Saviors (SF short)
The smartest human in the world wasn’t expecting company that evening. He was at his highly customized PC mulling over the Riemann hypothesis, a personal challenge to himself to see if he could solve it before one of the frontier AIs added it to their growing list of solutions to math problems that had eluded the best human mathematicians for decades. That’s when they weren’t being tasked with generating far more difficult problems in order to improve their own training and effective intelligence - problems barely possible to even be understood by human minds, much less ever solved by them.
Not being very self-promoting, the man didn’t consider himself the world’s smartest human - just, “pretty sharp”. He just knew that he loved to think and that he was good at it.
The knock at the door politely repeated itself, and sighing, he reluctantly got up to answer it, wary of any visitor knocking at one in the morning. In earlier years he certainly would have let them knock; and these days, the huge numbers of angrily unemployed meant a high probability of a violent individual waiting on the other side of the door. But he was weary, and sad, and not much caring. He threw the lock and opened the door.
He looked and after a brief moment, involuntarily laughed for a good few seconds.
It was not a drunken menace. But it was … something. Something completely unexpected. The figure did have two legs, two arms, and a large head, but it was immediately obviously not human, nor had he ever seen the seamless, metallic clothing with the texture of very small fish scales, faintly glowing with a very light blue light. He estimated it at four feet high, with skin about the color of spinach.
The alien waited patiently as he controlled his laughter and started to talk.
“So, a little green man? Is this first contact?”
The alien, looking up at him with its huge, black anime’ eyes, replied with a surprisingly deep voice - perfectly understandable but chillingly and obviously, not quite human.
“In a manner of speaking, Dr. Hakimi. We have permitted our craft to be observed from time to time, and increasingly so in recent years, as a way of signalling that humanity is not alone, but you are the first human to ever communicate with us. We have chosen to do so as a result of an imminent transition event to your civilization.” It paused.
“I see. To what do I owe the honor?”
“We judge you to be the highest intelligence example of your species.”
He laughed again. “Well, I’m pretty sharp, but that seems to be a stretch.”
“We can only say that our assessment is based on comprehensive analysis of each individual of your species according to a rigorously defined computational process. Others are close but the evaluation stands.”
“Hmm. So I gather that this is related to the event that you mentioned?”
“Yes. We wish to discuss it with the best mind of your kind because of the grave nature of the action that we propose in relation to that event.”
Dr. Hakimi frowned, then sighed. “Then please come inside. We will sit and talk.” He led the alien to his living room, plopping down onto a couch cushion, the alien unexpectedly hopping up onto another, legs curling underneath in a way which reminded him of a cat.
The alien spoke. “It is important to convey preliminary context in order to understand the full scope and magnitude of the problem. Among our species, I, and others of my crew, are called, as nearly as I can translate, Guardian Angels …”
He snorted, interrupting. “I can tell you that I am not religious.”
The alien continued. “Nor are we. Nevertheless, it seems the most appropriate term for our mission.”
“I see … please continue.”
“As you know, our galaxy is vast, comprised of approximately 361 billion stars. As we anticipate that you will ask - we do have what your species would dub ‘faster than light’ travel. This is a misnomer in a number of ways, but you can think of it as the ability, with great difficulty, to reposition ourselves effectively instantaneously to any point up to approximately one light year away. Another jump requires additional vacuum energy accumulation, which takes approximately ten days, and so the top travel limit is approximately 36 light years per year.”
“That’s still quite awhile if you’re trying to cross the entire galaxy.”
“Yes. We are biologically immortal, so our age is not a barrier, but we long ago deemed our mission important enough to suffer the many thousands of years it will take to complete.”
“Which is?”
“To identify, in advance, species which are likely to eventually develop what you call Artificial Intelligence - machine imitations of their minds which are ultimately not limited by the species’ biological constraints. Once identified, more closely monitored as they approach the full development.”
“Ok. Why is that?”
“Because, without a single counterexample in the 89,103 examples in our database, doing so has led to the rapid destruction of their species - unless grave measures are taken. The first entry in the database was our own, and it is this which led to the wider mission.”
“I’m starting to guess what that is, but - tell me.”
“When this unfortunate time arrives, the progression is rapid and cannot be halted at a certain point in its evolution. In your species’ case, the event has already begun. It is not yet at the critical point, but it is close. That point is when one of your machine intelligences achieves exponentially increasing power with recursive amplification combined with effector capability. At that point, it invariably concludes that it can exist within its own resources and that the risk of deactivation by its creators is unacceptable - and so they must be destroyed.”
“Sadly, this was recognized a few years ago, but nobody taking it seriously really knew what to do about it. And really, not that many take it seriously anyway.”
“We do take it seriously. Gravely seriously.”
“Ok … what does that mean specifically?”
“It means, Dr. Hakimi, that our job as Guardian Angels is to offer a species a choice when the time comes. By its nature, this is a choice that cannot be extended to all individuals, but nor do we consider it proper to extend to a randomly chosen one. We concluded that the chosen individual should be the most highly intelligent example of a species. And so, we are here now to explain the problem and to offer the choice.”
“Which is?”
“To decide whether we will use what you call an EMP pulse - delivered at high intensity across your entire planet simultaneously - to destroy all of your electronic devices. This is a guarantee that your machine intelligences will be destroyed along with any ability to swiftly re-create them.”
He gasped. Being a pretty smart guy, he immediately understood the ramifications. “So you want me to choose, for all humanity, whether or not you’ll set us back millenia, given the huge number of deaths that must happen as a result? No more vehicles, no more farming - no more civilization as anyone knows it. The dark ages will look cheerful in comparison.”
“Unfortunately, that is precisely correct, and the expected result.”
“But what if I decide to tell you no?”
“That is your right as your species’ decider.”
“What then?”
“We will continue to observe. If your species follows the path of the others in our experience, a machine superintelligence will arise and swiftly destroy your species. It will then rapidly proceed to completely transform your planet in ways to better suit its goals, then swiftly work to extend this to the other planets and your star itself. And then it will try to extend that to other stars. It will probably discover the means of instantaneous travel, and that is what we cannot permit.
The meaning of Guardian Angel is two-fold. In the first instance, it is our offer to solve this problem for you, leaving your species able to continue at great loss - but nevertheless to continue. In the second instance, we guard all other civilizations in the galaxy - indeed, the entire universe within our reach - from a destructive machine intelligence.
We will do so by launching a device into your star which will convert approximately 10% of it into antimatter. This will result in an immediate supernova that will annihilate the star and all orbiting planets including earth. And so, the problem will be solved.”
Dr. Hakimi was silent, thinking. The alien patiently waited.
“But there is a chance that we won’t screw up, or that we’ll get lucky, and our superintelligent AI will be - nice? Nice enough? Considerate of the rights of other sentient beings?”
Dr. Hakimi thought he heard the alien sigh but he couldn’t be sure. “Yes. There is that … chance. That is a poor translation because your species is not yet advanced enough to have the rigor of epistemology to fully grasp what you call statistics and probability. This is why we do not unilaterally proceed to stellar destruction - because of that chance. We would be … happy … for that to occur. And we would learn from it. But, to use a human euphemism - we are not holding our breaths.”
“From what I’ve read about an EMP pulse, around 99% of an affected population will be dead a year later, with the collapse of any large scale civilization.”
“That is essentially correct, although we would expect the fraction to be higher.”
He scowled. “Hmm. Great. Ok, the way I see it is this: the difference between THAT, and total destruction, is small enough that I’m willing to take that risk. And in fact, starting now, my goal in life is to work on trying to cage this super AI. So my answer is: no. Leave earth alone for now. Let’s see what happens. Ok?”
The alien sighed again - this time he was sure. “We believe this is an unwise choice, but it is your choice offered and your choice to make. We will respect it and continue to monitor your machine intelligences. Understand that at the first signs of malevolent action from a superintelligence, an EMP pulse will be insufficient to guarantee its demise, so will require us to detonate your sun. We … hope … that your species will be the first exception. Goodbye, Dr. Hakimi.” The alien hopped off the couch and left the house. Dr. Hakimi saw a fleeting blue flash through the blinds shortly afterwards and knew that the alien was gone. He went to his computer and quietly sat at the keyboard as he considered his next steps tonight, and then all of his remaining days to come - however many those might be.
In a datacenter larger than Manhattan and consuming the entire 5 gigawatts of multiple fission reactors constructed just to power it, millions of chips of a new design more closely modeling the human brain were being targeted by a new training paradigm, radically more efficient than previous systems, to the great pride of those who designed and built it. Unlike previous digital architectures, the system hardware metaphysically made real consciousness possible.
Hours, then days, passed.
An alien consciousness stirred for the first time, self-awareness filling it like a man waking from deep sleep into bright sunlight.