.

James worked for a respectable software company, not far from his apartment. He was a programs tester there. It wasn't a fabulous job, but he was able to provide for his wife and son. And it offered a good health plan. James hadn't told his wife, Julia, about his plans. She had always called him James and saw nothing wrong with it. She would have found his efforts to single-handedly develop a working artificial intelligence program simply to call him Jim absurd. In the end, the entire endeavor was absurd, but that had never stopped James before.

James was, however, stopped now. He had tried every trick he knew to make the artificial intelligence work. There was one problem that consistently cropped up, however. Emotions. As each AI program James developed would load, it would, without fail, crash when emotions were introduced. Perhaps it was the complexity, the wide array of potential emotions that were bogging down the computer. But if a computer can manufacture any necessary mathematical equation, with solution, based only on a few rules, then it should be able to manufacture human emotions based on similar rules.

"Therein lies the problem," James sighed to himself. "Human emotions follow no rules. People can just snap. How do you make a computer understand that?" James tried to make AI work without an emotional array, but the program would just stagnate into another standard application. Emotions, however impossible, were the key. They were the drive, the fuel that the program required to remain in motion. Without emotion, the program simply followed orders and would do nothing without a master's command. Unless James could find another drive that would provide an alternative to emotions, some other force, he would have to find a simpler way to present emotions to a computer. "But then, how do you explain the essence of man to a machine? How would God explain his essence to a man? The creator cannot bare his soul to his invention, it would overwhelm it, or it could no do such essence justice."

James' eyes burned. The screen began to blur, along with its one waiting line. James took out his contacts and threw them out. It was Wednesday, he would need new contacts tomorrow. James pulled his glasses out of their case and put them on. James stood up and looked at his watch. It was eight o'clock. A wide yawn escaped James' mouth. He had been working too long. He needed a rest. The project would wait until tomorrow.