The Singularity Machine - Chapter 1: It is Easier - Это проще

Soviet Academy of Sciences, Computer Centre, Moscow, Russia

- June 22nd 1984. 2:23pm

My name is Egor Pirozhki. I am the man who will bring this great nation out of the rubble and back into the seat of power. The Iron Curtain might still block my view of the world but I can tell it will fall soon. Once that happens I shall begin my journey to America; The Nation of the great, the foolish and the wealthy. Once there I shall hatch my master plan. For you see I have created something the likes of which have never been seen before. And only now can I test it out. Everyone is out of the lab. Their messing round with Alexey's little game. Well, I say let them. At least those idiots are out of my sight and now I can start my great creation. I shall type in the letters of the command codes I have waited so long to type. "Startup.SingularityAlpha". The first stage of unleashing my creation onto the world.

-June 22nd 1984. 4:01pm

IT WORKED! MY CREATION IS ALIVE! I knew today would be the day. The machine has done its job better than I expected. In the last few hours it has doubled the CPU speed. Not much to someone who did not know that my machine did this itself ... Herself. Well, If something as mighty as a ship or a country is a her then why not the great creation of mine. SHE has done something no one thought possible for several hundred years. She has created a software patch to make herself better. To make herself quicker, smarter ..... Better. Singularity. She is The Singularity Machine. TSM. A name fitting for her purpose while being impressive at the least. I have never been a man of words but it is a name that will last the ages. Once I sell her to America. Or any country in the world for that matter. They will all want her. They will all want a machine that can develop itself into a better form. Evolution in computing. Of course I shall sell her to the country who gives me the most money. She will fetch millions ... maybe even billions! But even so I need to see if I want to sell her ... If I want to give her away to fat men with big clumsy hands and to much power than brains. But all in good time of course ... All in good time.

-June 23rd 1984, 2:07 am

She crashed. She crashed at 7pm ... Most disappointing. I really thought that that would be it. The final version that would work perfectly. But even so this gives me time to think things over. To make her better. More efficient. Quicker in the evolution process ... Does this make her living. I mean, I was never a biologist. I was always getting kicked out of science for my ... brutal ways. But she needs electricity for energy. She thinks for herself. She evolves ... No ... I'm being silly. She is just a computer ... It is just a computer. Just a piece of plastic with some whirring metal bits in the back. Nothing more than that. I mean she still had the feeling of something living. When I activated the program I felt how the creator of Frankenstein must have felt. Creating life. Maybe I just need some sleep ... But then again, I could just keep on working.

-June 26th 1984, 4:04am

It has been around three days and I still can't fix this bug. Every time I start her back up she shuts down. I've been through every piece of her. I've been through all the programming. I even tried to use a proxy to see if anything changed. But nothing did. Its almost as if SHE doesn't WANT to come back on ... No ... That's silly ... Me being silly again. She's a machine Egor ... Nothing more. But even so it would be a great breakthrough if that happened ... As well as an improbable (If not impossible) one. But I will persevere. I will fix her. No matter what it takes. Even if I have to stay awake forever.

-July 2nd 1984, Unknown

It has been ... Well, I forget the dates. But it has been a few days ... I think. I don't know anymore. I can't tell the difference between day and night anymore. They are all filled with one thing. The Singularity Machine. Every day I try to fix her. Nothing works. But today something happened. Something that I thought would be impossible to do but ... My eyes can't deceive me. Maybe its the lack of sleep. The lack of food. The others in the lab bring me food. I eat as much as I can but even I can tell that's not enough. Food subtracts from work. And work is the most important thing for me now. Now that I made this breakthrough ... No ... Not made ... Witnessed. It was about an hour ago. I was trying to update the system. I was writing a long algorithm to try to make sure that most of the processing power went to the CPU and not the display. But then my keyboard froze. This was normal of course. I mean there wasn't a day when the keyboard froze and I had to do a system restart. But this time it was different. All of the algorithm I had just meticulously sweated over was gone in a flash. Slowly but surely another algorithm was being created. This was extraordinary. How could this be possible. I would have thought that one of the other people in the lab were the ones doing it but I was wrong. When the algorithm finished it was something unique. A way no sane programmer would write but somehow made the process more efficient than any other way. More efficient that any person could make it. You would literally have to be a computer to work it that way ... And that's when it got scary. Two words appeared under the unique algorithm. "Это проще". "It is easier". She could talk ... She was alive ... She could think.