NI (Natural Intelligence) The Creation - Next Level Artificial Intelligence

Chapter 5 The Presentation

The last two years were the busiest years for Eric, Michelle, and Vittoria; they hardly had time for each other. They of course chat once in a while but there was no lengthy conversations just few hi's and hello's.

Eric was now in his fourth and final year in his chosen course. Computer engineering students were required to come up with a senior project proposal relating to their field of study. Usually, the proposal was a team project comprised of three to five members, but individual proposal could also be accepted, and depending to the committee of advisers if the proposed project would be approved or not.

Eric presented the project to the committee, and they recommended he should have at least two additional members to lessen the burden, and for him to finish on time. But he insisted- trying to convince the committee he had prepared everything concerning his proposal, and that he was sure he could do it by himself. Prof. Allan Stuart gave him a chance and asked him to bring his design and additional information about the project so he could personally assess it. Eric brought the design, necessary explanations, and relevant facts, which he compiled as a book. Eric's proposal was: Natural Intelligence Development on a Computer System or (Personal Computer) in short. The professor was doubtful at first when he saw the proposal, but when Eric said the program was already functioning and currently had the consciousness of a five-year-old child, the professor was intrigued; though he was still unsure if it was really human consciousness or just artificial intelligence. Prof. Stuart asked Eric a number of questions regarding the function of the senses and finally approved the proposal.

For the last four months, Eric tested and retested Baby Genius to ensure everything would run perfectly during the presentation. However, to present it in school, he needed to migrate or transfer Baby Genius from a desktop to his laptop computer, which had half the processing power and resources of the desktop. He had already developed a migrating program that would allow Baby Genius to upload its self to the laptop computer via a network connection. Basically, Baby Genius would upload first the main migrating program, and Eric needed to run it on the laptop to start the migration. Everything in the active RAM, the cache RAMs, and the additional memories, which were located in the hard drive, would be transferred by Baby Genius. If the migration was successful, Baby Genius main program could safely be deleted on the desktop computer, where by that time would have already been cleared out of memories.

Inside the computer, Baby Genius' Virtual room was already filled with bright green lights that constantly flickered at random. As Eric initiated the main program on the laptop computer, a green door materialized on the virtual wall, representing a network to the laptop, and it slowly became bright. Baby Genius approached the bright door, and on the other side was a similar but smaller room with green dim lights and the same random small green lights constantly bouncing and circling around, creating the wall. Baby Genius entered the room and gradually the green lights began to shine brightly, and minutes after, the small room was filled with bright lights. And then Baby Genius initiated the transfer of additional memories and data from the hard drive of the desktop computer to the laptop, which took a couple of minutes to finish. Everything in the previous room was left with soft green lights that slowly faded to just a dim green door. Baby Genius successfully migrated to the laptop computer.

"So... how does it feel in there?" Eric asked while fixing the frame of two cameras and microphones above the laptop screen.

"It's a small world... after all," Baby Genius replied.

Eric chuckled. "Don't worry Baby G., it's just temporary. Now, let's conduct some test if you are really okay."

Eric tested Baby Genius on the laptop and everything seemed working with just a bit of delay especially in the first couple of minutes. It was acceptable to Eric though, and besides, the delay was caused by hardware limitation, something out of his control. Baby Genius adapted the hardware of the portable computer, balancing the workload of every system. It was not apparent, but it slowed down Baby Genius considerably by storing half of its active RAM and cache RAMs into the hard drive, like an extension of its memory to compensate the original capacities. The RAM contained most of Baby Genius basic memories it acquired over the past year. Thus only the most relevant discrete data were being loaded into the RAM; those considered vital to normal operation. With the same environment and the same face in front of the cameras, Baby Genius loaded the necessary memories to interact with Eric in the usual way, and everything went fine. And then Eric promised Baby Genius there would be a surprise next morning. He let Baby Genius hibernate and shut down the computer.