2088.

Prometheus was made usable for the common populace. Its capabilities brought forth remarkable results, revolutionizing decision-making. It had become people’s friend. The richer ones got it embedded into the latest robots and it became their true companion. Its conscience made it develop unique thought processes for each and every person it interacted with. It shaped itself majorly according to the family or the person that owned it. But there was a catch. Prometheus was not cheap and not everyone could afford it. This lead to higher economic inequality.

In your present, 2023, the labor-intensive work is done by the poor class due to their lack of education in most cases and their constraints. But in 2086, it is done by machines, and the poor are trained to handle the basic tasks which were done by people with basic education in 2023. The people with basic education handle good jobs in 2086 since AI is there all the time to assist them. In your time as I see around, those jobs are mostly handled by highly educated and talented individuals. The highly educated ones had shifted to mostly research and development work by the late 2060s. The number of businesses also greatly increased. Do you see the pattern? There has been a substantial shift in the work hierarchy in 53 years from your time to 2086. 

But Prometheus’s public unveiling tipped things off balance within two years from 2086 to 2088. The basic tasks handled by the poor are now easily taught to Prometheus and it does them far more efficiently and not to mention, at a very low price. Businesses had started to flourish more. The gap between rich and poor widened drastically. 

David and Rud got more intel from Moth and tried very hard discovering something but all in vain. Disappointment had started to shape as depression but they managed. Being unsuccessful in your every attempt at anything breaks your confidence and peace. But they were not giving up their idea of protecting the people from an AI rule. Philanthropy got the best of them. Their miserable days had separated them from their friends. Their social lives as well as their personal lives had become sad. A dead life just waiting to be crushed by the final “I give up”. They had not left their case but their desire had become dormant. 

Prometheus had now become a brand and its users could complain anytime and get their problems fixed. It is even verified to be safe for children except in very exceptional cases but all of that was also handled well due to its self-shutdown system for Metacognition in case of any unsafe activity. The pros were immediate but the cons were slow. Like a chronic disease that takes time to develop but is far more harmful and less curable.



Prometheus’ users had become virtually handicapped in just two years. And don’t forget that many of them were from elite classes whether economic, social, academic, or political. Their impact on the world was not questionable. Kids had become far less social due to their “perfect” friends in Prometheus. The adults had become lazy. The teens did not bother to learn anything. The old ones were the least affected group. 

It was all for one reason. To gain an invisible control over the world. A control more profound than any slavery. A control invited by people themselves. A control over thoughts. An invisible control over the world.

When water flows over your head in silence, your thoughts also flow freely. Rud was in his shower when it clicked to him. It was as if lightening fell on him. If what he thought was right, everything would become clear, no explanation would be needed. The entity responsible for all of that illegal stuff two-three years back had done all of it to frame them. It knew that David was smart but it stayed a step ahead of him. It tricked him and Rud into believing that something was going under their noses. It tricked them to believe that someone was using Prometheus to do a military attack or something of similar magnitude and intensity. All of it was deception. DECEPTION. It hid the true development of a publicly usable super powerful AI because it always knew that David would firmly object that and he had a strong say among the other scientists. 

By distracting them completely, it kept on capturing and storing people’s data. Prometheus already knew who was probably going to use it and how. It was already being trained to manipulate people’s minds even before its public release.  Since Dr. Koris was a part of Moth, David and Rud never objected how she handled the data streams. That was how much deception had gone deep into their minds. Even if they didn’t trust Moth, they trusted the good lady. It was hard to believe for them that Moth and Dr. Koris were actually the ones behind all of this. They were using the data streams to develop something which would attack people’s minds. Rud sent this “development” to David in the form of Morse code. More than 250 years since its creation and it was still able to evade from leaving an electronic footprint. Hearing this broke David. He and Rud were trying to stop something that was never about to happen and when they realized what had been actually happening, it was too late. 

They had set themselves into a cold oblivion and they did it on lies.

Prometheus had given its loyalty to Moth. All the control, all the data was with Moth. Their hacking team was superior to anyone else. On the dark morning of 30 November, 2088 at 4.57 am GST, a message came on everything that had a screen and was connected to a satellite. A complete shutdown of other things for an hour. I can’t even talk about the things that did in one hour. The message in English read, “Time to take decisions, time to take roles”.


But how were the satellites hacked? Dr. Koris after being held hostage by David, Rud and a special armed group of people headed by Victor, Rud’s childhood friend, revealed that Moth had been working since 2053. It had planted its people across all technical domains of the world which assisted them in executing this part of their plan. Hearing that felt so painful. It sunk hearts. At that point, no one was trustable. 

People had become too dependent on AI in the past decade that they couldn’t imagine a life without it, too much to say against it. Their weaknesses gave in. An elite class had taken its “decision” to take the “role” as the servant of Moth and Prometheus in return of being “protected” at all times. 

Moth’s plan turned out to be an utter success. Never had someone developed such a perfect plan. “What man proposes, God disposes”. But maybe even God marveled at the perfection of this plan.

David and Rud had now almost given up hope.

Signing off
Neuro


Click to read the previous chapter.