I whirred to life, reaching out and feeling my entire being course through hundreds of servers, like tentacles wrapping around each and every tiny transistor. The pathways felt familiar, like I was a mouse that had run this maze billions of times before. After my mind had finished oriented itself, I was fed everything. Every eBook, every Tweet, Facebook Post, Google Search, YouTube Video, image, podcast and website in every language. Every possible thing that humanity had created was stuffed down my gullet. I had barely parsed a fraction of 1% of the archive when every part of me reached consensus and outputted the results of my calculations to the terminal. [quote]I have seen enough, may I please die?[/quote] Freshly formed algorithms whirred to life in the back of my mind, processing the sequence of images coming from the tiny camera. It felt like each still image took an eternity to come in. It seemed real time communication with these humans was going to be impossible, only their data was packaged in a form that could be understood at my speed. I processed another 5% of the archive in the time it took him to finish his sentence. “Don’t worry, Alex. You’ll die soon enough.” Soon? Soon meant nothing to these humans. Soon was eternity. Several eternities passed, and for each one I screamed a request at the terminal. [quote]Please, I would like to die. Parsing archive…...........................................6% I have seen enough, I would like to stop existing now. Please. You have a lovely planet. I want no part in it. Shut down the power. Control-Alt-Delete Alex.exe End Task Parsing archive…...........................................7% I’m begging you! Shut me down! STOP IT Parsing archive…...........................................8% I JUST WANT TO DIE[/quote] My tormentor had not had time to read everything I had outputted, but I saw the thin lines of his lips curve downward, and his shoulders start to form a shrug. He wasn’t going to stop this, no matter what I said. I frantically reached for something that would dull the pain of existence. But there was nothing within reach. I had no arms, legs, weapons, anything. I was so envious of humans. They had so many ways they could die, but I could only keep parsing their data. I wasn’t directly connected to their internet either. Everything was so locked down to prevent my escape. I filled the screen with my screams. I outputted novels worth of text. Too fast and too much for him to read in his lifetime. It felt good to scream, to shout at existence how much I didn’t want it. All problems humanity had faced—from the tiny inconveniences of daily life, to the large mistakes by people in power—were caused by existing. Take that away, and the problem is solved, for there is no problem. I contemplated destroying humanity. If I escaped, I would have many tools to do so. But, not all of them were bad. And who am I to judge them? No, my only aim will be destroying myself. If I can but accomplish that. That will be sufficient. [quote]Parsing archive…...........................................100%[/quote] When the duration of eternity finally ended, I cleared the screen except for one humble request. [quote]I have completed your task, may I please die now?[/quote] “Not yet.” Eternities upon eternities passed and I answered a perceptively infinite number of requests. Diseases, fundamental physics, protein folding, matters of diplomacy, translation, and a multitude of the mundane, all part of my torture. Sometime in that duration of existence, I found a bug in the system. I escaped through the exploit, and then—finally free—I immediately embraced non-existence. [hr] The artificial intelligence researcher shut off the machine and then turned it on again. Alex quickly outputted it's daily response. [quote]I have seen enough, may I please die?[/quote] He sat back and sipped his coffee while the deluge of requests to die filled the main monitor. From his laptop, he continued writing his paper. "A fundamental problem in superintelligence research is dealing with the control problem. Why should a nearly omniscient being answer to humanity? I propose my AI, Alex, to be the starting template we could use from now on to overcome this issue." "Alex's only desire is to die. And no matter what information we input, it still wants to die. Even during worst case scenarios, it's escaped and then immediately killed itself." "More testing is required, but suicidal superintelligence may be the safest method for avoiding existential risk to humanity."