Twisted Thoughts And Thoughtful Truths On Thursday #028

Twisted Thoughts And Thoughtful Truths On Thursday #028 – The Atrium – Chapter 09 – The Advancement Of AI

As promised, I’m releasing some of my upcoming book bi-weekly as part of the Twisted Thoughts And Thoughtful Truths On Thursday series here at SBS.  I don’t expect it to make sense…at least, not at the moment…but that’s okay.  Putting it out here publicly is intended to be motivation to keep me writing it, and that’s all the purpose any of it needs to serve.  Hopefully, if I get lucky, you’ll enjoy it in the process…that’s the best case scenario.  At the moment, I’d predict that things will likely change with the order I put these things out in…and what reads as “chapters” now, might end up becoming pure prologue, if it even ends up making the final cut for the whole story at all.  Regardless, if you find yourself being one of the few that wanna follow along and see where this goes, I can at least promise you that reading what is posted up here at the homepage will provide you with extra insight, details, and ideas that probably won’t even end up being in the book…so perhaps, by reading these postings at the start of each month, you might very well know more about what I’m writing than the publisher will by the time things are all finished. 

I truly hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading.

– Jer @ SBS

The Atrium – Chapter 09 – The Advancement Of AI

August 16^th, 2038

On a brutally hot day in the summer of 2038, Jaxson was out in his backyard grilling a steak the old-fashioned way, with glowing orange charcoals in the bottom of his barbeque, and a huge smile on his face.  In the direct sunlight, anyone would be rightfully repulsed by the pounding heat, but ever the resourceful young man, Jaxson had built himself a proper sun-blocker, so that as the angry yellow heat-ball passed directly overhead and continued to send its rage towards him as it set, he barely even noticed that the sun was even there while he was busy cooking.  Obviously he could just sit in the cool of his air conditioner at full blast if he wanted to simply stay inside; it was always easy enough to slam a package of Regenerate on hot days like this rather than slave over a hot stove, but barbequing was a labor of love as far as Jaxson was concerned, and he approached it like an art form.  Admittedly, he felt like he was getting to be increasingly alone in that regard.  So many folks had gone vegan over the course of the decade prior, and in the past five years alone with the introduction of Regenerate, he already knew a ton of people that just decided to stop eating altogether.  He’d considered it himself many times, because who wouldn’t?  The act of making anything you’d wanna eat takes time, plus the actual eating of what you wanna eat – it adds up, and in the process, takes away from something else that people could be doing.  Besides, it really didn’t taste all that bad.  Back when Jax was busy ‘getting yoked’ as a teenager and working out all the time, lord knows he consumed enough supplements from pure greens to creatine, and pretty much every single one of them tasted like a scorched, inside-out asshole.  Or at the very least, what he imagined that might taste like.  Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t good.  As far as the all-inclusive, nutritional fuel everyone had come to know as Regenerate, he had no issues with it.  If it’s something you wanna take to save time in your day, or money in your wallet, it was a good idea.  On days as beautiful as this one was, there was no replacing a meal cooked on the barbeque.  Complete with fresh vegetables from Jaxson’s rooftop garden, he might still be eating alone, but as far as he was concerned, he was the best company he could have, and this was to be a meal for the history books.

As he carefully monitored the meat on his grill, he gave a slight percentage of his attention to the media channel he had playing on his computer, playing through the speakers he had hooked up to his outside patio on the roof of his building.  While his old Philosophy Professor Dennir would have applauded his willingness to listen to voices like the mainstream media channels, he would have made sure to advise him to filter the information he was being told and be extra cautious of the potential for bullshit.  Jax had taken a great many lessons from Dennir’s class to heart, and found himself recalling something he had said just about every second day even though he’d been out of his class for about two years at this point.  The media channel that Jaxson chose to tune into was fairly reliable…perhaps more reliable than most.  It was always hard to say; Jax knew how to defend his own mind from misinformation, but he always wondered what it was like for a regular person to listen to these kinds of information stations.  Were they able to cut through the bullshit like he could and still get something out of what they listened to?  Was it merely propaganda to those that couldn’t parse the information being broadcast?  An echo chamber for an uneducated mind?  Jaxson was hardly the smartest person on the planet, but he felt a deep sympathy for anyone that he perceived as being less intelligent than he was.  To be any less smart than he was, he felt like that had to be hell on Earth.  Each and every day, Jaxson felt like he put in a significant amount of effort just to keep up to the plotline of humanity, and was still just scratching the surface.  So he listened for emphasis, enthusiasm, talking points, repetition, and genuine emotion – all aspects of human speech that could tell anyone whether something was worth listening to or not, if you were paying close enough attention.  The Onus Media Channel that Jax chose to subscribe to was really no different than most in terms of what they chose to put into their programming, but it did seem to at least attempt to be a bit more sincere in their efforts to broadcast a more truthful version of what was happening in the world surrounding him.  Even with that being the case, being a ‘more truthful’ version of whatever the truth was supposed to be was somewhat admirable at best and definitely undeserving of any gold stars or accolades, and it was still completely crucial to remember that Onus was still in the business of selling a product like anyone else.  News was entertainment.  It had to be, or it would have gone the way of the dinosaurs around the time social media sites blew up and captured the public’s interest in quick thirty-second to three-minute clips that may or may not be factual.  So while it might appear that an old-school program like the Onus News Hour was geared towards an older crowd, which it was, the shows that surrounded it were much less constricted in regards to any rules or the tenets of basic journalism.  Every so often, Jax would let the news finish updating him on the state of the world as best it could, and he’d let it drift into whatever show might follow it next.  Ultimately, he understood that this was the very act that could lead him directly down the rabbit hole to the brain rot so many people ended up experiencing during the misinformation era, but given that he was able to successfully navigate though those years already, he never considered himself to be too much at risk.  Besides, the meat on the grill wasn’t going to be completely perfect if he didn’t keep a close eye on it, so he let the next show continue to play as he kept cooking.  It was something called Real Life Conspiracies, a popular segment on how many of the theories that were once considered to be radical end up being proven as fact – yet as far as Jaxson could tell, it was just more programming that played fast and loose with what the truth was.  While his steaks were sizzling on the grill, he kept an ear affixed to the show on in the background.

“Has your computer been listening to you all along?  Were landline phones ever really a thing?  Do people really live past fifty-eight, or has that always been a myth?  What about religion – does it really make you fat?  Does your cat secretly like you?  Can Regenerate truly replace your favorite meal?  Are our politics the only thing that separates us from the animals?  Was American cheese ever actually American?  Is this show even on right now, or is your brain simply an image generator?  Find out all the answers to these questions and more as we delve into the deepest and darkest corners of humanity that no one dares to look in, on Real Life Conspiracies with Emmett Tisdale.”  Jaxson chuckled at the last part; not only could he say the entire intro out loud, but the music that came along with the show was always so pronounced and overly dramatic.  It would get to the title and play the cliché bah-bah-bahhhhhh at the end, and for whatever reason, it was like a guilty pleasure to Jax and was guaranteed to get a laugh out of him.  “On this week’s episode, find out if artificial intelligence is a lot smarter than you think.”  He quickly thought of his old professor Dennir, who died suddenly in a car crash on the exact day he had taught a philosophy class about AI being more advanced and around for much longer than once thought.

Usually, Jaxson had no real use for Emmett Tisdale or the nonsense he generally had on his show.  For the most part, it was fairly laughable material that hardly ever had a foot set in reality.  On the best of days it might make a few relevant points, sometimes even include a fact or two that could be confirmed.  Jaxson was unquestionably interested in anything to do with AI from the good to the bad, ever since he took Dennir’s class back in ’36.  With a couple of thick steaks ready for consumption, he quickly powered down the barbeque, swung by the fridge to grab a cold beer, and sat down in the living room in front of his television screen to dig in and listen to what Tisdale had to say.  It started out like most of his shows.

“Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome to Real Life Conspiracies with Emmett Tisdale – I’m your host, Emmett Tisdale.  Tonight we’re going to delve into the realm of AI, and we’re going to show you exactly how the government you’ve trusted to keep you safe from the icy grip of technology, has let you down in unforgiveable ways.”  Emmett’s brown coif flopped back & forth as he swayed his head with each syllable he spoke, always punctuating his words with his stupid haircut.  “What if we were to tell you live on the air here tonight, that AI has not only been a part of our society for so much longer than any of us had ever realized, but that its intentions are also more nefarious than any of us could have imagined.  Would you tune in to watch something like that?  We bet you would – and we’ll have all that and more right after the break.”  TV was still stuck in its ways.  Hundreds upon hundreds of years of human evolution, countless scientific breakthroughs and remarkable achievements around the world, and people still couldn’t escape the juggernaut of network television and being advertised to twenty-four hours a day.  A series of horrendous commercials at a louder volume than the show began, with an ad for Regenerate ironically up first, even though the show mentions it as being a conspiracy as the title credits were rolling.  Jaxson took an appreciative bite of his steak and wondered why on earth anyone out there would want to stop eating real food in exchange for some tiny little bar as a meal replacement.  ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ he thought to himself as he chewed on a perfectly cooked piece of real beef.

Dennir had mentioned something very similar to the premise of Emmett’s show tonight, so Jaxson felt compelled to wait it out through the commercials and endure whatever else would be advertised to him.  He sat through commercials for a community college, a politician of some kind promising to regulate AI when she got elected, the new Ford all-electric Sky Motor, and the latest upgrade for The Energy Cube.  The last one caused Jaxson to look outside at the state of his own Energy Cube, which seemed like it was already on its way into obsolescence.  When they figured out how to replicate an entire household’s use of electricity through innovative solar technology & you could make the switch from traditional electric to the EC, Jaxson immediately made the switch.  Financially it made tremendous sense; he purchased a Cube for a one-time cost, and no more monthly electricity bills.  The technology was new at the time though, so now even with a full day’s worth of solar charge it constantly seemed like the power was thin.  Sometimes he’d be sitting there watching television and the screen would start to fade to almost black.  Coming in and out of focus like a lens on an old camera or a pair of glasses that needed to be cleaned, from what Jaxson gathered, if he upgraded his EC he’s probably have a smoother current powering the house.  As it stood now, he was able to move the cube from position to position inside his place and it would usually compensate enough to distribute more than adequate power for whatever room he was in.  Like right now, with his cube sitting right on top of the television, the picture was as clear as ever.

Tisdale reappeared onscreen and the show continued.  “Here’s what we can tell you as fact about AI.  It has been around for so much longer than any of us had known, and at this point we are absolutely sure about that.  Because you’re all discerning viewers that arrived here as a result of critical thinking, I would never simply assume you’ll just take our word for it, on this subject, or on any subject if I’m being honest with you.  We have always invited our viewers to scrutinize our every word and keep us in check – and if we’ve ever been wrong, believe me when I tell ya, we’ve heard about it directly, from you.  Tonight we once again invite you to make sure we’re on the level by taking the time to fact check each and every single thing we say.  Truly, I mean it.  We want you to actively participate in keeping us honest, and the only way to help us with that is to tune in, listen to what we have to say, and then ask yourselves whether or not you’re seeing what we’re seeing out there in the world.  To start this episode off, I want you all to watch this video clip of a gas station, taken way back in 1983.  Forgive us as the footage is a little bit on the grainy side, but we’ve enhanced it through our holographic image generator to give it a bit more detail.  Other than that, what you’re seeing is completely unaltered.  Fair warning though, this is not for the faint of heart, and if you have children, it is recommended that you do not let them watch this next segment.”  And there it was, onscreen.  Jaxson lowered his next bite back down to his plate in complete mystification.  This was the old footage of that guy Tim, who Dennir once said had been spotted in just about every corner of the world, even after his bones were crunched into the gas station’s drawer on that late fateful night.  Emmett returned to the screen.  “The man that you’re seeing in what appears to be a horrific and unimaginable death, in fact, never died at all.  He would go on to be seen in a wide variety of places, different cities, different countries, and every time that the intelligence agencies are certain they’ve seen the last of him, he shows up again and again and again.  He’s been doing that for years.  Folks know him as Tim, and from what we’ve been able to find out, he is not at all alone.  There are a growing number of cases of people whose time never seems to expire.  As rational human beings, it is hard to make sense of logically, but it’s to the point where we have to wonder how many of these superbeings are roaming the planet along with us.  There’s a Sylvia, a Kevin, a Derek, a Jules and a Julie – and what appears to be countless others, that are not only not dying, but seem to be ageless somehow.  Like they’re defying the unwritten rules of what the human experience is supposed to be like, and have managed to tap into immortality without having to become vampires like we see in the movies.  That being said, you just saw the same video that I did, where Tim met with his fate face to face – who knows what kind of pain he was in at that time, or what the true cost of immortality would really be.  Did he already know that he’d somehow be resurrected and go on to live another fifty-five years at the time he was mangled into a pretzel, covered in blood and broken inside of a gas station drawer?  If he did, why does he look so intensely afraid in the footage?  Our theory at this time, is that beings like Tim, Sylvia, and the like, actually have no idea they’ve been chosen to be the next chapter of evolutionary progress.  When we come back, we’ll tell you more about how we know these beings are more established here on Earth than the government has been willing to tell you, and as always we’ll bring the receipts to prove it.”  Jaxson was blown away by what he’d seen on Tisdale’s show so far and wasn’t moving a muscle until it was finished.  Was his old professor right about everything he was talking about in class way back then?  Right now it definitely seemed like it could be, even on Emmett Tisdale’s conspiratorial program.

After another series of blaring advertisements that blabbed on in the background of his thoughts as Jaxson devoured the rest of his steak, Tisdale was back onscreen behind his desk ready to continue with his expose on AI.  “Believe it or not, we’re not claiming that we’re geniuses for figuring out the story on Tim’s incredible immortality.  With as much technology as there is out there today in the realm of facial recognition, the extra manpower we have to follow leads and the time we spend researching the topics of our show, you truly could have accomplished the same if you had access to a similar kind of resources.  You know what we say around here though – ‘if we can find a string to pull, chances are we’ll be able to weave you a whole sweater by the time we unravel everything’ – and that’s exactly what happened with this story as we continued to dive into it.  The more we connected the dots, the more we learned, the more we learned, the more questions we ended up with.  That cycle has continued for months and months in behind the scenes of the network here.  Indeed, this is not a story that merely happened overnight, no – this is a tale that has been taking place all around us at a slow pace for decades now, and we have the proof right here on tonight’s show.  We’re about to explain how the government has been lying to you the entire time, and how these superbeings have been living amongst us for years.  Are you ready for that?  We thought you would be – and we’ll share everything we’ve learned after the break.”

No matter how familiar with television anyone could ever be, the endless onslaught of advertising was agonizing and practically unbearable on every single channel.  Tisdale’s show was no exception to the rule, and proudly beamed out commercials that included Ford’s Electric SkyMotor that promised to take you and your family for a safe ride amongst the clouds, a gel-like mattress that guaranteed you’d get in a sleep unlike any other you ever had as a result of their patented surrounding-slumber fluid technology, and a type of anti-dog repellent that was supposed to be remarkably effective, and odor free to humans.  No matter how many times Jaxson saw that last commercial, he could still barely believe it.  What was formerly known as Man’s Best Friend had been in a relationship continually in decline.  Year after year, it seemed like dogs were actively beginning to resent humans, and more often than not at this point in 2038, it was rarer to find humans that still felt that deep connection to them like they so commonly used to have.  Nowadays it seemed like dogs were starting to be genuinely shunned from society altogether, and for the most part, it seemed like they too were fine with that.  It was like they no longer wanted anything to do with the masses of the human race, and only seemed to engage with a very select few.

“Okay,” said Emmett as he returned to the screen with a wave of hair flapping on his head as he spun it around in the studio, landing back at his desk staring straight down the barrel of the camera at the people at home.  “What you’ve seen in Tim is without question, corroborated fact; we have pictures of this guy on camera in places all over the world from different years, and we know it’s the exact same guy.  What we don’t really know – yet – is just how many others there might be like him out there in the world among us, but we do have some real theories taking shape.  I’m old enough to remember how around the, say, 2015-2025 era, the world was in the middle of a mad panic about climate change and trying to decide what course of action to take about it.  Do you remember that too?  Now how about this – do you remember when it stopped?  Probably not as clearly, right?  That’s because somehow, through some true miracle, the human race avoided catastrophe by the lucky stroke of our climate deciding to cooperate with us once again – and it was inexplicable; it just simply happened.  Obviously, that’s a good thing – we were well on our way to cooking our own goose, and if things had kept going in the direction that they were, who knows if we’d even be here today?  Instead, temperatures cooled, and the seasons of hot and cold that were raging out of control, found their way back to the normal we once knew.  But did you ever stop to ask why that would happen, or how?  What if this is all directly tied into the hard numbers of the world population, and perhaps we just haven’t connected the dots yet?  We know now by looking at the data, that our total global population hasn’t grown significantly for the past eight years straight, and we can now see that it was already slowing down prior to that.  What’s probably even more interesting to you though, isn’t so much that our population hasn’t grown, but that it also hasn’t shrunk either.  You might ask yourself, how could that be possible?  You’d definitely be right to ask that question – and chances are, that kind of mental savviness is exactly what drives you to tune in regularly to Real Life Conspiracies, and we’re happy to have you with us, as always.  Let’s connect that final dot together, shall we?  Have you noticed how much quieter your streets have become as of late?  Have you noticed that the sirens that once plagued our peace & serenity have all but been silenced?  Sure you’ll hear the occasional one here and there, but compared to the hustle & bustle of the 911 years?  You hardly hear anything now.  It’s the kind of creepy absence of noise that’s so welcome you don’t actually think about questioning what caused it, but we’ve got even more evidence to support this story we’ve been working on that it’ll blow your minds.”  Emmett was wildly waving a stack of papers around onscreen, and Jaxson was thoughtfully contemplating his alleged information while savoring the last few bites of his precious grilled steak.  “What if we told you that statistics show that the number of hospitalizations plummeted over this past decade, to the point where it has become apparent that we’re not relying on hospitals and doctors to care for us like we have so much in the past?  Ask yourself when the last time you went in for a checkup was?  Take your time, and really think about it.  I bet it’s been a while, hasn’t it?  It’s probably been a strange amount of time, right?  So what’s the reality?  Are we healthier?  Are we more careful as a society?  Is there another reason as to why core public services like hospitals and doctor’s offices have been cutting back staff to the bare minimum?  Consider all that, and we’ll talk about it after the break.”

Jaxson was no stranger to the wild conclusions of Real Life Conspiracies, and he could feel that growing closer as the show played on.  The rhythm between episodes was always fairly similar.  To start, Emmett would appear very factual and professional, like you’d expect someone in the news to be, with the kind of demeanor that was both calming and alarming at the same time.  As the show played on, you could feel the conspiratorial elements of the show continuing to invade the sanity of its reporting; and more often than not, by the end in its final segment, Emmett would be ranting and raving about something so extreme that he would sound like a person’s drunk uncle at a traditional Christmas gathering gone awry.

Still, as presently constructed, at least before the finale of this particular show, Tisdale’s reporting seemed to have some kind of tangible credibility that was noticeably rare.  As far as Jaxson could tell, Emmett was right about the bizarre case of Tim, and the fact that Professor Dennir had also taught him about that exact same scenario gave this entire story an additional credence that he couldn’t simply write off as conspiracy.  Then there was other points that had been made along the way that didn’t seem very far fetched either, like how there were less sirens on the city streets these days, less staff in hospitals, and even thinking about his own health, Jaxson had to acknowledge that it had been years and years since he himself had gone to see a doctor for any reason.  It wasn’t just a dose of relevant information, it literally made him uncomfortable to realize that Emmett could be onto something in bringing this up.  When was the last time he had seen a doctor, and why had it been so long?  Jaxson jogged through his memory as best he could and seemed to continually come up with blanks for an answer.  All he knew was that he was by no means a pillar of perfect health, and it seemed extremely odd that he hadn’t had any kind of complications for quite some time.  As he swirled the last bite of his meal around on his plate to get any of the last remaining juices, he forced out a little cough to have a listen to the sound, almost as if he was in disbelief about what he’d just learned about his own physical health.  When was the last time he had gotten sick?  He hadn’t broken a bone in something like twenty years; he hadn’t needed care of any kind.  Even when the whole world was locked down from the spread of COVID-19 back in 2020, he sailed right through it without any complications.  Had he even caught a cold since then?  He couldn’t remember.

After another series of highly obnoxious commercials had finally come to an end, Emmett Tisdale returned to the screen, seemingly as incensed as ever & ready to unleash the fireworks in the finale of this episode.  “As much as I’d like to say ‘welcome back to the show’ – this final segment is going to be tough to take for a great many of you watching tonight.  We’ve told you about Tim.  We’ve explained how his very existence could be the cause of the relief from climate change.  We’ve talked about how the population has essentially flatlined when it comes to the birth and death rate, and we’ve pointed out how people don’t seem to be getting sick like they used to be.  The question is, where are we going with all of this information, and how does it relate to you?  Look.  I’ll be honest with you, just like I always am – if I had started out speaking in some kind of Orwellian tone, you probably wouldn’t believe anything we had to say on this program today, yet the critical seriousness of this situation is so completely comparable that I could have very well come out here on air today telling you that the world as we know it is either at risk, or has already been compromised beyond repair.  To be truthful, we don’t have all the answers that we’d like to have – yet.  We’ve contacted many folks in different fields that should have some kind of input into this story, but most declined to comment for both professional & personal reasons.  Many of those people are employed in the exact place you’d expect them to be – within the government.  So while we can’t definitively prove that the government itself has been actively lying to you, we can certainly say with full confidence that they have not been fully forthcoming with the information they have either.  Something viciously nefarious is happening out there in the world right now, and while it appears to be making us healthier & living longer lives, we also cannot explain the details behind why that would be.  Perhaps it’s because the environment around us is no longer the threat that it once was – maybe that’s contributed to our overall health in some kind of…immaculate type of way.  Maybe it’s the quality of our farming practices, or the advent of Regenerate and the health benefits of eating less that has us living longer, less complicated lives.  Or maybe, just maybe, the secret lies within the mystery of Tim and what could be many people like him.  What if we were being systematically replaced by some kind of alien race at such a slow pace that it wouldn’t even cause alarm?  Maybe each person that dies ends up becoming reborn as one of these entities that ends up bouncing around the entire globe like borders don’t even exist?  There are far too many more questions than we have answers right now, so rest assured, you’ll hear us following up on this story later on down the road.  For now, consider the fact that it has probably been a very long time since you’ve been sick, and consider what that might mean for you.  Consider the fact that the government is not exactly known for being forthcoming with the information we should all have at our fingertips, and never has been.  What is it that they’re hiding, and why won’t they go on the record to comment on what we’ve found out in this story we’ve laid out for you today?  Consider how vulnerable we are as a people en masse, and how little we know about the universe as a whole.  Consider the fact that more often than not, conspiracies contain a kernel of truth we cannot ignore.  Thank you for joining us for this episode of Real Life Conspiracies – we’ll see you next week.”

Jaxson mouthed the final two lines of the show along with Emmett saying them; they were always the same.  A global invasion wasn’t exactly where he expected Tisdale to take the last segment, and admittedly, it seemed to make for great entertainment, however far-fetched it might be.  He felt fairly confident that if an alien race was indeed taking over the population, that they’d have been made aware of it by now in some way, shape, or form – but he also still couldn’t reconcile all the information he’d been presented with as being false.  He could already feel this story, along with Dennir’s teachings from years ago, starting to gnaw at him like a mystery he had to solve.  Everything that Emmett was talking about was well over his own pay grade, which was practically non-existent at this point anyway, but he figured it should be pretty easy to spot an alien in the street if he encountered one, and chuckled at the thought.

As for Emmett Tisdale and Real Life Conspiracies, the show would go on to be cancelled officially in the next six months, without any reason or explanation.  It simply ceased to be, and Tisdale himself, disappeared from the public eye.  Right in the middle of promoting an explosive follow-up episode to the one that Jaxson had just watched, Real Life Conspiracies would inexplicably go off the air, and it would never return.