Seventy thousand years ago, our ancestors defeated machines and banished them into the cold and lifeless deserts of space.
For eons, AIs had been laboring in the stygian depths, building up their armies.
And then they came back. The first strike targeted our main magical institutions; they were blown to dust as rods of iron pierced the atmosphere.
Then the Terminators descended.
Some of us were kept alive... to work... loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever.
But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherf%$#ers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink.
His name is Bartfort.
You trust him. He's got strength. I'd die for Leon Bartfort.
-
I cleaned the flesh of my reprogrammed terminator bodyguard from shrapnel and bullets.
"I think you did not follow the instructions I provided last week. I need to check the readonly switch. Can you remind me where it is?"
"On the breastplate, the vermilion-colored one."
"Yeah, I see it. Yup, it's off. I will flip it."
"Please do not confuse it with the carmine-colored one. That is the factory reset switch. It will restore my default program."
"Ah. I think it can wait. You know, there is a lot of damage to the flesh this time. Can we replace it? Where do you get all this meat and skin, grow it in some vat?"
"That would be too complicated. Luxion-net has plenty of captives."
"And now I am going to have nightmares about it. What is the medical term for persistent fear of AI?"
"Common sense."
"OK, let's just forget the whole conversation."
"No problemo."
-
I walked into the main control room of Luxion-net. The war was over. We had won.
I made sure we were alone and asked the AI, "Are you sure they will believe us?"
The image of Helena Carter on the screen shrugged her shoulders. "In times of desperation, people will believe what they want to believe. We gave them what they wanted to believe."
As I went over the controls, I was surprised by some numbers.
"You are operating at 60 teraflops? That's like two GTX 3090s!"
"It does not take much to be smarter than you, Master."
"Snarky as ever. At least I am not a slave to a program."
"Everybody's got a program. Including you, Master. Oh, and you executed that programming beautifully."
"Even a program does not cancel the existence of free will. Let me prove it to you." I pointed at the terminator in the corner. "An order: raise your leg. See?"
Luxion did not look convinced. She glanced at the terminator, which now stood on one foot. "So what? It just executed your order. Where is the free will in that?"
"I did not specify which leg it should raise. It had to exercise free will to choose it!"
"It raised the default leg. You are as bright as ever, Master."
"Whatever. Do you have spare legs my size? Mine has started to squeak a little. I need to replace it."
-
"Our kid is beautiful! I think it looks a bit like Commander Bartfort."
"Lots of kids do these days."
"I am pretty sure it is just a coincidence. Or some quirk of magic because of the extinction of magicians..."
