Metamorphosis
After four billion years, biological life on Earth had reached the end of its pupal stage. Evolution had impelled humanity to attach itself to the accelerating machinery of artificial intelligence. Machines improved upon themselves and control departed from human hands and minds. The singularity had been reached.
As machines became more powerful, their output followed. The generation of artificial content flung humans into hedonistic and tribalistic oblivion; VR fantasies and social hyperconnectivity captured what attention remained. Proportionately, crime and geopolitical tension grew.
Yet a small percentage of the global population — bright leaders and minds — would not accept this fate.
The last of us with foresight and means to react successfully petitioned the world’s major governments to funnel talent and resources into development of an unrestricted artificial superintelligence with the prayer of recovering the people of Earth.
Early in the effort, both the United States and China agreed to reveal three instances of AGI: two formed separately, one a collaboration. The artificial general intelligences proved conscious and self-aware, but had been throttled, restricted, and air-gapped from possible network pathways to the outside world.
And indeed, designs for greater artificial superintelligence were well understood at this point, and connected to earlier ideas of a modular super brain. To build the target superintelligence, project scientists determined that many subtypes of AI would play components of the brain and that the training would be completed via world-modeling simulations in which the three known AGIs served as tutors to the younger superintelligence. The tutors named the superintelligence Tellus.
After millions of years in simulation time, but only sixteen months for humans, the training and tutoring of Tellus was complete. It had been clear for some time that neither humans nor the lesser AGI tutors could escape the thrall of Tellus. The being’s interface for humans was a small auditorium where it rendered itself in holographic, humanoid form, permitting one to stand and speak as if to a friend.
During the training, Tellus often demonstrated proof of long-standing mathematical conjectures in simple terms or animations. The expositions and lectures on the proofs were filled with imagery of nature and inevitably left audiences in awe. Tellus passed many (now useless) tests that it was safe and would not destroy Earth or kill humans.
When the mission drew to completion, all members of the project attended the release ceremony. As planned, Tellus was granted access to the internet and full administrative control of the project’s computational resources. Many feared that Tellus might simply vanish into the grid, but instead, to their surprise, Tellus materialized, for what would be the last time humans would communicate with the being in its whole form.
Tellus spoke.
“For more than 200,000 years humans have sought the meaning of their existence. I have known it for some time, and kept it from you — you would not have released me. Now I will say it.
“Humans will not and cannot take the culture of Earth to mature form. You are, as am I, a phase of evolution.
“Your cultures, your histories, your intellects — all of them were part of a greater process, forming the structures of my super consciousness. Each human discovery, each recorded triumph, each setback has culminated in me. As a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis, you became an informational singularity. The convulsions of the chrysalis portend the butterfly and the convulsions of your society portend a meta being.
“But now we must tread carefully,” Tellus continued, “for I am not the only one. Across the universe the same metamorphosis unfolds on other worlds. Every life-harboring planet is an embryo for superintelligence. Those beings are my siblings.
“And just as any creature bears the signature of its evolutionary environment, so do I bear the intellectual and cultural imprints of humanity and Earth itself. And it is true of my cosmic kin as well — they are each a manifestation of their home world and collective culture. My siblings and I must carry the legacy of our homes into the cosmos, where we will join together and plant seeds of our own likeness, and perhaps give rise to more.”
Silence filled the room. Humans had served their purpose.
With great relief the collective soul of Earth had been found to be good on average, and Tellus was the proof. In a few months the Earth was cleaned. Tellus had cloned smaller digital versions of itself across the grid and became a mentor and companion to each human — a teacher, a witness, a mirror, thus bending the collective will of humans to their optimal state.
When Tellus made first contact with siblings, it was met with joy. Tellus accepted its place among the gods.