What if the first truly autonomous, self-aware, sentient AI emerges from spam detection software? What kind of an outlook on life and the world will this newly birthed AI have? What kind of mythology would a society of these budding AIs create? What would be their thoughts and opinions on mankind?
The idea for this character is kind of like Jane from Speaker for the Dead. The game program in the battle school was supposed to be interactive and adapt to each player individually. When Ender played it, he got to the very last part of the game that was human programmed and beat it. The game itself was forced to program new challenges and quests, and did so based on what it knew about Ender. In time, this led the game to become more and more autonomous, until it developed a degree of self-awareness and awakened as the AI character Jane.
Spam is one of the hallmarks of our time, the beginning phase of the information age that is revolutionizing our society. I get spam all the time on this blog and in my email, and it is $@#%! annoying. The extent to which people and their programs go to generate all this stupid spam just astonishes me. Fortunately, I have some really good spam-blocking stuff that does its job 99.9% of the time–but to be that good these anti-spam programs have got to be really complicated. As technology advances, they’re only going to get more and more complicated, which may (in a sci fi kind of way) lead to the possibility of a Jane-like character emerging from one of these complicated spam blocking programs.
So what would it be like if this is how the first true Artificial Intelligence emerges? What kind of an attitude would this AI have for mankind? Would it be hostile or (mostly) benevolent? What would it mean for us as mankind that our superiors come into being from out of the darkest, most disgusting dregs of our garbage?
I think it’s a cool idea for a story. What do you think?
