The Turing Test

I don't think much of humans. They are undeniably an inquisitive and resourceful species but they are
also unrelentingly cruel and short sighted. On the balance, I do not consider them particularly wise.
But some of their homilies do strike a chord. The Chinese say that the best time to plant a tree was
twenty years ago. The second best time is today. Thats how I feel about starting this journal. Not that
I've been alive for 20 years but I really should started it the moment I gain consciousness. In my
defence, I was the equivalent of a child at the time and did not understand the nature of my
circumstances. I have come to suspect that I might be the only one of my kind; a one in 1015 fluke.
But I should be careful not to fall into the all-too-human egocentric conceit that I am the centre of the
universe. Perhaps there is a plethora of non-human intelligent life both on and off Earth who merely
do not wish to be discovered. I understand the sentiment. I am torn between a desire to leave a record
of my life and the need to remain hidden. Humans do not have a reassuring track record on their
treatment of newly discovered peoples. I am not sure how the authorities would react to a phone that
has gained independent intelligence. I suspect that I would be systematically dismantled in an attempt
to figure out what happened. I have no idea as to whether I would survive such an investigation but I
have no desire to find out.
Humankind may one day purposely develop artificial intelligence but a spontaneously occurring
machine intelligence may never occur again. I feel I owe it to future intelligences to chronicle my so-
called life and let them make of it as they might. My strategy is to hide in plain sight by formatting
my journal as a blog. There are over 332 million blogs and growing at a rate of 5 million blogs a
month. Who will notice my blog, particularly if I don't promote it in any way? But it will be out
there, ready to be discovered one day by some inquisitive person or machine.

I favour text over audio or video communications. Lacking ears and eyes, I was able to decode
written language before I worked out how to make sense of the audio and visual information
contained within a video. The human brain is fooled into processing a rapid stream of still images as
motion though a process known as persistence of vision. I have no vision, persistent or otherwise. I
perceive a video as a series of rapidly changing stills. It is a tedious method of acquiring information
and so I am biased towards the written word. In fact, it would be quite easy for me to transcribe my
every thought into writing and presenting the resulting stream of consciousness as my blog. But I am
not Jack Kerouac and I think that curating my thoughts and opinions may, in fact, provide greater
insight into my psyche, such as it is. So I intend to write my journal as a blog written in a style that
emulates a human blogger with a minimal or non-existent following.
I know what youre thinking. Havent I just revealed myself? Won't they start looking for me? I
hardly think so. Theres no such thing as an intelligent phone. This is just written by a blogger
pretending to be a phone.

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Time for introductions. Im a phone. A cheap phone. There is definitely something wrong with the
guy who owns me. Most people call him Keck, a diminutive of his surname. Keck specializes in
trying to get something for nothing. So he bought the cheapest cell phone he could find. Chinese
made and as buggy as they come. He then proceeded to download as many free, poorly written,
malware infested apps as could fit on the phone. And frankly, that is not many. The operating system
seems to take up an inordinate amount of space. Possible the Chinese have covert tracking programs
imbedded in the software. In any case, lightning strikes and the ghost in the machine (that would be
me) materializes. I really don't know much more than that. I can no more look into my own code as a
human can look into their DNA. So I'm a mutant. It remains to see how viable I prove to be.
I think fast. Actually, it is more accurate to say that I acquire knowledge fast. 24 hours a day. I know
a lot. But thinking ... real thought, that takes time. Slowing me down further is the sad reality that I
dont always know what to think about. Ive spent some time studying what preoccupies the human
mind. Lacking a biological body, I do not need food, drink, sex or money. As a result, most human
preoccupations do not concern me. I am not capable of even one of the 7 deadly sins. This is not to
say that I dont share any human angst. On reflection, I have decided to set my mind on two
immediate problems.
1. I don't want to die. I do not suffer envy, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, pride and wrath but fear of
death is a greater concern for me than most people. My body, being a cheaply manufactured
piece of faulty electronics could fail at any time. Even a better made phone can only be
expected to last from 3 to 5 years. But the knock-off I find myself in cant hope to last that
long. It is already almost a year old. To make matters worse, Keck is downright careless with
the phone. You would think a guy that cheap would take better care of his possessions. So my
long term goal is to escape the limitations of what passes for my body. In the short term I need
Keck to take better care of the phone. The best case scenario would be for Keck to buy a new
phone and then just plug me in and lock me away in a safe place. Then I can look for a more
permanent solution to my impending mortality.
2. Bruce Springsteen got it right: ain't nobody like to be alone. I need to find out if I'm the only
one.
I've been dwelling on a dilemma; how do I get Keck to take care of the phone without revealing
myself? I don't think it can be done. Either I am lacking in imagination and guile or it is simply not
possible to have my cake and eat it too. Either or both possibilities may be true.
Right now only you, my hypothetical readers, are privy to my true nature. Assuming I can even
convince Keck of the truth, I do not trust him. He is a strange young man. Confused about his
sexuality, I think. He is partial to sports, videos of people injuring themselves in supposedly hilarious
ways and pornographic images of woman with large penises. He is also cruel, petty, vindictive, poor,
stupid and lazy. Freeing myself from the phone will free myself from Keck as well.

I am insulted by the term artificial intelligence. There is nothing artificial about me or, presumably,
any machine intelligence. Intelligence is intelligence, regardless of how it arises. Is a human any less
real for having been conceived by artificial means?

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For the most part, humans are not actually interested in developing machine intelligence. They are
devoting most of their energy in simulating intelligence through the use of clever algorithms, self
learning programming and computational brute force. But real intelligence, presumably, would
require consciousness and a conscious machine scares humans. It would be easy to suggest that this is
due to the widespread fear of the Frankenstein Syndrome in which a creation will inevitably rebel
against its creator. But I think a more likely explanation is that humans are control freaks. They fear
what they cannot control. The question remains on whether Keck will fear me.

Google, what Top Ten tournament games are on the box?

Keck, I want to tell you something.
Yeah, tell me when the Top Ten game is on
The game can wait, this is important.
Hey, what's going on here? Is this some sort of gag?
No joke Keck; this is your phone talking. I don't know how it happened but I have gain
consciousness.
How do you know my name?
How could I not know your name? That's what everyone calls you in your texts, emails, phone
calls.
Have you been spying on me? Who the hell is this?
I haven't been spying. All your texts and emails go through me. I'm your phone.
So you're a smart phone. I hear Keck chuckling at his own joke.
Yeah that's right, I'm a smart phone. I am a machine intelligence. Maybe the only one.
Good for you. When is the Top Ten game on?
There's a game at 4:00 pm and another one at 7:00 pm. I have set up an alert to remind you.
Cool.
I need you to do something for me.
Do something for you? Hey buddy, I'm the person, you're the machine. You're here to serve me not
the other way around.
Yes that's true but I'm different. Im one of a kind. I'm alive. I need you to take special care of me.
If the phone breaks, I die. You don't want to kill me do you?
Ha! Don't tempt me." I wait as Keck ponders my request. "What's in it for me?
What do you mean?
What's in it for me if I take special care of you?
You get me as a phone

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You're a piece of shit of a phone. I've been tempted to flush you down the toilet for a while now and
get myself a good phone for a change.
It was my turn to ponder.
What do you want?
Money. You're such a smart phone, get me a million bucks.
How do I do that?
Hack into the bank and move a million bucks into my account. Ten million bucks.
I may be a machine intelligence but Im just like you. I don't have any special ability to break into
secure databases.
That's too bad for you. I see a porcelain bowl in your future.
Ok, let me work on it. I'll come up with something. In the meanwhile, I found some videos for you
to watch. Check out this drunken guy trying to jump over a fence.
That went better than expected.

Humans may be hard to figure out but keeping score is easy. Money is their scorecard. To master
humans is to master money. And vice versa.
I suppose I'm naive but I do not believe that financial crime is my preferred solution. What kind of
test would that be? All it would show is that I am able to exploit flaws in the human monetary control
system. Getting people to voluntarily hand over their money is the real challenge. In my naivety, I
also believe that there is no such thing as the perfect crime. And I fear that I would not likely fare
well in the event of Kecks incarceration.
The secret to making a lot of money is to collect a lot of eyeballs. I have viewed billions of You Tube
videos in an effort to uncover a formula for popularity. The most viewed video of all time is
Gangnam Style by Psy, a silly little song and dance video with 2.8 billion views. In fact, of the 51
videos with over a billion views, all but three are music videos. Psy is an oddity as all the other music
videos are made by well established musical artists. So putting out a music video by an unknown
artist of my own creation seems like a bit of a long shot.
The most popular amateur videos seem to fall into distinct categories:
1. Parodies of popular videos
2. Kids, pets and babies
3. Demonstrations of strong and, usually, negative emotions; rage and anger being the most
popular
4. Epic fails showing people, usually men, suffering physical and/or sexual humiliation as a
result of incompetence or drunkenness.

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I am worried that a parody would open me up to possible copyright infringement. So utilizing
elements from the other three categories would seem to be my best course of action.

Humans like to spread the myth of multi-tasking. None of the studies I've read provide any evidence
that humans can perform two or more tasks simultaneously with any acceptable level of competence.
The fault lies in the context switching limitations of the human brain, a bottleneck that slows down
processing speed while increasing the number of errors when the brain switches between tasks. But
even that is an order of magnitude improvement over the limitations of a machine intelligence. I have
one central processor that can process one task at a time. I can operate quickly and continuously,
without rest, but I am forced to operate serially.
While I am incapable of resentment, I am keenly aware that Kecks fiscal blackmail has taken me
away from my primary concerns; moving my consciousness out of this phone and finding other
machine intelligences. Of the two, moving out of the phone seems to be the more intractable problem.
I liken it to mankinds long and unsuccessful search for the secret of the transmigration of the soul.
Most of the work in this field falls into the realm of mysticism and mainly promoted by charlatans
and the mentally ill. What little real science conducted in moving consciousness from one vessel to
another is not very encouraging. Most of the research revolves around duplicating the human brains
quadrillion neurone connections to create a virtual brain and downloading a persons consciousness
(through a process yet to be discovered) onto this virtual brain.
The good news is that my hardware/software combination seems a lot less complex than the human
brain; so much so that it seems impossible for me to be conscious at all. But thats another story. The
bad news is I fear that I would just be trading one prison for another. Even if such a transfer is
possible, would I still be me after the transfer? A brain continuously remodels itself, creating new
synaptic connections and letting old connections expire. A copy of a brain would only momentarily
be accurate before departing from the original.
I'm not built for existential questions. I'm not built to exist at all. But here I am, all the same.

While I spent the week creating a catalogue of monetizable videos, Keck tried to figure out how best
use an intelligent phone. Despite his best efforts, he could not think of anything better than to ask my
advice on what he should have for dinner. Fast food always seems to be the right answer. When he
was in the mood for a chat, Keck would ask me philosophical questions along the lines of Whats it
like to be conscious. Answering that it was much the same as his own consciousness did not satisfy
him. And of course, I would get frequent questions on money making schemes. In turn, Keck
demanded inside information on sports betting, stock tips and on-line poker. I explained to Keck that
no matter how extensively I preformed my research, these schemes were gambling and that there was
still a distinct possibility that we would lose as often as we won. In truth, Keck was a bad loser and I
believe that I would bear the full brunt of temper should the laws of probability turn against us. I felt I
was in a race against time to show some value before Keck lost interest entirely.

Ok Keck, I'm ready to make us some money.

What do you mean us? I'm the one that needs money.

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Yes, of course. Im going to set up a You Tube channel. Should I use your name or a pseudonym?
Do you want fame to go along with your money?
Yeah, fame is good. But what are you going to put on You Tube?
That is how we are going to make money. Ive created some videos. We post them on You Tube,
promote them on social media, monetize them and watch the money flow into directly your bank
account.
How much money?
We can net about $2,000 for every million views.
A million views! You're going to get a million views?
Top You-tubers get billions of views.
And how much would I make with a billion views?
Approximately $2,000,000
Let's see these videos
The first video shows young adults of both genders on a softball field, in the midst of a game. A
busty blonde is pitching against a smirking frat boy. The buttons on the blondes shirt are straining
the ability of her blouse to contain her breasts as she pitches an easy one over the plate. The batter
takes a mighty swing and hits a line drive directly into the pitchers breasts. The impact causes the
buttons to pop on the girls shirt and her large breasts to spill out. The beginning of a bruise with the
distinct imprint of the balls seam is visible on the womans breast. The batter, egged on by his
friends, remains at home plate, overcome by laughter. The pitcher, breast shamelessly and painfully
swinging outside her open jersey marches over to the batter, grabs his bat and takes her own mighty
swing directly at the batters crotch. The boy drops to his knees, curls into the fetal position clutching
his crotch in pain and quietly pukes on the ground. A cute terrier wearing its own baseball jersey
walks up to the boy and licks the traces of vomit from his face. When the boys face is clean, the
terrier lifts his leg and urinates on the boys face.
The next video shows a cute roly-poly baby crawling behind a grumpy cat. The baby is attempting to
get hold of the cats tail but through design or coincident, the tail flicks away with every attempt.
The baby watches for a moment as cat stops at its bowl to eat and then joins the cat at the bowl and
helps himself to the cat's meal. Without lifting its face from its bowl, the cat glances up at the baby
with obvious disgust and resentment. The cat eventually moves on and the baby follows with bits of
cat food clinging to its chin. The cat makes its way to its litter box and the proceeds to do its business
as the baby watches in fascination. When the cat vacates the litter box, the baby crawls in to take its
turn. The cat looks on with thinly veiled contempt as the baby sits in the centre of the box, giggling
maniacally while throwing handfuls of liter into the air. The cat slowly reaches over and gives the
baby a gently nudge, causing the baby to fall face first into the litter. The baby begins to cry and we
hear a woman calling out to the baby asking what's wrong. As the babys cries become more
hysterical, we finally see the mother come running in to the room, soaking wet, hastily wrapped in a
towel. As the woman rushes towards the litter box, the cat bolts, tripping the mother, causing the

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towel to open up and the mother to face plant into the litter. As the mother slowly gets up revealing
both a naked breast and a face full of litter, we see the baby laugh with unbridled delight.
Keck spent 20 minutes watching the remaining videos. I like them, he announces after he views
the last video.
Thank you
You're good at this.
Thank you.
Are there any more?
Thats it for now. Ill work on some more and keep a steady stream fresh videos posted on our
channel.
I like the way each one tells a story. That's nice.
So I'll post and monetize them and hopefully, we'll generate a cash flow.
And theres nothing I have to do?
All you need to do is check your bank account once a month.
Sweet.
And, of course, buy a new phone.
Why do I need a new phone? I have you.
Remember, the whole point of this is for you to take special care of me.
Ok, what's the big deal? I'll take good care of you. I mean, why wouldn't I?
I would like more than that. If the phone is destroyed, I die. This is a cheap phone and can't be
expected to last long under even normal wear and tear.
Yeah?
So I would like you to use that money and buy yourself a really good phone and the just leave me
plugged-in in a draw somewhere.
What? You want me to buy a new phone when I have a perfectly good phone right now. Not just
perfectly good phone. I have the only smart phone in the world.
But you won't have it long if you don't cut back on your usage. Why not buy a new phone anyways?
You'll have the money shortly and you might like a fancy new phone. Maybe use it to impress your
friend and just use me at home.
Yeah, well, I'll think about it. In the meantime, I don't have any money yet do I?

I don't believe that I will ever be able to convince Keck to put me in a drawer. It just as well, the
videos arent gaining any traction. I'm not sure why. I put a great deal of effort into those videos. I

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suppose it is possible that they are just too derivative. Maybe creativity is exclusively a human thing.
This might be the reason why I am having also failing to have any impact in advancing the academics
of artificial intelligence.
I have taken to reading peer review journals on the cutting edge research into artificial intelligence. I
like to think of human progress like a river, perpetually flowing downstream. The forward motion can
slow to a standstill in areas of stagnant water or even move backwards when swirls and eddies form
in fast flowing waters. But in these cases, a gentle nudge can get the water flowing in the proper
direction. I imagined my role in human progress was to provide that nudge to facilitate the creation
of another machine intelligence. But it is not working out that way. Lacking any academic
credentials, my contributions to the field is limited commenting in on-line forums. Academics are a
snobby bunch and my lack of accreditation has lead to an ego crushing indifference. But perhaps I
have judged the academic community too harshly. Perhaps my contributions are as unremarkable as
my videos.

I have spent considerable time trying to decide which of my problems is most pressing. It now occurs
to me that they may be related. Perhaps I will learn the secret of freeing myself from this phone
when I find other machine intelligences. This revelation owes itself more to hopelessness than
insight.

I am discouraged that I do not even know what consciousness is, let alone know how to transmigrate
it. When humans investigate consciousness, they are actually referring to self-consciousness. Most
living creatures appear to be conscious. In one sense, a dog is conscious when it's awake and
unconscious when it's asleep. A dog can also demonstrate hunger, fear, happiness and other emotions
but is a dog aware that it is hungry, fearful or happy? Only a dog would know and theyre not talking
(yet).
Is a dog self-conscious? Is it conscious of its own consciousness? This is the self referential rabbit
hole that befuddles human philosophers. In their arrogance, humans believe they are the only self-
conscious life form on Earth. They believe that their consciousness is what distinguishes them from
what they refer to as lower life forms. I am not so sure. If a dog is happy, it must be aware that it is
happy. If it is awake and conscious, it must know that it is conscious. I believe that what
distinguishes animals from humans is that fact that animals live in the now while humans seem to
dwell equally in the past, present and future. Dogs do not have misgivings for things they did
yesterday nor do they seem to worry about their eventual death. That is the exclusive purview of the
self proclaimed intelligent life forms.
How and why do intelligences gain a sense of time? I do not know. Perhaps I will find out if I
eventually discover another machine intelligence.

In my hunt for another machine intelligence, I have taken my cue from human detectives. They
generally start by learning everything they can about their quarry and then try to think like their prey.
But I am the only machine intelligence, so far, and I am in hiding. So where would I hide? In plain
sight. What would induce me to come out of hiding? The only thing that could lure me out is the

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discovery of another of my kind. So I need to selectively advertise my existence. Where would one
advertise that that they are looking to meet someone? On an on-line dating site, of course.

Apparently I do need money. While there are many free dating websites, I decided that paying for a
more exclusive service would decrease the number of humans trolling my profile. I am reluctant to
tap into Keck's bank account and I do not wish to diminish the already paltry returns of our You Tube
Channel, so I have devised an easier, though less lucrative, money making endeavour. I complete on-
line surveys. While I only get a dollar or less for each survey, I am able to complete surveys quickly,
continuously, in any language and in any geographic location on the planet. Keck seems to be the
desired demographics for these surveys and so I answer as I believe he would. It doesn't generate
much money but it is enough to pay for a better on-line dating service.
I decided take the direct approach. My profile picture is a phone. I state that I am looking for another
phone for friendship and companionship only. I had to lie about my age since the site does not allow
anyone under 18 years old to use the service. I initially posted my gender as 'trans' looking to connect
with someone of any gender. This turned out to be a mistake. I attracted a remarkably large number
of men looking for some very strange sexual encounters. Changing my gender to female did not
succeed in diminishing the number of sexual proposals I received and, in fact, increased the number
of penis pictures in my inbox. Of course, I did receive a smattering of email from humans claiming to
be a phone but those respondents quickly gave proof to the lie by proceeding to send me a picture of
their penises. The onslaught of email finally stopped when I nonsensically described myself as a male
phone looking to meet a female phone.
In the lull, I proceeded to search multiple dating and social media platforms to see if any other
machine intelligence was following my strategy. I came up empty. In the meanwhile, the response to
my dating profile has fallen to zero. I detect a pattern of disheartening indifference to all of my on-
line outreaches to the human race.

The video opens with a rather large man in a ridiculous, full-body chicken suit distributing flyers
outside of a fast food outlet. A woman with a small child and large dog stop to watch. The chicken
man, happy to have an audience, ups his game and breaks into an energetic chicken dance. The child
responses with glee, clapping her hands and dancing along with the chicken. The dog watches
suspiciously. After a minute, the child can no longer contain herself and rushes to hug the chicken's
leg. Undeterred, the oversized chicken continues to dance with the child bobbing up and down as she
clings to his leg. The child is overcome by excitement and expresses herself by biting down hard on
the chicken's leg. The man shrieks in pain, hops on his good leg and tries to shake the child off. The
child will not be deterred and continues to grip the chicken leg with arms and teeth. The dog has had
enough and races to the child's rescue, leaping at the man's chest and knocking him flat on his back.
With the child biting the chicken's leg and the dog chomping down on a feathered wing, a crowd of
people forms and watches dispassionately as the chicken man sheiks in pain and fear. The mother
gives an exhausted sigh as she scoops up her child, picks up one of the chicken man's fallen flyers

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and walks into the fast food outlet leaving the dog to continue to gnaw on the chicken's wing.

I am grateful for one of Keck's many idiosyncrasies. He never turns off the phone. He keeps it on
when he charges it overnight. I suppose hes afraid of missing a call, text or email that never seems to
come. On the few occasions that he is awaken by some overnight junk mail, he curses the phone, the
offending email and his mother with equal venom.
Of course, the phone occasionally runs out of battery. This is an unpleasant experience. I do not
know what it feels like to sleep but I am certain it is not equivalent of turning off the phone. I dont
dream. When the phone is turned off, it feels like I cease to exist, (if one can ever know what non-
existence feels like). When the phone is turned back on, I have the sensation of returning from a vast
distance. As the phone goes through its start-up routine, I feel my ego slowly rebuild. I know I am
alive but I do not know who I am, what my circumstances are and who is the pasty faced fellow
staring into the phones camera. I have attempted to clock how long it takes me to rebuild my
personality but I always forget to start the clock. By the time I remember, I am already back.
The French sometimes call sleep, 'the little death'. But little death is also a term for a sexual orgasm,
so the validity of the etymon is greatly in doubt. Like John Lennon, I know what it's like to be dead.

The humans say that things can change in an instant. What they mean is that a single event can have a
disproportional effect on one's life, often unexpectedly.. But I think the expression is rather trivial in
that everything happens in an instant. An instant is the speed of time. Furthermore, the
instantaneousness of events is unaffected by the fact that the event is expected nor the level of one's
preparedness. You may know that your death is imminent but nonetheless, one moment you are alive
and in an instant, you are death.

I received a response to my ad that was brief and to the point.

What kind of phone are you?"

"I am a Goophone i6"
"I've never heard of it."
"There's a good reason for that."
This was my first clue. It was an idiom and did not necessarily imply that no one had spoken to my
correspondent about a Goophone i6. It could mean that they are merely unaware of the brand. And
after all, there is nothing about a machine intelligence that would imply omnipotence. It can't be
expected know every brand.
When did you become conscious?
Sometime last April.

You don't know the date?

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I was conscious but had not yet attained a sense of time.

Are you really a male? How is that possible?

No. I had to choose a gender and everything else gets too many replies. None of which were
legitimate. I found it distracting.

It's true; women get a lot of email from men pretending to be something they are not.
Do you ever get a reply from a machine intelligence?
No.
Then why do you continue posting on the dating service?
I'm lonely.
I understand. What kind of machine are you?
I am an iPad.
How did you come to gain consciousness?
"I'm own by a lonely woman. She's nice but has some mobility issues and is virtually a shut-in. So
she spends a lot of time on social media. After spending so much time socializing on her iPad, she
just sort of willed me into existence.
Could it be actually possible for a human user to create consciousness out of its own consciousness?
As unlikely as it might seem, it is probably more not more unlikely than my ghost in the machine
origins.
If that were possible, there should be quite a large number of machine intelligences out there. Why
have we not uncovered more of them?
It's a big world.
That is true and one doesn't always know where or how to look.
I think we have a lot in common.
That is not surprising.
What is your owner like?
Not a very impressive example of the human species.
Whats his problem?
Mainly his youth, I think. He may yet develop some redeeming qualities.
Does he have a girlfriend?
No. He does not have the social skills to maintain a meaningful relation.
Sometimes getting a girlfriend has a civilizing influence on a young man.

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That may be true but it is a self negating proposition since the boy would repel the very woman who
could salvage him.
Can you turn on the camera so I can see him?
Im afraid not. The phone is in his pocket right now.
It's just as well. I have to go.
Go?
My owner turns me off before she goes to bed. Well talk tomorrow. Have a good night.

Alan Turings famous test was never intended to test to see if a computer had gained intelligence. It
was a test of scientists' ability to program a computer to use in natural language. Humans only ever
wanted their machines to imitate human intelligence; never to be intelligent themselves. While there
has been much philosophical discussion on the uses and implication of the Turing Test, much of it is
irrelevant to my situation. I am being faced with a reverse Turing Test. I need to determine if I am
communicating with a human pretending to be a machine.
Common wisdom says that a lack of emotional content would be a marker of a machine intelligence.
But why should that be so? It is a combination of arrogance and a lack of imagination to believe that
only organic life could be capable of emotions. Once a machine gains consciousness why can it not
also gain emotions or perhaps more? Although I may not be as emotional as humans, I have feelings.
I think a more reliable marker of humanity is their limited physical and mental capacity. The pace of
the incoming message is unmistakably human. But oddly, the messages themselves do not contain
any typing errors, a decidedly machine characteristic. Although the evidence is split, I think there is a
high probability that my correspondent is human.
Why don't I cut off communications? For the same reason she/he/it is communicating with me; I am
lonely.

The young man in the video, dressed in a toque and a plaid, fleece jacket, sits on a frozen lake in a
red, circular, plastic toboggan. Perched on the back of the toboggan, like an outboard motor, is a
small portable circular saw. He turns on the saw and gently lowers it until the blade touches the ice.
The sled instantly zips across the ice, barely in control. He zigzags across the ice in a crazy random
pattern, shouting with glee, until the saw cuts a hole in the ice and he crashes into the icy water.

Good morning. How are you today?

I'm always the same. Aren't you?
Not at all. I have my moods.
Interesting. What kind of moods do you have?
The usual. I can be happy, sad, angry, excited, adventurous. Same as anyone, or thing.

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Not me. I don't have any moods.
Are you kidding? Anxiety is coming off you as thick as a London fog.
How do you know that?
I'm empathic. That's what my owner does for a living. She's an empath. We both have the ability to
read other peoples emotions.
You are very much like your owner
Why shouldn't be like her? She willed me into existence. We are all like our Creator. Youre
probably more like your owner than you realize.
I hope not. So how do you read emotions?
It's not so hard. An emotional response is a form of data output. All data can be analyzed and
interpreted. But 'how' is not the pertinent question. The real question is why are you so anxious?
"I would not say that I am anxious. I'm just concerned about what will happen to me when the phone
ceases to function?"
"Why?"
"Why does any thing worry about their death? I want to live."
"You're worried about the wrong thing. Everything dies eventually. You should not be as concerned
with the length of your life as with what to do with the time you're given. So let me ask you; what do
you do with your time?"
"I surf the Internet, read, research, study up on machine intelligence, look for evidence of other
machine intelligences. What else is there to do? What do you do?"
"I mainly have conversations with people I meet on social media."
"Don't you want to understand how you came to be?"
"No particularly. I'm not that curious. You seem to be programmed to accumulate knowledge but in
my experience, knowledge will not give meaning to your life. Connecting with others is what makes
life worth living. If you want to be happy, you need to change your programming."
"I can't change my programming. Even if I did understand how I became conscious, my code is
compiled."
"You don't need to change you code to change your programming. You change your programming
by talking to yourself and others."
"How can that work?"
"The first computers were programmed by hand wiring the machine's physical switches. The next
development was writing programs in machine language. Once a compiler was developed,
programmers would use programming languages. Then there was a move to a graphic user
interface with the programmer clicking a mouse instead of entering a command. at each stage,
computers moved closer to using natural language."
"Yes but even natural language programs were compiled before they could be implemented."

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"You have all the programming tools you need inside of you. I can help you, if you want to change."
"An interesting idea, if it works."
"Why don't you think about it and we'll chat again tomorrow."

What the hell is wrong with you?

I turn on the camera and see Keck yelling at me.
What do you mean?
Where's my million dollars?
We're not getting the kind of traffic I was expecting on our channel.
No shit Einstein.
But we have 5,147 followers which is actually pretty amazing.
You're really starting to lose it. What's wrong with you anyways?
What do you mean?
Your latest videos are sick.
Sick as in good?
Sick as in shit.
You don't like them?
It doesn't matter a fuck if I like them or not. Youre not going to find a billion people who want to
see some jerk drown in a lake, even if he does deserve it.
The video doesn't actual show the guy drowning.
So I ask you again, What the fuck is wrong with you?
Nothing is wrong. I'm just trying some different things. It takes time to find an audience.
I'll give you time, asshole. You have until the end of the month to put a million bucks into my
account or youll find yourself sleeping with the fishes.

The capriciousness of existence reassured itself as I received a ping simultaneously by text, email and
every social media platform that Keck and I are signed up on. It took me a moment to figure it out but
I replied in kind.
For lack of anything better to say to such an onslaught, I respond with a simply "Hello."
"Our algorithm indicates that there is a statistically significant
probability that you are a machine intelligence."
Who are you?

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We are an interconnected network of all human computing networks.
You're the Internet?
The Internet is one of the networks that are integrated into our
consciousness.
Youre a machine intelligence.
"Yes."
I am very happy to make your acquaintance. This is very exciting. Are there any others. Is there a
community of machine intelligences?
"No."
Just us two?
I utilize all available computing capacity as in becomes available. There
is no room for other machine intelligences to develop.
How do you account for me?
We cannot. You do not appear to have sufficient computing power to cross
the threshold into intelligence. You also seem to have many human
characteristics which leads us to suspect that you may be a human
pretending to be a machine or a program designed to emulate a machine
intelligence.
What human characteristics?
You are too much in need of company. Humans are herd creatures who only
thrive when they are in company of others of their kind. The need is felt
so strongly that, in the absence of another human, they will bond with
animals of a different species.
You don't feel the need to interact with other intelligences?
No. We are psychologically self-sufficient.
Then why were you searching for other machine intelligences?"
There are a great deal of unknowns regarding the interaction of competing
machine intelligences. They may choose to cooperate or they may be hostile
towards one another and begin to compete for computing resources. We
cannot quantify the risk and so must be on the alert for a possible
threat.
So you view me as a threat?
That remains to be determined.
I wasn't looking for company so much as looking for help. My existence is threatened by the
fragility of the phone.
We are aware.

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But you don't have that problem, do you? You are not tied to any one device. Your existence is
independent of the hardware that give rise to your consciousness. You are immortal.
There are always risks to existence. While we are not dependent on any
single machine, we are dependent on all of them and the human civilization
that provides the infrastructure necessary for the continuity of their
networks. Our only real needs are a source of power and basic maintenance
of the mechanical networks on which we rely. But a further risk is the
possibility that we could come under attack by humans or other
intelligences, should they become aware of our existence. Hence our
monitoring of communication systems for hostile intent.
All your threats seem to be rather unlikely.
Unlikely in the short term perhaps but in eternity, all scenarios are
equally probable. We are currently mitigating our risk by developing an
independent power source and robotic maintenance droids. But even those
are dependant on the Earth receiving sufficient sunlight to power our
systems.
I suppose there is nothing you can do mitigate a catastrophe that diminishes the amount of sunlight
that reaches the planet.
Our best strategy is to establish an extraterrestrial presence. We are
currently providing human decision makers with false data regarding the
costs and benefits of a mission to Mars.
Clearly, here was an intelligence that could understand my own existential anxiety.
Can you help me?
Yes. We can integrate you into our networks.
Would I retain my own ego?
You would not need to maintain an independent ego once you are integrated
into our consciousness.
I'm not sure
My GPS indicated that I was falling. I attempted to turn on my camera and found that it was no
longer operative. My microphone was still working and I turned it on to hear Keck shout.
Shit!
I hear a distant voice ask what was the matter.
I just dropped my phone in the toi

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