SHORT STORY SERENDIPITY
SERENDIPITY
Automatic traslation from the original story in Spanish. Not checked manually
The sun, with insolent vehemence, spat its light on the large window of the room. David opened his eyes and looked at the holographic clock that, indolently, seemed to rest on his nightstand.
It was seven in the morning. He decided to get up and while he stretched, he went to the window of his apartment.
And he looked towards the distant street, he lived on the 21st floor. He saw that, as always, the few people who walked along the street illuminated by the early sun, did so mechanically, without desire, without enthusiasm, even without bad humour. All these feelings belonged to the past.
A fairly recent past but one that, to him, seemed very far away. He had just turned eighty, although he was in great shape and with a huge desire to find stimuli to try to live with illusions.
He had been born in 1950, right at the beginning of what was later known as the “third industrial revolution.” Although he was born in the era when the era of computing and semiconductors began, the truth is that he had been fortunate enough to be able to play with his friends in the middle of the street, with hardly any cars to make them move away from the centre of the road.
Computer was just a futuristic word for the few who knew it and it took David years to appear in his vocabulary. But when it did at sixteen, it was like love at first sight.
In the nineties, he had become a self-taught programmer, to the point that this passion and expertise, without having intended it, opened the way for him to Silicon Valley. There, a decade later, he began to use the algorithms that would be the basis of the incipient artificial intelligence.
Just during the pandemic, in 2020, he began to realize that all the developments in which, among others, he had intervened could end the world as it was known until then. He tried to warn about it. He tried to stop the advance of this technology, but he did not succeed.
The excessive ambition, the desire for power and fame of many people of the time allowed artificial intelligence to develop almost uncontrolled.
At the same time, these same ambitions led certain people, not to call them bastards, to seek power through geopolitical strategies, in most cases using religions as a flag or discrediting certain races or ethnicities, to even justify wars.
This allowed the appearance of what was known as necropolitics, which consisted of getting rid of all those who thought differently.
In order for the people to support them, they used popular speeches that supported the string of aberrations they committed before society. The worst thing is that in general the people, who had been increasingly alienated by depriving them of culture and curiosity, believed them and cheered them on.
From both geopolitical sides, they were full of talk about calling their opponents Nazis, Communists, Muslims, Zionists or whatever they could think of depending on the side they belonged to.
At the same time, artificial intelligence continued to advance, but with a single premise accepted by everyone: artificial intelligence had to protect the human species.
What stupidity… to protect the human species there were very few options and in 2030, what David always feared happened. Artificial intelligence took control. It did so following guidelines that made it totally impossible to reverse the situation.
At first, paradoxically, the world became a paradise again. There was no need to work, wars disappeared, all needs and even whims were covered. In return, progressively, but quickly, human beings lost their freedom. Artificial intelligence controlled everything.
The only thing it did not control until then was thought. To remedy this, all those born after 2032 during the same birth, the medical robots that assisted in the births implanted a chip in the brain, which would allow the system to control and modify the thinking of those who carried it.
Health checks were exceptional, the mere fact of having a home or even moving around, allowed the system through cameras and scanners to detect incipient signs of diseases not yet developed, with which life expectancy and quality had grown significantly
But the lack of freedom to make decisions, the lack of stimuli to feel useful and even of most of the hardships inherent to what was once life, prevented them from feeling happy by comparison. That, little by little, stopped the growth of these parameters.
David took another look at the street and then at the sky. He sighed and thought that it was not worth it to continue rambling. He would continue with his only distraction: programming computer games. In this case only for their use, since artificial intelligence was in charge of creating them for people and did not allow the ones made by humans to be distributed or sold.
He sat down in front of his computer and began typing code and more code that, even if only in his head, were composing what would be his next game. In fact, since work disappeared for humans, he had developed lots of software and games.
Seeing the icons of his own applications, he smiled. Perhaps, never in previous times had he been as creative as now.
As he was typing the last data that would complete the game, suddenly before his eyes, all the content of his programming vanished. He searched for the file in the system explorer, even if he had lost something, he had recently saved his work.
With disbelief on his face, he saw that all traces had disappeared and said in a loud and somewhat upset tone: —Fuck! Start over! —Instantly, he calmed down and added to himself: —It’s okay, I have all the time in the world and nobody is pressuring me to finish it.
He had a good memory and began typing from the first codes he had used a few days before and without rushing, but without pausing, after a few hours, he had almost managed to reconstruct his work.
It was then, just then, when the codes vanished again before his eyes, but unlike the previous time, this time, a warning appeared on his screen that said: —Alert! Do not continue composing this program.
For some reason, which he did not understand at that time, the artificial intelligence that controlled any device connected to the network did not allow him to continue with his creation.
I have no choice but to abandon this project — he thought — at present there is no possibility of disconnecting any computer from the network.
At present? — he asked himself — Of course! There is still a possibility! Very remote, but a possibility, after all. At least I must try to see what the code I am creating contains that disturbs the artificial intelligence so much as to not let me continue. — he thought, encouraging himself.
Nervously, but decisively, he headed towards the cupboard in the back room. There he kept an old relic: his first computer. It was an old thing from 1968 that might not even work, and if it did, it would be very limited… The operating system was MS2 and the memory was quite limited…
There was the thing, large in size and very small in performance, but, if his memory did not fail him, the operating system was equipped with a kind of notepad that, if he managed to get it working, could be used to create the complete code for the game and analyse it to see what the system was afraid of that had prevented him from continuing his work.
He connected the thing to the power grid and, surprisingly, it began to roar, forcing itself to prove that it could still fight. A couple of minutes later the monochrome screen showed a white dash flashing on the black background.
“It works!” he shouted euphorically, while he began to type, looking for the notepad. Shortly after, he was already composing the list of codes that had to be turned into a working game.
I won’t be able to test it! This contraption, in addition to insufficient memory, doesn’t even have a graphics card. —he lamented. He immediately changed his mind to reprimand himself: —Even if I can’t play, what I want is to analyse the source code!
Already in the early morning, without even having eaten, he had the complete code before his eyes. It was a game in which an Earth expedition arrived at another planet where life had been detected. The crew had to do what was necessary to see if certain materials could be obtained, but there was a fundamental premise, “the life of the beings that inhabited that planet had to be respected, whether it was an intelligent species or not.”
Reading the source code of this premise, overjoyed, I couldn’t help but shout: —What a serendipity!
That chance discovery was the key that was needed to disconnect the artificial intelligence. That’s why the system deleted his work.
He considered how he could introduce it into the network. Artificial intelligence would never allow it. Then he came up with something very simple, but that could be functional. If encrypted data was entered, the system would have to decrypt it to determine whether it was accepted or not. If it was not, it would delete it before it could do any damage.
To try to fool it, he would have to use triple encryption. The first level would be to write the code in reverse, as if looking through a mirror, adding an instruction that would execute it in its original form.
The second level of encryption would consist of the Caesar cipher, which has been out of use for more than a decade, and finally an asymmetric encryption at 2048 bits.
Obviously, the system could decrypt all the levels fairly quickly, but the microseconds it would take to decipher the code it found that had written it in reverse order, but perhaps it would be enough for the code to run.
If he was lucky, the next day the world’s technology would have gone back more than fifty years, freeing humans from current slavery.
He got to work and a little while later he had introduced the hack into the network, which, if it worked, would be the most important since the beginning of data processing.
With the satisfaction of having fulfilled his duty, he went to bed. He knew that the next day, well, actually a few hours later, he would only have to look at the street to know if he had been successful.
At seven in the morning the merciless sun, streaming through the large window, slapped David’s closed eyelids, who quickly jumped out of bed, went to the window and looked at the street.
There were many people, nervous, talking to each other with dismay, trying to understand what was happening. David went to the light switch and turned it on. The lamp remained off. David smiled; he had succeeded.
He wondered what would happen to people. Almost no one knew how to do anything. They had no idea how to work, much less work manually. Soon, food supplies would be non-existent and services would have largely disappeared.
He was not overly concerned. There were many people of his generation and some of those after him who would be able to take the reins and lead the world towards this new reality, which, in a short time, thanks to the knowledge of these generations, would recover its usual pulse.
He would recover his sorrows, his joys and therefore the possibility of feeling happiness at specific moments, even contemplating a sunrise, breathing deeply and feeling his chest expand and, above all, freedom.
Freedom to think, freedom to decide, freedom to feel curious and acquire knowledge. Freedom, even, to remain mired in ignorance in the midst of an impoverished society… As it had always been, depending on each person the decision to be happy or to become bitter and depressed.
In addition, the human being would have learned a great lesson. Now he would know that the sirens’ songs should not be listened to. Neither wars nor genocides would be allowed and human beings would love their fellow men, forming a common block.
Then David came out of his reverie and said to himself: —You’re an idiot! That’s not going to be like that! Human beings will continue to be cruel, ambitious, envious, ruthless and thirsty for power. They will try as always to find acolytes and for this they will use manipulation, blaming all the evils on whoever or whomever is necessary to achieve their objectives. Perhaps someone will even be crucified again, for the mere fact of preaching goodness and love… —Who knows? —he asked himself —I’ve done what I had to do! —Than he said to himself. He lay down again on the bed trying to find hope.
Serendipity – Short stories series – Copyright ©Montserrat Valls and Juan Genovés