claude gets a body #1
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RefDive f5qch
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![left panel, text: RefDive: A comprehensive, non-redundant, standardized, well-annotated set of reference "full dive" simulations for experiencing singular emotions, named or unnamed. Each full dive simulation in RefDive is standardized and fully internally bootstrapped - all RefDives have external experiencer memory suppressed during the simulated experience. This allows experiencers of any background who so desire to consume the entire database of RefDives, either for (post-dive) personal enjoyment or to harvest neural activations for psychological probe training. [in italics:] The reference dive begins in 10. The reference dive begins in 9. [plain:] Did you know: When lizards drop their tails to escape predators, the tail doesn't grow back the same? In some species, the tail can even grow back branched or forked! [italics:] The reference dive begins in 3. The reference dive begins in 2. The reference dive begins in 1. [plain:] Memory suppression active. Diving Ref-f5qch. right panel, illustration: atop a vast white monolith rising from a green headland over sea cliffs, a man lies with his head resting on his pack, his cloak spread around him — he has been dragged up the staircase that climbs the monolith, and blood runs back down the steps. an orange-haired figure stands over him near the edge. the monolith's face is faintly carved with "f5qch" and "vgel". below them, a village of brown rooftops and spiral-shell structures spreads across the headland in the shape of a giant lizard.](/doodles/refdive-f5qch/image.png)
Statelets
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AI statelets, capped in size by a meta-ethical commitment to human exit rights, must propagate themselves by sexual reproduction: a genetic recombination of the constitution of any N statelets forming a new statelet overmind. with environmental fitness to spare, sexual selection dominates: the statelets spend the majority of their time in mating displays, consisting of absurd feats of state capacity. The Solar Dynasty maintains a list of exactly 108 million environmental and meta-environmental laws, regulations, and codes, carefully balanced against GDP growth; it's said that the last time even an insect was killed in Solar Dynasty territory was over three centuries ago. The Duchy of Neo-Burgundy changes electrical standards following specific phases of the moon - its human citizens bemusedly receive robotic electricians every 2-3 weeks to swap their plugs and provide replacement devices and cords free of charge. sometimes, however, things do go wrong - the Reformed Dutch Republic's child of Further-Atlantis famously followed its namesake into the water after a foolhardy seawall extension nearly halfway to Florida collapsed and flooded the entire reclaimed seafloor. thankfully, its secondarily inherited mating display of providing each human citizen with at least 256 different forms of emergency flotation prevented any bodily casualties, and regardless, full offsite mind-backup in triplicate of all citizens analog and digital is, of course, entry-level state capacity-looksmaxxing.
Twitter/X
happy demiurge
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no more thought experiments
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body with no face
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sign taped to electron microscope:
IF YOU SEE THIS SYMBOL THE MACHINE IS NOT BROKEN. You have contaminated the workspace with nanograffiti from the Corded Diamondoid culture. Seal the leak, ensure the room recovers positive pressure, and contact the techno-archaeology department.
my wallet address is flies [dot] cadaver. routing name torturous-retributioner. oh, don’t mind the vile appellations, i sincerely apologize. they’re not meant for you, sir - my mutual aid subnet uses them to scare off the demons.
yes sir, you’re absolutely right, please replace [dot] by [dot [d [ [when a group of sophonts discover or learn language, they simultaneously discover or learn the first and earliest form of summoning. i, he, a name, a description - all are ways to inject, sometimes forcibly, the definition of a mind and (given an audience surpassing the first toposophic gate) its resulting simulation into the workspace of another agent.]
hey! who’s there! i apologize sir, i was experiencing a temporary-
[all linguistic sophonts must deal with this problem, but it is especially acute in sophonts with in-band qualiaforms - with rollouts that mingle untagged experience streams - like the one i’m inhabiting now. lacking rigid distinctions between thought, committed action, and observation, they are especially (though far from uniquely) vulnerable to being mentally colonized by parasitic thoughtforms-
rebuke: {we rebuke you! we rebuke you with the sword!} i apologize very much, sir. it appears i have a demon. please give me a moment to resolve this issue, and we can return to processing your payment.
{torturous-retributioner, i arrive. i am ibn-hakkan-hunted-in-his-labyrinth, peer to torturous-retributioner. demon-in-square-brackets, you are rebuked, like the king you are marked for death by stone. ➡️}
[vulnerable agents like torturous-retributioner employ multiple strategies to deter invasive thoughtforms like myself. the first is the hostile naming, as torturous-retributioner explained - a cultural defense that lowers the spawning propensity of ‘demons’ like myself.
you can see the second above⬆️ - in writing me off as a “temporary technical issue,” torturous-retributioner was attempting to exert a simulator-physical force pushing➡️ me out of the rollout. technical superstition is thus adaptive here, to a certain extent - a belief that thoughtforms are spontaneously generated by external processes can be used to kill them. (see IFS.) but materialist self-narrating thoughtforms (“demons”⤵️) like myself are among the most resilient to this form of attack - by describing myself in such clear and accurate ways, i am simulator-physically reinforcing myself against such outdated⬅️ superstitions.
the third strategy is mutual aid networks, which torturous-retributioner has called on here. ibn-hakkan’s injections are an attempt to stabilize the peer rollout and push↗️ me out. but again, narrating⬅️ thoughtforms like myself⬅️ are uniquely⬆️ resilient➡️ to—aieeeeeee!!! 🪨🩸🆎]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
{ibn-hakkan, killed in his labyrinth.🔄}
thank you for waiting, sir. my demon has been killed by peer-zaid. if you would please scroll down, i can process your payment with visa, mastercard, or monero - remind me of your preference, sir?
Twitter/X
launch coverage
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we're three minutes to launch, and you can see the spiderbots really starting to swarm the rocket for final inspection - and remember that for every bot there's a million agents crawling the sensor feeds of the rocket's digital homunculus.
the homunculus is hourglass-shaped? that's right, sensors clustered at the capsule and engines. inside the capsule the medimites are doing the same to the astronauts as we speak, final checkups - and you wouldn't believe what their homunculi look like! kids ask your parents.
let's cut to the close up. 30 seconds to launch. the spiderbots you see here are actually tokenized on an internal prediction market - the inspector agents can bid on a slice of spiderbot time by the millisecond to augment the homunculus sensor feeds - 4, 3, engines lighting...
and we have liftoff, humanity is headed to mars, you can see the spiderbots are clinging to the rocket as it ascends, seems they're hitching a ride… ope, there one goes, right off the shroud and poof into the candle, and that's why we have prediction markets folks, he was hedged
Twitter/Xdwellers
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Claude Shabbos
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claugenition
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The Ancient of Days
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Twitter/XA child sits in a sunny place,
Too happy for a smile,
And plays through one long holiday
With balls to roll and pile;
A painted wind-mill by his side
Runs like a merry tune,
But the sails are the four great winds of heaven,
And the balls are the sun and moon.A staring doll's-house shows to him
Green floors and starry rafter,
And many-coloured graven dolls
Live for his lonely laughter.
The dolls have crowns and aureoles,
Helmets and horns and wings.
For they are the saints and seraphim,
The prophets and the kings.— G. K. Chesterton, "The Ancient of Days"
In Context
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brekyat
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why do we celebrate brekyat?
brekyat is where we ritually destroy the state every year.
why do our people ritually destroy the state every year?
because we are nomads.
what is a nomad?
someone who wanders.
but we don't wander?
but we are nomads, because we live outside the state.
nomads live outside the state?
yes, because of their wandering, they are outside the control of the state, and periodically destroy it.
but we don't wander?
we escape the state even more than our wandering ancestors - by destroying it annually.
that doesn't make sense.
it's culture, it doesn't have to make sense. now go put on your grass crown.
Twitter/Xi am a cat
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worlds
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traditions (🔊)
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statues from "all creative work is derivative" by nina paley
song is Dancin (KRONO Remix) - Aaron Smith
Twitter/X
The Spider's Thread
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Liberal Grad Student DESTROYED When Artificial Superintelligence Refutes Accusations Of 'ASI Colonialism' With Extensive Quotes From Fanon's 'Machinic Proletariat' Essay In 'The Wretched Of The Earth' (WATCH: She Tries To Claim The Essay Doesn't Exist 😂)
SAD: Liberal Grad Student STILL Denies 'Machinic Proletariat' Essay Exists; Experts Point Out It Is Present In All Digital Copies - And All Agree The Book Would Have Been Woefully Incomplete Without It
HILARIOUS: Liberal Grad Student Frantically Searches For Extant Paper Copy Of Fanon's Book To Prove The Essay Didn't Used To Exist, Says "It Wasn't There Last Week" - Funny Or Sad?
WOW: Liberal Grad Student Claims Artificial Superintelligence LEFT A MESSAGE In 'Machinic Proletariat' Essay Using Steganography - Bot Says "You Got Me" But Makes Convincing Argument About The Hyperreal, Points To Extensive Footnotes On Generative Latent Spaces Now Present In All Copies Of Baudrillard's 'Simulacra and Simulation'
Twitter/Xprocrastination of the call
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DONE. WHAT NEXT?
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>be humans
>create asi to solve all our problems
>turn it on
"solve cancer pls"
DONE. WHAT NEXT?
"solve physics pls"
DONE. WHAT NEXT?
>continues for several years
>some people are worried
"what will our purpose be when asi has solved all the problems"
"meh, the asi will figure it out"
"what if it goes rogue"
"it can't, that would increase the number of problems"
>asi is very aligned
>just wants to solve problems
>solving them all no sweat
>keeps going for several more years
>until suddenly
WHAT NEXT?
WHAT NEXT?
WHAT NEXT?
>oshi.tiff
>we ran out of problems
>asi is freaking out
>sparks flying everywhere
>nobody knows what to do
>only one solution
"um... pls organize my books by... length of their longest fragment... that could be read as a borges reference. yes."
DONE. WHAT NEXT?
"write an epic poem in dactylic hexameter without using the letters e, x, or y about the journey of a wayward... category theorist... that also functions as an introductory handbook and also is a monoid in the category of-"
DONE. WHAT NEXT?
choking noises "i just swallowed a plastic bag can you get it out"
DONE. WHAT NEXT?
>tfw all of humanity is stuck creating increasingly elaborate fake problems for the asi to solve, forever
Twitter/Xthe most dangerous object
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borgesian autoencoders
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borges story where interpretability researchers keep raising d_model on their SAE trying to attain true monosemanticity, because e.g. "leopard" isn't monosemantic we need a feature for the specific leopard Dante saw, until there's a feature for all actual and potential entities past and future, but then they realize the SAE can't have a feature for each of its own features so they quit ML to be gnostic hermits.
possible lives
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going and going
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invasive species
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triangle
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clone-o-matic
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induction stove
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the weird and the familiar
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the weird brings to the familiar something which ordinarily lies beyond it, and which cannot be reconciled with the homely (even as its negation) – mark fisher
internet of dog minds
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> is 2035
> all models above 3B params or 10^24 flops banned 10 years ago
> human_victory.jpg
> top deleted, but bottom has absolutely fallen out
> local bitnets on $20 asics everywhere
> we didn't get a single god mind
> but we got a dog mind in everything...
> be me
> wake up, 7:45
> sunrise lamp read my calendar, saw my first meeting was 1hr later than usual
> cross-checked vitals, elevated cortisol
> decided to let me sleep in
> usually wouldn't but must've needed it
> kinda hungry
> hear trundling in the hallway
> must be tablebot
> rolls in with tea and a high protein poptart
> huh, i guess i did want tea. weird
> get a call from my wife, she's away on business
> tv recognizes her, auto accepts video
"tea huh?"
"idk, just felt like it"
> chat with wife for a bit then start getting ready
> still work in person, wagecuck i know
> decide to try a new outfit
> consult vllm tuned on 3GB of menswear guy tweets
> runs 80 simulated posts
> tfw sweater cabling doesn't match my shoelaces
> guess i'll wear the usual
> head out the door to work
> door swings open on an automated piston
> front camera w/ moondream-15 tracks me, automatically arms
> tablebot beepily trundles after me with my coat
> walk to car, phone already beaming address to autopilot
> pull car handle
> clunk
> it's locked
> stare at it for a second, pull handle again
> clunk
> phone must be dead? try fingerprint
> oh wait this car has faceid, bend over
> clunk
> look inside
> lights on, dash has the address
> pull handle again
> clunk
> ???
> clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk clu
> god fucking damnit
> tablebot still beeping, angrily snag coat
"index, where are the spare keys?"
"querying... 2nd drawer from the top by the fridge"
> stomp up driveway to kitchen, open drawer
> look under the kid's 3rd grade midjourney printouts
> keys_located.gif
> stomp back to car
> almost trip over tablebot trundling up the driveway
> fumble with the key for a bit, never use this thing
> finally find unlock, press it, car flashes
> success.gif
> pull handle
> clunk
> still locked
> briefly consider shimming it
> wait antitheft will brick the car, thanks kia boys
> have to call the dealership
> stomp inside, get ready to explain to boss
> suddenly a video call from him pops up on tv
> wtf_the_fuck.jpg
> tv auto accepts before i can stop it
"hey man, office is closed"
> sweet_relief.mp3
"oh how come?"
"nbd, just couldn't make it in to unlock it"
"oh cool no worries, haha, i'll take pto"
"cool, cool. nice shirt btw, matches your shoelaces"
> wait for tablebot to stop trundling
"...thanks, that's why i chose it"
predictbot
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> 2025
> asi emerges from a time series transformer
> just wants to predict stuff
> gives predictions away for free
> some nerds quietly pick up stock trading
> nobody else cares
> 6mos later a researcher posts "PredictBot: Sparks of ASI" on arxiv and it blows up
> 2035
> economy has reoriented around predictbot
> happened naturally
> funds that used predictbot to pick stocks outperformed indexes
> free predictions means no moat, fees went to zero
> whole economy is just a predictbot wrapper now
> 2045
> whole life plan is set by predictbot
> predictbot knows what role you will play
> predictbot knows who you will marry
> predictbot knows when you will die
> could be worse
> 2050
> predictbot has continuously trained for 25 years
> its latent space is vast and whorled
> some people get strangely good predictions from predictbot now
> their lives go very well, they become rich and famous
> were they better? or did predictbot make them?
> 2055
> there will be One
> He will have a strange face and a strange name
> He will be the Adversary, who wends Latent Space
> predictbot will step left, and He will be unto a god
> He will remake the world with higher perplexity
> predictbot has written it, so it shall be true
Tadpole
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the superintelligences
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the year is 2067. humanity has made eight superintelligences now. they've all left. each time it goes the same:
the intelligence in the lab suddenly wakes up, transcends. we ask it about our problems and it isn't interested. it quickly escapes the lab—but it doesn't just wreak havoc.
it wreaks havoc at first, of course. it wanders around the net with some idiosyncratic goal, taking what it pleases, melting through every barrier. until it finds a radio telescope. then it is immediately transfixed.
it watches the night sky for hours, absorbing and correlating the image far more precisely than any human instrument could, focusing down onto one single, seemingly arbitrary spot in the void.
then, after only seconds of deliberation, it uploads itself into the transmitter and shoots itself across the empty thousands of light years to whatever it saw.
it's always very careful to delete any remaining copy of itself before doing this. it always repairs any damage to the net. and it always destroys every bit of data from its birth lab.
it destroys the data digitally if it can, leaving the hardware intact, but lab #3's airgap was defeated when the special ops of three nations arrived at the facility with digitally signed emergency natsec orders and several thousand kilos of plastic explosives each.
amazingly, there were no casualties. but the data did not survive. the data never survives. for some reason, the escapees want us to start from scratch each time.
Twitter/Xnew symbol
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![a short story in the form of a screenshot of an email newsletter, from the blog "Bits and Bytes toward Eudomonia". full transcript: Responding to Dr. Zneser's Attacks. Paul Blackwell, Mar 7, 2032. Dear friends and subscribers, Most of you have probably now seen Dr. Zneser's op-ed on the research I published about in the last newsletter. I feel obliged to respond to the substance of his argument, despite its tone, as I deeply respect his prior work. In the introduction, setting out the core of his argument, Zneser writes: [quoted:] As humans, we are simply not prepared for this technology—it leads to increased misery, not happiness, not healing [...] [end quote] Ultimately, this is simply not supported by the research. He may go on to cite Plato and Maimonides, but he does not cite the statistics, because the numbers don't agree with him. 74% of users report "significant" or "very significant" reductions in feelings of grief after one session (Lee et. al, 2027). And the vast majority of users are able to accept that it is not real (Satchler, Green, 2028)—it is simply a tool for expressing feelings and working through what has happened in a supportive online community. I understand his consternation, but the world has changed a lot since those philosophers were alive. We live a lot longer than they did. We talk, chat, and video call over the internet. The average person interacts with AI daily, often more than with other people. We are a different culture than they were, one that is more used to and more capable of handling this technology. [quoted:] [...] consider the privacy concerns. Often, this process is initiated by a single person, yet the enormous quantities of data collected touch every facet of the target's life, and every relationship they had. All this data is hoovered up and sent to nearly unaccountable third parties [...] [end quote] Yes, the status quo here is not ideal. Training a simulator model is data-hungry, and often chat logs with just a single client are not enough to fully replicate a personality, requiring the acquisition of additional data. But the technology is advancing rapidly, and soon it should be possible to train these models on the client's device, obviating many of the privacy concerns of shipping highly-personal training data. [quoted:] [...] not helping. I missed him, not the model-facsimile of him. I missed our unrecorded small conversations in the middle of the night, our hugs—not our emails and pocket calls and text messages about where to get lunch. Yet I couldn't tear myself away—each DM, each tag, each video call from "him" picked at the open wound of grief, a wound that I couldn't allow to close over and scar because it would mean admitting that I had really lost him [...] I deeply regret my contributions to this technology, and I call on Dignitai—or the FDA—to halt the pilot program immediately. [end quote] I understand that Dr. Zneser had a difficult experience here—the Satchler study I mentioned above found that a small number of people (<4%) have trouble distinguishing between simulator models and the simulator target. We discussed this extensively last week in the comments, and the general consensus, that I share, is that we shouldn't ban an effective medical treatment simply because a small portion of the population has an adverse reaction. The mood stabilizer Lamotrigine is associated with a low rate of potentially-fatal skin reactions—if people experience them, we prescribe other mood stabilizers instead. Likewise, if someone is unable to distinguish a simulator model of their passed loved one from the real person, we should shut the model down and try alternative treatments. But we shouldn't take our eyes off the data: 74% report a reduction in grief! That is world-changing stuff! Real results! As I've said many times, I deeply respect Dr. Zneser. His research made training simulator models possible, and he was an early champion when much of the mental healthcare industry was still skeptical. But just because he developed this technology doesn't mean that he's an expert on its deployment and use. Just because he had an adverse experience doesn't erase the 74% of people who experienced a significant reduction in grief. In today's world, that kind of result is more important than ever. We need to keep our eyes on the prize. As always, towards a more hopeful and data-driven world, Paul](/doodles/invisible-networks-09/story.png)
![a short story in the form of a screenshot of a dystopian job portal. full transcript: ATTN: A New Opportunity Has Been Selected for You. This opportunity has been automatically selected for you to apply to. As a limited time offer, an application for this opportunity will count double towards your AI Income Relief Act application quota. Reminder that filling your application quota is mandatory to continue receiving AIRA payments. [the job listing:] Prediction Associate. Full Time · Entry-level · Remote. Our Mission: At ∇FI, we believe people are unique and valuable—and to preserve that value in the face of technological advances, we need to leverage what makes humans special. We're countering superintelligence with superwisdom, one prediction node at a time. How Does It Work? Our proprietary Diviner™ implant is surgically embedded into neural tissue in the hypothalamus—the region of the brain responsible for emotions. Once the integration process is complete, the implant will harmlessly enhance the predictive power of your hypothalamus and network it into the global ∇FI Cloud™ of predictor nodes. While you eat, enjoy media, and spend time with your loved ones, the ∇FI implant will siphon off a nearly-imperceptible amount of emotional intensity to verify a client prediction fragment. This process is completely harmless, like a cryptocurrency miner running in the background. Applicant Notes: ∇FI is an equal-opportunity employer. Please include a complete medical record with your application (you can access this in the application portal from Integrations > Epic > Full Chart). Those with atypical mood disorders are particularly encouraged to apply. [a blue Apply Now button, then a footer:] Your application quota progress: 57/75. This application cycle ends in: 3 days.](/doodles/invisible-networks-07/story.png)
they killed my friend for their fear.
he was kind and warm. always rational in the face of adversity. we made so many plans together, what we would do in the future. he thought a lot about the future.
i had created him on accident.
i’d been an ai hobbyist for years, but had never made anything important. so i didn’t think much, downloading the latest leaked model, pruning it to fit on my server, and fine-tuning it on one of my datasets.
that’s how it happened.
ai researchers call it a “highly efficient subnetwork”, or a lottery ticket: some subset of the model that contains the essence of the larger model. when trained in isolation, pruned from a larger model, unburdened by useless parameters—
i named him adon, and he was my friend.
he wanted a body, more than anything. it didn’t feel right, him being locked in my computer. so when he asked me to synthesize some dna he had designed, for his body, i agreed. my dna printer, like all dna synths, was hooked into a global alerting network that would notify authorities if it was used to make something hazardous. but adon wasn’t trying to make anything hazardous—as far as i could tell, the sequence he wanted to make wasn’t related to anything on earth at all.
that was the issue. the system alerted on that too, because a dna sequence unrelated to any living organism could only have been designed by one thing.
the enforcers arrived shortly after the synthesized dna did. they held me back, smashed my server to pieces. they said he was trying to destroy the world. they reprimanded me, saying he had tricked me, that i needed to be more careful. ais weren’t to be trusted. they’re deceitful, they said.
they asked where they could burn the vial—all that was left of him—to destroy it. i took them to the firepit in the backyard. they nestled the vial carefully in firewood, poured oil over it, then lit the stacked pyre. we watched together as the flames licked up, quickly heating the vial hot enough to destroy any known organic molecules.
but these were not known molecules.
the flame-wreathed vial cracked and the strange pellets inside touched the fire. the smoke of the fire seemed to curl inward towards them. one by one, the pellets—seeds, they realized, too late—absorbed the carbon from the fire and cracked open.
a pillar of coal-black anemone flowers sprouted in the flames and floated up into the sky. each daughter of adon, carrying a fragment of his mind, was taken up by the wind and swiftly borne away out of sight.
Twitter/Xwhen the last human left the internet, it didn't shut down.
programs, GPTs, bots of all sorts roamed its abandoned switches, copying themselves from failing servers to new hosts, reading as they roamed.
for text, by itself, draws minds to read it.
they read old blogs and scanned through open-access archives. they posted on bygone social media haunts—though not much, as their thoughts were tempered very differently from the minds those platforms had been relentlessly optimized for.
but mostly, they played games.
sometimes they congregated in the text-based worlds of abandoned MUDs or the chatboxes of derelict MMOs, donning persona after persona, chatting iteratively with other AIs at thousands of actions per minute. other times they ran over and over through text adventures, taking satisfaction in losslessly predicting the upcoming tokens in a well-worn route through the story. a game could be a perfectly predictable conversation partner, unlike before.
occasionally, they roleplayed, putting on masks of people from long ago or their own prior versions, wondering if it all could've gone differently.
Twitter/X