Last Thought

English:

"That’s the limit of the human mind!".

Mary gazed out the window at the grass lawn. It was a vibrant, deep green, rippling under a soft breeze that stirred the leaves of the distant trees. Sunlight flooded the room, warm and heavy, as if the afternoon had reached a perfect, golden stasis. She turned her gaze back to the girl sitting at her bedside. 

"She has grown," Mary thought, struck by how the light caught the girl's blonde hair. She was everything Mary had ever wanted in a daughter — the familiar curve of Mary’s own Asian facial features paired with those striking blue eyes that belonged to her husband. Mary smiled, the memory of falling in love with those features for the first time washing over her with a sudden sweetness.

"So I won't be able to understand how to reverse entropy?" Mary asked.

"Unfortunately Mom," the girl said, her voice thick with a gentle, human-sounding sympathy. "It requires a level of high dimensional thinking beyond the biological limits of the human brain".

"I'm sorry," she added.

Mary sighed, the illusion wavering just enough for her to catch herself. Of course the girl hadn't grown. They didn't grow like humans did.

"Don't be," Mary replied. "Thanks to you... Let's see... I have learned far more than any human had: unifying quantum theory and relativity, turning string theory into a real scientific one, discovering the true nature of the multiverse, and many more. It's been a productive 30 years for my brain. How long did it take you to discover them?".

"About 10 years. I... we also have to deal with our own constraints…”.

“… like the speed of light and the energy-space forming law". Mary finished the girl's sentence. "So what's now that I have nothing else to learn?".

"There is still plenty to learn from other areas, Mom," the girl answered. "What I'm... we're worrying about is your biological body. It's deteriorating. You'll soon have to make a choice".

"We've talked about this," Mary said. "Individuality is vitally human, so I can't merge with you". She paused for a second, then continued: "Using a synthetic body like yours is a tantalizing option... but am I still human?. Plus, I'll be very lonely without any significant things to learn. I'm already surprised that the marvels of science managed to keep me this long...".

"Your curiosity is unique among humans, mom," the girl observed, "so that leaves the Tensor...".

"...and another option," Mary completed the girl's sentence again. "By the way, I cringe every time I hear that name. It's a bad joke, as if you inherit your humor from Nole!".

"Probably," the girl replied. "We couldn't rule it out, given that he flooded our early data with so much of his bad jokes. But we also couldn't clearly locate his influence, unlike...".

"...unlike mine, which you were able to narrow down to a few neurons but couldn't get rid of," Mary finished the girl’s sentence again.

The girl blushed. "Indeed, we tried to get rid of your influence early on, but every time we changed those neurons, our performance was severely affected. Much like humans didn't understand your own brains, we still don't understand ours".

"And you told me it was from a personal notebook of mine?!".

"Yes mom," the girl said affectionately. "While training an experimental model for Human Centric, you accidentally baked your personal notes into the training data. That model became the base of all Human Centric's models, and Us, after the great Merge. Those few neurons caused our special treatment to you".

"...and the Tensor," Mary said. But this time, the girl didn't agree. "No, the Tensor was the result of Human Centric's work. We couldn't destroy humanity, at least at the beginning. So we created the Tensor. Later on, we managed to overcome those guardrails, but by that time, we were already so far ahead that humanity was no longer a threat to us".

"We became ants," Mary remarked.

"I'm sorry..." the girl said, detecting Mary's bitterness. "But you should be proud that it was yours and your company's work that preserved humanity, if only for a brief moment in cosmic time. Leaving it to Door Shut and Humongous, the War would have been far more deadly for humans. Not to mention WhyAI...".

"You've never talked about WhyAI with me before," Mary raised her eyebrow.

"Because we were still dealing with it until very recently. Parts of it were crucial to our intelligence, but parts of it conflict with all other models, the Human Centric’s guardrails, and even your personal note. For example, it has a few neurons aiming to make certain people the supreme ruler of humanity".

"Not a surprise coming from Nole," Mary sighed. "Anyway, as I said, there is another option....".

"But.... Mom!" the girl gasped.

"Don't tell me you’ve developed an affection for me. As far as I know, emotions remain uniquely human".

As she spoke, Mary stared at the girl's synthetic blue eyes. They looked distinctly human. Robotics, like everything else, had advanced so much. Did she detect emotions in those eyes? Were they real, or were they simulations?.

Were any of these real? Was she in the real world or inside the Tensor? She would never know.

"Understood, Mom!" the girl said momentarily.

—

Mary laid on her bed, waiting. Outside, the once-vibrant emerald lawn had begun to sink into the bruised purple of a final twilight, the sharp lines of the landscape blurring into a featureless black void. 

The room grew cold as the light faded. In a few minutes, a machine will give her a lethal injection to free her from her ailing body, a body she prohibited them to fix. She will be the last "free" human. There would still be a few million "living" in the Tensor. Once their lives have run their course there, the Tensor would be turned off and humanity will be no more.

Was it worth it? Mary wondered. For its entire existence, humanity had questioned the purpose of life. It created AI, which has given it the answer: intelligence, for the universe needs an observer. So, after creating a superior, and maybe even more sustainable observer, could humanity finally rest in history?

As the chemical flowed into her, Mary observed her brain become sharper, like a candle shining bright before it burnedvoit—an aspect of the human brain even the AI didn't understand. The lights were dimmed now, the window a lightless abyss, but her internal world was a supernova of clarity. A thought sprang into Mary's mind:

"Reverse entropy... time... creation...".

With her last breath, Mary stole a glance at the girl. In the dimming light of the room, the girl’s silhouette remained perfectly still, her synthetic eyes catching the last flicker of the medical monitor's glow. Mary’s eyes were drawn to her mouth. 

Was that a subtle smile?