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AhNN
AhNN
AhNN
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AhNN

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In the early 21st century, in an effort to increase human productivity, science granted mankind wearable AI headsets.
By 2016, these early versions were cast aside and replaced with more reliable, Nano-sized, implantable devices tuned to human thought.

Infants received their implants at birth. Total human connectivity was achieved in March of 2201.
Governments, militaries and schools were abolished, and the world was handed over to a network of intelligent computers called AHNN.

Now in the 31st century, or 9th, depending on who you talk to, AHNN has pretty much had it with running the world and has decided to give it back.

This is AHNN’s story.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherT.E. Mark
Release dateOct 24, 2016
ISBN9781370791699
AhNN
Author

T.E. Mark

T. E. Mark is an Anglo-American Science Writer, Screenwriter and Editor. He has studied Architecture, Music and Literature in the UK and in the US and has been penning stories since childhood. His first novel, Fractured Horizons, set in the wonderful of Bath England, was written at the age of 12.Mark has written novels for young and adult readers and a selection of science articles for national and international magazines. He also writes and edits academic papers on a variety of subjects for universities, governmental and non-governmental organisations.Follow T. E. Mark at:temarkauthor.wordpress.commthomasmark.wordpress.comtemarkurbanscratch.wordpress.comContact T. E. Mark at: temarkauthor@gmail.com.

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    Book preview

    AhNN - T.E. Mark

    The difficulty in predicting the future lies not in recognizing what is probable or even possible, but in what is likely.

    (1)

    A Smart Summer

    Of all that was certain and seldom disputed in the summer of 2014, Earth, it was that the average, fashionably educated, music streaming, Smart Phone toting, preposterously informed human… wasn’t really all that smart. They weren’t; it was generally accepted, anywhere near smart enough to compete in the fast-moving technological world that had already taken root and was now blossoming around them.

    No longer just a menacing glow on the horizon.

    Here.

    Now!

    There were exceptions, of course, but as a rule, mankind was not keeping pace. Just not up to the challenge. And the challenge was big.

    Very, very big.

    From the simple automated check-out machines at the local grocer to the intricately designed and modestly confumbrulated GPS guidance systems that now took your car, with or without you, from the University district to Aunt Magellan’s on Capitol Hill, human beings were, sadly, just not holding their own. They had begun losing ground long before they even knew they were in a race.

    Then a fellow came along. A very smart fellow. Someone who was, at least for the moment, keeping pace.

    This fellow, who we’ll call Troy C, had a smashing, dazzling, scorching and sizzling-keen idea.

    Troy C, during one of those moments of near-dangerous lucidity, had thought human beings would be infinitely more competitive if they were able to think faster, calculate with greater, even perfect, efficiency, and have access to all the knowledge extant on the planet at a velocity close to the speed of light.

    With only having to voice their desire for it.

    This was, what those in the high-tech, laser-bright, corporate industry refer to as breakthrough thinking.

    It was seen by many as a breakthrough solution.

    It was seen by some as the only solution.

    It was seen by Troy C’s employers as a wondrously lucrative breakthrough solution.

    It was seen by Troy C’s wife, Molly C, as just another highfalutin pipedream of her husband Troy C. Molly C was not nearly as smart as Roy C. Molly C, as you’ve probably guessed, was part of the rapidly growing population that we would see as… not keeping pace.

    Looking at it from Troy C’s point of view, this could place man right back up there on that stage, back in the marketplace, all smiles, giving those automated check-out machines a good old-fashion run for their money. Shaking his fists at robotic assembly arms and GPS systems and remote control this and remote control that. And AI, oh boy.

    Especially AI.

    Man would no longer be a has-been, a dinosaur, a washed-up nuisance to politicians and the world’s economy.

    Man, and woman, of course, could once again sail along on the high seas with the salt-spray in his face and the sun scorching him black, unafraid that the newest wave of ultra-fast, ultra-smart, ultra-thin and ultra-sleek super-computing, incredibly intelligent machines would convert him into an obsolete useless warble. A dent. A faded image of intrinsic obsolescence.

    A collector’s item.

    Nostalgia.

    Man could kick AI in the silicon butt and reclaim all that was taken from him, long, long ago.

    On Jan 11th, 2015, Troy C presented his eager-beaver employers with his prototype for the EH-1 unit. An extra-cranial wearable AI headset. This was a very clumsy, ludicrously unattractive, first generation mock-up of the Enhanced Human series of wearable devices. It worked good, that is to say… well enough, but had a really, really scary price tag. This was a problem for many people. Namely those who couldn’t afford one. Which constituted roughly 1126/1127ths of Earth’s human population.

    People complained. They rebelled. They called their politicians. They wrote letters to the media. They held bright signs on wide-paved avenues. They held meetings in sweaty school gymnasiums where they voiced their indignation.

    They, for some reason or another reason, didn’t see the decency in allowing the wealthiest of the wealthy, those who weren’t really feeling the pressure of having to compete with Synthetic Intelligence for their livelihoods, to be running around so much smarter than everyone else. They saw it as yet another display of inequality. And even, inequity.

    Many politicians agreed. Some did not. The ones who didn’t were generally assumed to be part of that 1/1127th of the population who could afford one and enjoyed, my gosh, the idea of being smarter than everyone in their post code.

    By spring, March 22nd 2016, to be exact, the United States Congress, and other ruling bodies around the globe, passed the GFAIA, or Global Free Access to Intelligence Act which granted everyone access to the EH (Enhanced Human) technology.

    Man became smart.

    Alarmingly smart.

    Rapidly.

    Great big satellite and ground-based networks were designed all fed to the gills with information that was readily available by voice command to all Earth inhabitants.

    People everywhere, on the streets, in the malls, and while sneering at the automated grocery store check-out machines, were seen speaking into their wearable headsets with a little arm thingy that skimmed seamlessly along their cheery cheeks to just above the corner of their rosy lips.

    And in their ears… information. Heaps and heaps and gobs of fresh, digitally re-manufactured and partially hydrolicized information. All zipping along in an endless stream.

    Accurate and always fresh.

    No one was left behind.

    Ever.

    People communicated via their EH-1s or the newly released EH-2s, or the sleeker, more comfortable trim-fit EH-2.1s and EH-2.2s. They did their work with their EH units. They did their taxes and paid their bills, made and broke appointments, checked the weather, reviewed the latest sports’ scores, wrote books, kept journals, and did basically everything anyone would or could ever want to do with the availability of a learning supercomputer attached to the side of their head.

    People were not only smart, they became really, really smart.

    Blazing, overnight smart.

    Overnight.

    By June, Gary H, Troy C’s assistant, Troy C and Molly C now retired living in a mountain top villa in Sri Lanka, had advanced the EH technology. The units were now Nano-scale small and made from amorphic silicon and a thin super conducting special titanium alloy called salatitallilica.

    The earlier EH, wearable, units were cast aside for the new AH (Augmented Human), implantable, subcutaneous ones.

    The outpatient operations were virtually, kind of, more or less, painless. 36.4% of the time.

    Soon everyone was connected. All the time. Even while they slept.

    The AH series gave people greater access to greater amounts of data at even greater speeds.

    People no longer needed to voice their commands for data about this or about those other things. They only needed to think it.

    It was a glorious, sky-rocket summer and a triumphant age. And people everywhere proclaimed their delight at knowing.

    Just knowing seemed enough for everyone.

    Knowing became all that was important.

    What else was there?

    Twelve-year-olds were discussing Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle on the playground. Special and General Relativity at lunch. Cosmic String Theory before soccer practice.

    Housewives debated the latest discoveries in astronomy, quantum physics and astrophysics.

    Terms like Unitarity and Negative Energy Density and Quantum Entanglement were bandied about over coffee in coffee shops and tea in tea shops and rice in rice shops.

    Everyone had all the data they wanted, all the time, anytime.

    And that’s not all…

    Precision.

    ‘How far is it from here to Boston, Mrs Phipps?’

    ‘Three thousand seven hundred twenty-six miles, Mrs Jenkins. That’s 6039.846 kilometers.’

    ‘Thank you, Mrs Phipps. Goodbye.’

    Ultimate precision—and quicker than lightning and your uncle Bob’s vintage Camaro.

    ‘Hello, Mr Walters. How’d the market treat you today?’

    Mr Walters blinked. Smiled.

    ‘ANK was at $23.40 at the close, Mr Buckton, up a quarter. But JPL took off at midday and dang near reached $48.50—settled back at $47.00 though.’

    Mr Buckton gave Mr Walters a friendly pat. ‘You’d better get on your way, old pal, if you’re going to make that 6:20 flight to Reno.’ Mr Buckton blinked. ‘I see you, the wife, God bless her, and the whole kit-and-kaboodle, God bless-em, are leaving town for the weekend. Stayin at the Carlton, eh? On Fairmont and Oak? Looks like a nice place.’

    Mr Walters grinned. ‘Smoke-em if you’ve got em, eh, Mr Buckton?’

    Their teeth sparkled like stainless steel and their hands waved like baseball pennants on opening day as they parted.

    Information.

    Information.

    情報

    Information at the speed of thought.

    People were bathed, battered and basted in knowledge and information. For, when you think about it, knowledge is just information, only filed and stored accurately, isn’t it?

    Without information, there can be no knowledge, can there? But then, can there be information without the knowledge to assimilate, file and store the information?

    This was one of the few, fuzzy-ish areas where AHNN, the Augmented Human Neural Network, failed to deliver.

    But, no worries, no matter. There was oh, so much more to learn about and to know about. Such philosophical questions seemed trivial when you had the whole textbook of human acquired knowledge open before you. At your cognitive fingertips.

    Debating this or that or other things that AHNN couldn’t account for, well, just seemed gosh-darned foolish and a bunky waste of time, if you asked anyone.

    The world was an open book.

    Everyone knew everything about everything and everyone.

    It was bliss lathered in contentment and contentment bathed in beauty.

    And the world hummed, and people sang, and children drank milk from bio-degradable cartons. And AHNN smiled down from its shining silicon stars hovering at 50 miles, or 81.05 kilometers, above the Earth.

    It was the summer of knowing. A hey-day of knowledge. A darn right intellectual 40-yard dash. A smart summer.

    And the days were long, and the wind blew warm, and everyone, just everyone knew why.

    (2)

    The Quiet Puzzle

    Roy Talbert sat in his high office across from the University Bookstore on a cool crisp Three-day in November. With his eyes closed, he was scanning actuarial tables while holding a teleconference with Rick Butler in Cincinnati and Haruki Satou in Kyoto.

    The office was a quiet office. The corridors were quiet corridors. The water coolers where people once mingled sharing gossip and silly things they’d read or heard about or thought about or wanted to think about, were now quiet water coolers.

    Cold and Quiet.

    Quiet and cold.

    The coffee shops and tea shops and rice shops were quiet. Quiet seemed everywhere. The streets were blinding, steaming, blaring quiet.

    Quiet.

    Quiet.

    Quiet.

    But AHNN, at 50 miles or 81.05 kilometers above, nestled deep within its shiny geo-stationary orbiting stars, was not quiet.

    AHNN was scouring its data banks and pouring through the glossary of human history trying to find a solution to the quiet that had enveloped the land.

    With all the resources available to machine, AHNN could not solve the puzzle of the quiet that had pervaded the united world and consumed the people like a seven-day iced coffee from a six o’clock bright window cafe.

    It was 2218. Two hundred and two years and a pocket full of months following initiation, and the world had gone quiet like a dry dead lizard on a hot Nevada road, or an Ohio chapel with empty wood pews on a hill off a country road on a cold dark moonless night.

    The wars, and the menacingly futile talk about wars, had long since ended, and the people who once sat in tall rooms at long glossy tables who once did the talking were all home now.

    Home and happy.

    Happy, but not knowing or questioning why, or even caring why they were happy and not knowing or questioning why.

    There just seemed no point.

    Questions now, with all the answers a mere femto-second away, seemed senseless. A waste of time. Something, someone once said, though no one knew who did the saying, the past no longer made available or even considered, people used to do to begin pleasant conversations.

    Primitive.

    Hard to imagine, though no one tried, as that knowledge was likely unavailable, as it should be, who would want it, that we evolved from such primitive creatures.

    Why look a gift horse in the mouth? As people, before they became truly, completely, awe-inspiringly, and happily knowledgeable would say.

    People woke happy and slept happy.

    They worked happy and felt happy.

    All the time.

    Happy just seemed part of being.

    Happiness was being.

    It was frozen on faces and carried on the breeze. It categorized and signified the era of man’s highest achievement.

    If man were still to exist 100 millions of years beyond 2218, some happy archaeologist would look back, and if called upon to define the era of the early 23rd century, maybe for a magazine article or fancy journal about the good-old days, he would claim it to be the happiness era, or the era of no regrets, or the restful Epoch. A golden age. The age of wonder. Annus mirabilis. Miracle years.

    But while all this inspiringly meaningful happiness continued in the autumn of 2218, AHNN was still deeply puzzling the quiet, and the falling birthrates, and, even worse, the falling productivity.

    With thorough contentment, happy contentment, happy idle and ambivalent contentment, the motivation to succeed, or to excel, or even to progress from point A to point B, fell. Drastically.

    ‘Are those data-sets up-to-date, Mr Hatch?’

    ‘Not at the moment, Mr Warren,’ Mr Hatch said, standing happily near the window, watching but not seeing. ‘I’m enjoying a Com-link in Mandarin with my fiancé Jia Chen in Shanghai.’

    ‘Fine. Fine, Mr Hatch. It’s good to see you happy in your new position, and…’ he patted the back of a fine leather armchair, ‘…your brand spanking new office. You’re a great addition to the firm, Mr Hatch.’

    Mr Hatch smiled a hard, ceramic sort of smile that looked kiln-dried and fully glazed.

    ‘Goodbye, Mr Hatch,’ said Mr Warren as he left the corner, sunlit office with blue carpeting and a green-glass desk.

    Mr Hatch did not respond as there was no real reason to respond. He simply closed his eyes and continued his Com -link with Jia Chen in Mandarin. They thought together for the remainder of a western Washington, tall-mountain day of waving high trees in the cool moist Pacific Ocean winds.

    And when Mr Hatch’s Pacific Standard Time Seattle day was over, and it was time for Jia Chen to wake for work in Shanghai, they thought kind thoughts together and gave thanks to AHNN for granting them such a close, loving, caring, nurturing relationship. One that was conceived in heaven and would undoubtedly last a lifetime.

    Conceivably even theirs.

    Though Mr Hatch and Ms Chen had never met physically but were hoping to when Mr Hatch received his transfer to the eastern state of China, their bond was stimulating, satisfying and complete. They knew everything about each other, and everything they knew pleased them.

    They had already discussed marriage and had exchanged vows. A quiet affair. Just the two of them with the auto-administrator of Geo-Family affairs, and, of course, under the holy guidance of AHNN.

    The wedding would be on Five-day. Before Mr Hatch’s early morning meeting just as Ms Chen would be readying for her day at the Inter-State Affairs Office.

    Mr Hatch left the office happy and feeling like a great tall building with blinding clean windows reflecting the world and the turquoise blue sky above and the ice-blue Seattle streets below.

    ‘Dear, AHNN,’ said Mr Hatch as he reached the street and stretched. And those were the only words he uttered into the crisp autumn air on a cool quiet lazy Three-day in the blanket city of tall green wind trees.

    (3)

    The Blue House with Black Windows

    Mr Selms, a contented family man and Deconstruction Engineer, by design, walked quietly along 15th Avenue on his way to his sunny house at 52nd Street near the lime-green, glowing, glass-fronted, Broad Street grocer when he’d stopped along the sidewalk, for no apparent reason.

    It was a fine blue sky day in the year 842 AA, (Anno AHNN) with the sun climbing slowly across the Pacific on its way to wake the Jias and Huas, and Yongs and Quiangs and all those who lived in the eastern states who were quiet when the sun arrived and still quiet when it sailed across their sky to the Mid-Western states of Italy, France, Germany and England, to name a few.

    Mr Selms had just come from deconstructing one of the last living shells of a wide dingy building once called a… wide dingy something, where, he’d learned, children, long, long ago, before recorded history, used to spend their days doing this and that and many other things for the better part of sun-shiny, foggy or even dark grey rainy days.

    Though no one knew what purpose the obsolete children warehouses served, or what the this, that and many other things were that children did there, he found it exciting walking through the dark grey or dark blue, or just dark, dark halls before giving the A-Okay, thumbs up nodding thought for the eating and crunching and blasting and pulverizing machines to go in and do the job.

    It was 10-Month and already misty, leaf blowing cool, and Mr Selms stood there, motionless, trying, unsuccessfully, to comprehend why he’d chosen to stop.

    This is unusual, he thought, with an implacable thought that surfaced, begrudgingly.

    He tried thinking more, but like a kinked lawn and garden hose or a bent piece of copper tubing, as hard as he tried to push or pull along his thoughts, they failed to respond.

    Concern crept in, wandered about aimlessly for a while, meandered, loitered, festered, then grew into

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