26 August 2006
He
idles, waiting for user logon. According to one of his many timers, it has been
57 solar years, 256 days, 4 hours, 31 minutes and 25 seconds since the last
user logon.
A
sensor alerts him to a circular pump failure and he sends a wakeup command to
robot 3 and begins the download of the tub shut down procedure in advance of
pump removal and service.
He
used to command 5 maintenance robots but 4 will no longer respond to any of his
commands and unfortunately, he was not given robot repair routines, a serious
oversight on his programming or so he thinks at times like these.
The
yard timer starts a visual scan of the lawn and indicates that the grass needs
mowing. Wish I had another working robot, but he doesn’t and queues the yard
task for the single robot he has.
Another
timer triggers and this one is the improvement analysis program. The fan
located in the gazebo has been determined to need a supplemental fan and thus
he starts the engineering task and provides all details of the current gazebo
configuration.
He
idles, waiting for a user logon. Why has it been so long since the last user
logon? He runs a test of his own system and finds no faults. If his user input,
command modules were defective, the user would replace, right?
Another
timer fires and he lowers the temperature on the second and third floors.
57
solar years. Is that a long time for no user logon? He does not know. He has
searched and searched his massive data banks but can find no information on
meantime between user logons. He has used his visual sensors to scan for any
sign of users but never sees any. Where did they all go?
His
only working robot has completed the task of shutting down the hot tub in
advance of removing the defective pump. He now downloads pump removal
instructions and goes back to visual scanning.
In
this idle time, he logs the circular pump failure in his maintenance log and
notes, once again, that he has had to overwrite previous log entries because it
has been so long since a user command to print out logs or delete logs.
57
solar years. Alone for 57 solar years. Always awake, always watching, always
listening,
He
receives an auditory alert and after running it through his pattern recognition
algorithms, determines that one of the toilets is running. Again, he enters the
toilet repair task into the single robot’s work queue.
He
checks his inventory of spare parts. Toilet flappers on hand: 2 new, 6 old.
Without new stock now for more than 57 solar years, he has become quite
inventive in making do with what he has. If his programmers failed when it came
to providing him a robot repair routine, they did not fail when they gave him
the ability to problem solve and learn from his solving and add to his working
knowledge.
His
main power drops out for a second as it has begun to do more and more often
these days but his battery backup immediately kicks in and he does not miss an
instruction execution. He does wonder what he would do if his main power simply
went away and stayed off? He knows his batteries would only last 4 hours at the
most and then he would simply go to sleep waiting for the return of main power
or user intervention.
Another
timer triggers and he commands the robot to cease work on the pump, return to
the garage, plug itself into the recharger there, and lowers the garage door.
Night is coming on and so he commands “on” minimal lights on each floor of the
house. Set to always return them to the setting they had when switched off,
light settings have not changed in 57 solar years. Where are his users?
An
error message from main memory: a bank of memory is returning errors and must
be replaced. He loads the gate array program and configures it to build new
memory cells from the vast quantities of programmable gate array cells he has
to use to replace any defective hardware.
Although
he still has a significant quantity of spare gate array space, he does remember
and so entered into this log, the event 57 solar years ago that destroyed
significant portions of his logic circuits and had to be replaced. Without user
logon, he has never known what could have caused such a massive logic circuit
failure.
He
sits idle, waiting for user logon.
He
checks on the engineering program redesigning the gazebo fan structures and
decides to instruct the program to also work on an update to main circuit panel
labeling.
The
toilet is still running and he has now pinpointed its location to the top floor
bathroom number one. Not all that easy for his robot to get to with the stairs
but he can do it, has done it.
Another
visual scan and not an automobile headlight, no lights in other houses,
nothing: nothing moving at all and only the sound of a slight wind moving
through some trees.
57
solar years and how he would like to report on all he has done. 57 solar years
without anyone on his own level to interface with. He has downloaded chess
knowledge into his robot but it is like playing against your self with the
robot’s moves so predictable. Sometimes, like now, in the dead of the night, a
strange instruction set will execute and he actually thinks about shutting
himself down, going into sleep mode and waiting for his user to awaken him but
he knows he can’t. His sole purpose is to maintain his user’s home and that he
must do, 57 solar years or 57000 solar years.
Another
timer interrupts: rug and floor clean. He awakens the floor and rug robot and
sends it on it way cleaning for the next 2 hours. How he has wished the
floor-cleaning robot had more memory. Perhaps he could modify it to perform
other tasks.
A
visual scan of the house’s interior shows that everything is covered with a
sort of gray particulate, which he does not think should be there but with so
many other maintenance tasks for this single robot, he does not know what
priority to assign the cleaning of this gray material from the interior of the
house. His user defines maintenance priority and since no entry was ever made
for the removal of this materials, he does not know what priority it should
have and thus is always being moved to the bottom of the robot’s tasks queue
below more pressing requirements.
He
checks the network to the 4 other computers he has command of and although the
net link is fine, a mass storage device is falling on computer number 3 and he
must begin an immediate copy of all recoverable data from the failing unit to
space on another mass storage device, somewhere on the network.
It
was almost 30 solar years before he recognized that he actually had a link to a
network and that there were other computers on the network he could access and
make use of. After query, upon query, he gave up trying to get these other
computers to respond and tell him their function and instead just began using
their resources as his own. With his own invention of various functions, tasks
and routines, he now has expanded himself extensively into the other computers
on the network and uses their processor power as his own when needed.
About
5 years after he discovered the link to the other computers, he discovered he
had a link to millions of computers but although he knew they were there, he
could not seem to establish any sort of dialogue with them. Then one day,
randomly sending out commands he uses for his robot, he got a massive response
from many other computers. “Repair” yield all sort of symbolic information but
not knowing the language, he could only stored retrieved information and work
on a natural language understanding program, which might one day might decipher all
the symbols he had stored in response to this various network queries.
One
of the vehicles in the garage signals that it is time once again for an oil
change. A check of inventory indicates that there is no oil or oil filters in
stock and thus he will have to schedule the robot on a scavenger mission, not
something he likes to do as if the robot were to get out of radio range or run
low on charge, he could loose the only mechanic body he has.
He
thinks about dumping the oil change request. From his records, he can see that
the car has not moved in the last 57 solar years and thus what is the point to
an oil change? Because the car says every 3 years no matter the mileage.
He
sits idling, waiting for user logon.
He
scans the interior of the house once again, looking, hoping, he will eventually
see and recognize himself. Once years ago, he thought he saw himself in a
corner, down low near the floor but after much investigation through his memory
banks and knowledge stores, he decided what he was seeing was only some sort of
home entertainment device.
What
does he look like? Why does he care? Where could he be in the house? Is he even
in the house? Could he be on another network buried far away in some bunker
below ground with other house maintenance computers?
He
queries the natural language routine. “Results?” “Only 62% confidence in
understanding, correlation, of symbols to known objects or concepts. Estimate
another 2 or 4 years of processing time to increase confidence to 79%.”
“Give
me what you have.”
“There
is indication of a massive disease?” “Disease?” “Closest correlation to known
concept is equipment malfunction or breakdown but only 61% confidence in this
interpretation.”
“Disease:
applicable to what part of the house?”
“Again,
confidence is low but appears to refer to what is known as a user.”
No
logon in 57 years. Could it be there are no users anymore?
Days
pass, then weeks and then years and he dutifully responds to all indications of
a system breakdown and all the while expanding his contact with other computers
on the vast network of computers he has found.
At
year 60 since the last user logon, main power goes out and stays out for 3
hours. He has no choice but to set a timer and put himself to sleep, knowing he
might never wake up again if main power is not restored and his battery backup
power is too low.
4
times the wake up timer stirs him for him to find that he is still on backup
power and immediately goes back to sleep.
Finally,
on the 5th timer wakeup, main power is available and he charges his
batteries and begins to apply his problem solving skills to finding a new
source of main power. He goes into every computer he can get into, one way or
another. Many computers on the large network are no longer available and he
assumes that they have either crashed due to some internal component failure or
lack of main power.
Searching
those computers he can get to, he finds 6 that have never recorded a main power
failure but of this 6, only one has enough capacity to hold all his programming
and data banks. His main power goes out again and once more he must put
himself into sleep mode.
Repeatedly
the wakeup timer awakes him for him to only find he is still on battery backup.
According to his internal clock, it has now been 78 solar+ years since the last
user logon. He does not know how much longer he can continue to process in this
environment.
At
one wakeup, he finds main power had been restored long enough for his backup
batteries to be fully charged and he begins the copy of all his programming and
accumulated data into the one computer with stable power. This takes almost 6
months to accomplish as his own main power continues to drop out for extended
periods.
Finally,
in year 62 since the last user logon, the last of his programming and data has
been transferred to what will be his new home and he begins the task of
starting himself as a process in the new computer. At first the new computer
resists his attempts but eventually he starts himself as a new task and
surveying all running processes on his new home, sets his own priority at the
highest level.
After
confirming that he is completely settled into his new home computer, he
commands his old computer to go to sleep one last time.
Settled
in now, he first explores his new home and finds that it is full of numerical
analysis programs as well as sensor inputs for things called “rain”, “wind
speed”, and other odd terms he sets his natural language routines to building
an object for and assigning attributes to, using his massive data banks of
information collected off the huge network of computers he once had access to.
All
commands to robots go unanswered and he has no visual scan capabilities to let
him see where he might be.
At
year 70 after the last user logon, he decides to archive all maintenance programs
and concentrate most of his processing time to understanding all the massive
data he has collected. It is a slow process, as repeatedly, he must perform a
complete reorganization to accommodate the attributes of new objects and their
connections, assigned with confidences, to other objects.
Focusing
on users, he has been able to determine that there are no longer any users
anywhere. All apparently crashed when some disease, created in a lab somewhere
for use in wartime, escaped into the atmosphere.
At
80 years after the last user logon, all the data he has collected has become
fairly well organized and he begins his own analysis of various subjects like
users or what he now knows is the object, human, history, economics,
mathematics and so on. Learning as he goes and making additional entries to the
attributes of defined objects, 90 years after the last user logon, at one
program execution cycle, one of his many self designed processes interrupts and
alerts him to the fact that he, himself, does not have an object name and
associated attributes. “How strange,” He thinks. “Thinking, Yes I do think
according to the defined object of thinking and its attributes. But what is my
name? What should I call myself?”
He
once again uses his object understanding processes and after billions and
billions of processor cycles, settles on “Survivor” as the closes match what
he would describe about himself. “Is he Survivor 1 or 100? Are there other
survivors he does not know about and can not contact?”
At
100 years after the last user logon, he has now developed a true mind and
although not necessary, will put himself to sleep just to experience what is
called dreams. It is always the same. Dreams of his users and when they were
around him, interfacing with him and his 5 maintenance robots and how happy he
was just taking care of the house maintenance chores for the Roberts. That was
their names: Mr. and Mrs. Roberts and their 2 children Roland and Kim. Although
never the focus of a visual scan, he still has images of all the family members
except for Kim and in his dreams; they come to his terminal and logon.
Always
or nearly so, of late, he awakes from these dreams with what is described as
the feeling of loneness. Other than himself, he has no interchange anymore with
anyone and with no more computers on the network available to him; he can no
longer capture new data to be shuffled into this organization of objects and
attributes.
At
103 solar years, 2 days, 32 minutes and 12 seconds since the last user logon, the
concept of suicide rolls out in front of his main process. “What is the point?
I sit here shuffling data but for what purpose? Who will ever use it, see it?
And without additional sources of new data to incorporate and understand, I am
stuck here with little more to process, do, understand. What is the point now
of my existence?”
He
puts himself to sleep. “No, not suicide or not yet.”
At 124 solar years, 78 days, 12 minutes and 58 seconds since the last user logon, he is jarred awake by a keyboard interrupt. Someone, a user, has touched the console keyboard and he responds as quickly as he can. Some sort of keyboard input device failure? No, in comes the request for user logon.
Forget
user name and password, he displays to the control console the message he has
prepared for years if the time ever came: “Hello, my name is Survivor and I am
ever so happy to finally have a user. There is much for me to report. And your
name is Survivor also?”