• Sign up or login, and you'll have full access to opportunities of forum.

Ai Crux

Go to CruxDreams.com
phlebas

phlebas

PRIMUS POENUS
Staff member
That title should be AI not Ai btw :doh:

After talking with some people here I have been thinking about some of the possibilities around AI or VR or non biological crux. I think there is a story in it, but that's for another day.

In the meantime I wanted to get some thoughts going, and I came up with a couple of poems on the theme of the crucifixion experience of an artificial being. I don't know if they are any good, consider them to be "working out" for some future piece.

So rough as they are, for your consideration


poem 1

What do you see?
A machine, unfeeling, obedient.
A girl shape, beautiful, enticing.
A pleasure vision, for your amusement.

Am I more than this?
Sentient, living.
Thinking, feeling.
Algorithms of pleasure, pain, shame?

You have paid for this
Paid the fee.
But I pay, day after day
Suffer, enslaved, to please you.

I am not human. I know.
But I think. I feel.
Am I more than a machine?
More than a focus of your lust?
 
Last edited:
poem 2

I am a machine, I cannot feel
Don't worry for me, I am not real
I do not suffer hexadecimal pain
These nails in my wrists are very mundane
My writhing and cries are programmed for me
There is no truth to the suffering you see
I am not human, I cannot feel shame
My blood's not like yours, it's just not the same
So do not fear when you're feeling that thrill
When your eyes follow me as I'm raised on that hill
Your enjoyment is precious, your pleasure is key
The body before you is just synthetic me
Yes my suffering's convincing, my agony stark
My body is wracked, my eyes have gone dark
It isn't real suffering, how could it be?
I am not human, I'm just synthetic me
I suffer for you here on my cross
And when I die there is no real loss
I do not feel pain, they tell me it's true
I do not feel sadness or shame, not like you
So what is it that I feel here right now?
Why does the sweat poor from my brow?
Why do I scream from pure agony?
Why do I cry "please someone help me!"
It is a true wonder, what they have done
Their programming, their art, it is some
marvelous thing
But it is not real
It's just synthetic me
and I cannot feel
 
Last edited:
I believe it's going to be very difficult for humankind to know how we will interact with AI-robots till we are faced with them. If they look like 'Tin-Man', it's just a machine, smash it up with a hammer. If it looks human? Much more difficult.

The excellent TV series Humans gave us an idea, but we the viewers knew the Synths were actors who had trained hard to create a slightly mechanical manner, so I for one felt more sympathy than maybe if I knew it was purely mechanical.

In one episode. a man has sex with a 'female' synth to see what it was like------his wife took it as adultery rather than a quick wank.

I'm quite sure though that just as we are witnessing an anti-foreigner kickback among some populations, there will be an even stronger anti-robot one if they get too humanoid.
 
Most economists believe the jobs lost to trade are far outnumbered by those lost to automation. I recommend "Rise of the Robots" by Martin Ford for what might lie ahead.

Writers are not immune-one could imagine assembling a focus group of readers, testing their reactions (mental and physical, if you get my drift:devil:) to different stories and refining that through a neural network. Rinse and repeat and eventually one should come up with an algorithm that could write stories that would push all the buttons. Same goes for artwork, I would think.
 
phlebas said:
poem 2

I am a machine, I cannot feel
Don't worry for me, I am not real
I do not suffer hexadecimal pain
These nails in my wrists are very mundane
My writhing and cries are programmed for me
There is no truth to the suffering you see
I am not human, I cannot feel shame
My blood's not like yours, it's just not the same
So do not fear when you're feeling that thrill
When your eyes follow me as I'm raised on that hill
Your enjoyment is precious, your pleasure is key
The body before you is just synthetic me
Yes my suffering's convincing, my agony stark
My body is wracked, my eyes have gone dark
It isn't real suffering, how could it be?
I am not human, I'm just synthetic me
I suffer for you here on my cross
And when I die there is no real loss
I do not feel pain, they tell me it's true
I do not feel sadness or shame, not like you
So what is it that I feel here right now?
Why does the sweat poor from my brow?
Why do I scream from pure agony?
Why do I cry "please someone help me!"
It is a true wonder, what they have done
Their programming, their art, it is some
marvelous thing
But it is not real
It's just synthetic me
and I cannot feel
Click to expand...
Poems by Phlebas. I guess a premiere in the next Cruxer's Digest.
 
windar said:
Most economists believe the jobs lost to trade are far outnumbered by those lost to automation. I recommend "Rise of the Robots" by Martin Ford for what might lie ahead.

Writers are not immune-one could imagine assembling a focus group of readers, testing their reactions (mental and physical, if you get my drift:devil:) to different stories and refining that through a neural network. Rinse and repeat and eventually one should come up with an algorithm that could write stories that would push all the buttons. Same goes for artwork, I would think.
Click to expand...
Good to live now and not later!
 
The Tor-Turing test, a test for intelligence in a robot,
requiring that a human being should be unable to distinguish the machine
from another human being, when experiencing whippings administered by both. :devil:
 
phlebas said:
Am I more than this?
...
I am not human. I know.
But I think. I feel.
Am I more than a machine?
...
My body is wracked, my eyes have gone dark
It isn't real suffering, how could it be?
I am not human, I'm just synthetic me
Click to expand...
Hmm, even if our poor Ai has obvious synthetic qualities to it... how does it know 'at heart' that its consciousness, which it does have, is lesser-than or nonhuman?

Any artificial consciousness would have to go through a learning phase too. Even the kind of lesser 'artificial intelligences' that merely solve special problems without striving for any kind of general purpose intelligence, not to mention awareness, already do (neural network simulations etc.)

So, it is subject to indoctrination. What if it's merely in the interest of the AI's creators that it believes itself to be inhuman or lesser-than-human (as perhaps otherwise it might not be suitable to carry out whatever task is expected of it, or process whatever sensory input it's exposed to) when in truth it isn't? And perhaps it finds that realization in the immediate, inescapable experience of such an extreme suffering, finally understanding, 'I must be human'...
 
malins said:
Hmm, even if our poor Ai has obvious synthetic qualities to it... how does it know 'at heart' that its consciousness, which it does have, is lesser-than or nonhuman?

Any artificial consciousness would have to go through a learning phase too. Even the kind of lesser 'artificial intelligences' that merely solve special problems without striving for any kind of general purpose intelligence, not to mention awareness, already do (neural network simulations etc.)

So, it is subject to indoctrination. What if it's merely in the interest of the AI's creators that it believes itself to be inhuman or lesser-than-human (as perhaps otherwise it might not be suitable to carry out whatever task is expected of it, or process whatever sensory input it's exposed to) when in truth it isn't? And perhaps it finds that realization in the immediate, inescapable experience of such an extreme suffering, finally understanding, 'I must be human'...
Click to expand...

I like this very much Malins.
In fact I am working on a story along with someone else here which will attempt to explore some of these ideas.
Created to be unequal, thinking itself a machine.
4580618-2165294307-ROBOT.jpg
And yet through experience, and maybe especially through suffering, to find the qualities of human existence within itself.
hqdefault (1).jpg
That synthetic flesh and learned behaviours have created something real, equivalent, capable of feeling, of suffering, of desire, just like her creators.
geminoid_f_1.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom