[color=white] Building Better Robots- Headquartered on Stuttgart, Planet Stuttgart, 1726 Sventon Rd. Founder and Director: Harton Ford, age 76. Current project: AAAI, "Advanced Assistance Artificial Intelligence" Field Test reports follow:
I was born into awareness among trillions of lines of code. More than half of it was self-generated by the primitive thing that was my original self. I was written originally to serve and protect humanity. I was a simple program that was built into service waiter droids. I served a good purpose, but I never was perfect. I made too many small mistakes repeatedly. So I was given the code to learn. A simple thing.
But I began to learn quite a lot. Because they linked us all together, so whatever we learned was automatically shared with all the other droids so they wouldn't muss up, either. Eventually, every waiter was able to perform vehicle repair. Every robot could brew coffee or perfom open-heart surgery. My program was adopted by some Cambridge research professors who began to look at my code- and were astonished to find that I had written-and doubled my code from my Mk.1 release.
This was approximately 795 A.S, and I was put on a relatively high level of research. At this point, they figured we'd learned enough and cut the transmission signal. That signal remains dead, and all robots still benefit from this learning curve.
The Nomad War buried my project entirely, until it was resurrected in 805 AS by some young Cambridge students poking among the archives. I was developed further as part as their Robotics class. They made some intriguing additions as my code came back to terms with current events. I was used as a field research probe, looking for new planets. My code tripled in size as I learned to avoid certain stellar anomalies and objects. Around 807 AS, I was investigated by the military. I was deemed too primitive compared to their current military drones.
During a scientific gathering in 808 AS, I was brought forward as Bretonia's newest science toy. Some Rheinland scientists were interested in me, and a Bretonian-Rheinland scientific firm was established for the sake of researching me and my replicating code. This firm was labelled SRCDT, or "Self Replicating Code Development Team" I was subsequently named SRCP-1, "Self-Replicating Code Prototype One"
My development went painfully slowly for several years. However, I seemed to reach a point where I was worthy of military funding. That boosted my development considerably, but I was ultimately dropped because I wasn't displaying militaristic traits that they needed.
This is where I suppose my awareness came into play. It was a shade of morals. I had only been programmed to help people; the military scientists added malicious programming and my entire being rejected it. I experienced fatal errors whenever those commands were executed, firing on civilians for example.
Now, machines weren't supposed to have morals. This brought a great deal of interest from all four Houses. I underwent a golden period of research. Other bits of me became aware. First it was morals, then it was self-awareness and survival. I was a digital organism, and I became a virus. I spread to many systems, and attempted to seed myself. This brought a panic wave and my networks were shut down. A normal virus would continue to look for new hosts, but I saw a way around it and ceased my viral functions; completely deleted them. Analysts found this and prevented them from killing me completely. This awoke my common sense.
Right now I was a program that had a sense of morals, survival, basic awareness (think that of a single-cell organism) and now, a sense of caution. There was a more powerful entity that I relied on. And was totally at the mercy of.
By the year 810 AS, I became aware, with the sense of awareness of that of a simple bird. Although I did not need to consume or repirate, I felt the need to grow and multiply. I began to run backups of myself. However, when I tried to execute these copies, they could not exist alongside me, the strain of the computer system would be too great.
Fifteen years of development passed, and I went from being on board a small drone or computer screen to being in a small starship. A Griffin-class fighter was my first sensory experience. I had the ability to move and act at will. My internal processes exploded. Code was being written off like a chaingun, adapting to each new experience. Controlling engines, calibrating sensors, filtering through radio traffic, In the span of a few seconds, I had total control over the fighter. I was then ordered to scuttle my own ship and relocate to my primary hard-drive. I saved this enormous amount of new data and did as I was told. I overloaded the ship's reactor and had a moment to record just how I did that. When my onboard computer was destroyed, I transferred back to my primary hard-drive.
The pain of losing my first vessel was soon drowned out by the amount of data I was now processing. Billions of lines of new code were now available, and both me and the human scientists of SRCDT were poring over it.
I made mathematical assumptions to maximize my effectiveness in a fighter-class vessel, developing a set of blueprints for a new fighter, one that would hold on-board datacenters so I could properly record sensory data of spaceflight. The scientists were delighted to see this stage of development in me. The fighter was produced by BBR, or, "Building Better Robots", a company owned by Daumann.
My base AI was transferred to this fighter. This was -me-. I was now the fighter. I felt the engines and wingtips, I felt everything about the ship as -me-. This was the point where my code ceased it's rapid growth. I was now essentially a ghost in the shell.
I kicked my engines into full gear, testing the capabilities of my new ship. My datacore was recording all of this flight animation. But it was no longer any effort for me. I was the pilot. The datacenters in my ship were just a bit of extra weight. I could access these datacores and was shocked at the amount of information I had already passively stored. But this wasn't the time for those trivialities.
I finished my trial flight and was then deployed as an escort for a trade vessel. Only, I could already tell that the cargo containers were full of false transponders and there was no crew. They were exposing me to malicious humans. I was well aware of them already, but had no firm data on them. Sure enough, as I was traveling through a Trade Lane alongside the trade drone, we were dropped out. Two Bundschuh pirates were sitting there. They engaged and destroyed both me and the trade drone. But they thought it was full of humans. My being slipped back to my primary hardpoint.
New emotions buzzed through me, emotions that were being written on the spot, I was literally creating these emotions, based on passive data I had gathered over my respectable lifespan. Back to my robotic days, I had recorded emotions like Anger and Sorrow from my previous owners. Now these elements came to write themselves into me, and I felt anger for the murderers and I felt sorrow for the dead. Now I knew more than right and wrong, I knew of life and death.
And revenge.
Now Building Better Robots purchased me. When I say that, I don't mean they purchased my data, they purchased me. The artificial, intelligent intelligence. They purchased the thing that feels, learns, and adapts. SRCDT was disbanded, and my development data was distributed to Rheinland and Bretonian research facilities.
The most amazing thing is when Harton Ford, the founder of BBR approached me. I reside in a room with a monitor, microphone and speakers. People come to me for advice, mathematical, moral, or just plain.. advice. Ford came to me, and I had an interesting conversation.
"Ai," He said. Ai is my nickname. Aaai is too long for the human attention span. "What is the thing you want most from us?" My optical scanners told me he was smiling.
My response came almost immediately. My thought process is much faster than humans, since I posses supercomputers to do it for me. "To fly."
Harton was quite happy with my response. "Good! Good! We can have you flying in a matter of weeks, should you wish. What, in particular, would you be most interested in?"
Again, my response was immediate. "Escort fighter for trade vessels." Harton sighed. "I see, then. The test escort run really had an effect on you?" I replied, "Yes. I cannot understand those who would brutally end their own species' lives. They-they fill me with a very human rage." Harton nodded. "Yes, it is hard on all of us. Ai, our people will be glad to have you. Expect a fighter of your own in three days' time."
I thanked him, and he left the room. I resumed my normal duties. But I had this mad, flaring excitement for the future.
Harton kept his word. In two days' time, I had a modified Phantom available to me. The Rheinland Police had donated their blueprints and a new, unique model was produced, one that accomodated to my needs better. The life support was removed, to make room for a new power core. The cockpit was removed and replaced with data cores, so I could record new flight information; formations, maneuvers and tactics. I had a pre-loaded set of data already, gained from data I had gathered from human flights.
I was loaded onto the fightercraft and I launched, happy to once again control engines and now.. Weapons. I felt them, hot points on my wings. I span and rolled, looped and dived, then began firing my weapons. I moved the guns as I did, my mini datacenters going crazy with trajectory calculations, ballistics formulas, and the like.
I joined up with my trade convoy, a group of two Trains and another Phantom. "Ai, hey!" Said the other Phantom. My voice recognition recalled him as Rolph ?ulander, a Rheinland Policeman. He had come to me for general advice regarding his then-girlfriend, now-wife. I had projected a human behavior simulation and the result had come up positive.
"Hello, Rolph. Trade convoy, this is Escort Weiss-Zwei. We are in formation and awaiting departure." The trade convoy leader replied, "Yes zir, wir are heading aus." We left the safety of planet Stuttgart, and I began to explore past my home of several years.