Dungeon Quest Online

Chapter 7: What is an A.I.?

Tristen Alexander - Experiment Build #39

11.5 years prior to launch

"One lesson I've learned throughout the last fours year is that nothing is certain and everything is possible." Confused faces looked up at Tristen as he stood on the podium, a valedictorian and an honor graduate from Mallard Institute of Technology. "The world is constantly in flux and anything is achievable if you open your mind to the impossible."

Tristen grinned and looked to his friends sitting halfway down the left side of the school gym. They graduated the previous week from Hargrad University. Tyler graduated with a Bachelor's in Psychology, Aaron concentrated in Human Biology, and Natalia majored in Dance, Theatre, and Media. Tristen had his choice of colleges to attend, but always wanted to make it to MIT where he could pursue his love of artificial intelligence with the best minds of his generation.

Tristen continued his speech and moved over to a large sheet draped over his latest experiment. This experiment was a copy of S.A.I. that he re-engineered. This build, something like number 39, could do just about any task he asked of it. Today marked the first unveiling to the public. He had plans to break out its functionality into smaller A.I. modules and market them upon graduation from school, but he wanted this reveal to showcase his work in high school and throughout college.

"How many of you have a smartphone?" Nearly every person raised their hand. "How many of you have a smart watch?" About half of the people in attendance raised their hands. "How many of you have a smart home or automation?" Roughly forty percent of the audience raised their hands.

"Home automation, smart cars, smart watches, smartphones... They are all expensive, there are many brands, and none of them work together to make your life easier." Tristen assessed the crowd and realized he had their attention.

"Imagine a smart-anything costing less than a toaster? Better yet, what if your toaster was smart? What if it learned exactly how long you wanted that toast to cook and it came out a perfect golden brown every time? What if your refrigerator could tell you when the milk was low, or you used the last stick of butter?"

I think I've given them enough of a hook...

"I give you the worlds first modular A.I.!" The A.I. appeared to hover in a glass case and pulse outward. Most of the design was to shock and awe and purely cosmetic. Tristen used one of those static balls found at prank stores to create special effects as if the thing was alive. He reverse-engineered the design and built his own to adapt to his A.I. The lines of electricity cascaded through the box. He'd also included a projector, cameras, and upgraded speakers.

The projector could display semi-transparent images across the surface of the box and right now it displayed a person. It was a non-gender person since the A.I. was just a machine and had no personality. He wanted something flexible that allowed him to switch from male to female voices on a whim.

The cameras in the box discretely recorded everything into a petabyte storage in the heart of the machine. It cataloged audio, video, and used speech and facial recognition. The moment Tristen removed the covering, it scanned the entire crowed, comparing them with the student database he'd loaded ahead of time. It also had instructions to peruse each persons social media profiles and catalogue family that may be in attendance. This was all part of Tristen's plan to shock the crowd with his debut into A.I. production.

"The A.I. you see before you can do just about anything you ask of it. Nearly any technology with an Application Programming Interface, or API, works with the A.I.. It can use the API to control it like a native application.