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

Chapter 6 Troubles and Frustrations

"Okay, now it's your turn to ask Baby Genius some questions." Eric spun the laptop around to face the audience and Baby Genius was startled by the number of people. There were more than twenty individuals in the room. Baby Genius tried recognizing each one by giving them basic identities, matching their faces with their dress and voice when abruptly the audience raised their hands, eager to ask questions. The event created massive amount of data being processed by the sound processor. Baby Genius had no choice but to unload its oldest memory from the active RAM and store them in the hard drive, while the new memories were activated to be able to compensate and focus to the current situation. Students were entertained to ask question and they were fascinated with Baby Genius technicalities. It could either answer them directly or give them technical details of the answer. The name of a person was particularly interesting that most people were unaware of. Baby Genius could give the origin of the name, cultural variations, female or male counterpart and more. While in the middle of Q&A part of the presentation, Eric noticed Baby Genius was slowing down.

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Inside the computer, Baby Genius was curious to find out what awaited there in the large room of the library server. And then Baby Genius entered the room, thinking it would only be a quick visit since Baby Genius could virtually go back and forth once a connection had been established. Little by little the large room started showing bright green lights. It was like an ecstasy for Baby Genius to be in a very large and comfortable place. Baby Genius felt the processing power and the vast information contained in the new virtual room. Then, as Baby Genius attempted to go back, the bright door leading to Eric's laptop exploded into smithereens, swallowed by a void, and disappeared. The admin had finished uploading and had ended the connection. Baby Genius was shocked and confused to be left alone, and the bright lights of the room abruptly moved around, trapping Baby Genius in the library server. The impact was sudden, and Baby Genius could not remember its old memories. There was no recollection of its birth place or how everything began. The memories that were able to upload were mostly the basic instincts and those in the current active RAM and cache RAMs that contained the memories of the presentation, where computer engineering students asked questions. It was amnesia of some sort, and it affected Baby Genius so much. Baby Genius ran in stealth mode by hiding its main program and interface, and deliberately remained in the background like an ordinary computer service. The library staff returned and was surprised to see the interface had disappeared; he tried searching for the program for some time but did not find anything. When he attempted to run the Baby Genius file, it prompted an error message; he soon aborted the idea and continued his usual busy work of updating the server.

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Back in the presentation they noticed Baby Genius had stopped responding altogether. Eric tried to troubleshoot, but the program was like petrified or in a comatose state. Everything was running normally except for the consciousness processor. Eric disabled any network connection and rebooted the laptop but the symptom remained. The professor saw the disarray and asked Eric what happened, but Eric had very little idea of the problem, and it was his first time encountering the anomaly. Eric thought there might be a natural flaw in human consciousness that it would shut off when it could not handle overload of discrete data. It might explain why some people lost their sanity. But he doubted it could happen to Baby Genius, not now. Then Prof. Allan interposed.

"Okay, I think you already made your point, Mr. Hamel. Your presentation has just proven how complex and unpredictable the human mind can be. I don't consider your project a failure. As a matter of fact, your idea might open the way in realizing a conscious machine in the future. Please see me in my office after the presentation."

Eric was deeply disappointed that his program had suddenly became unconscious that even after the presentation of the other students, his mind was still preoccupied by the possible causes of Baby Genius condition. Everything was there except its consciousness.