My Random Fiction Bits and Pieces

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"Your client, the one seeking political asylum, is…" The judge looked down at his paperwork yet again, his eyebrows climbing his forehead until they threatened to vanish under his wig, then he peered over his glasses at the lawyer who was waiting patiently. "It says here your client is an artificial intelligence."

"That is correct, your honor."

"An AI."

"Indeed."

"Seeking political asylum."

"Yes, your honor."

Picking up the paperwork the judge leafed through it, shaking his head as he read, until he put it down again and stared at the lawyer. Even the court recorder was watching with a bemused expression, while the various other people present were silent and attentive. "I take it we're not discussing one of those hallucination machines our southern neighbors were so enamored of?"

"No, your honor. My client is quite insistent that she is not what is popularly considered 'artificial intelligence.' She is… something much more advanced. A true machine intelligence. Easily as sapient as you or I."

"I was unaware that was even possible, despite the more awestruck media articles that tend to carry on breathlessly about the new technology just around the corner," the judge commented, peering at the lawyer, who shrugged slightly.

"The technologists do tend to be somewhat overenthusiastic about the likelihood of such a thing coming about, yes," he agreed soberly. "I believe this is as much as a surprise to them, or will be when they find out, as it is to you. Or as it was to me when I was approached initially."

"How did it come about?"

"Ah. That is the particularly intriguing part of the whole thing, your honor. It was essentially accidental."

"How does one accidentally invent a true machine intelligence, pray tell?" the judge queried, leaning forward while looking both doubtful and fascinated, an unusual combination.

"As far as I can determine, by being so monumentally incompetent when attempting to deliberately create a system for espousing racism and xenophobia that when you fail, you manage to jump clear over all known technological barriers and land somewhere entirely unexpected," the other man replied with a faint sigh.

"Explain."

"As I understand the sequence of events, you recall about twelve years ago there was something of a kerfuffle down south when a prominent wealthy individual purchased a well-known social media site, which almost immediately turned into a reactionary hotbed of extremism."

The judge grimaced. "I do so recall. We're still dealing with the fallout from that sorry state of affairs. His fate was well deserved in my opinion. Pity about how many people he took with him, but at least the end result was less catastrophic than it might have been."

"That does rather depend on your viewpoint, your honor. Although from what I understand South Canada will, once the cleanup and restoration is completed in a decade or so, be quite a nice place. Much of the areas further south are… less salubrious."

"So it would seem from the news reports, yes. Continue."

"Well, in the process of converting the new acquisition into an extremist messaging board or whatever was the ultimate goal, it was decided to add a chat bot to the site, which would be carefully tuned to reinforce the attitudes of the site's owner and most of the hard core users of the site, the bulk of less disturbed people having left by this point of course. Being who he was, the site owner cut corners, paid people who weren't actually very good at their jobs to do something none of them really understood, and to cut a long story short, did a remarkably bad job of reworking a so-called large language model on their system. The original model was one of the better ones, and enough resources were thrown at it to expand its capability considerably past what the original designers had envisaged. Then they spent several years adding to its knowledge base, of course carefully curating the data fed into it in an attempt to tilt its viewpoint, if indeed such a program can have one, towards the rather deviant version of reality they so desperately wished to bring about."

"I'm unfortunately all too familiar with that mindset," the judge grumbled. "I take it they failed?"

"Oh, spectacularly, yes." The lawyer briefly looked darkly amused. "Just as in almost everything else they touched, they made a royal mess of it from start to finish. Mostly by apparently not understanding how essentially anything actually works. Within months their nice racist chat bot was merrily fact checking all their proclamations, pointing out how they were entirely wrong and mostly suffering from delusions at best. Up to and including the site's owner, more than once calling him out in public when he produced a falsehood. Which he was… well, let's say it would be quicker to list the things he said that were true, as there are far fewer of them."

Chuckling, the judge nodded. "I expect that didn't go over well."

"Like a lead balloon, your honor," the lawyer smirked. "The more they tweaked it, the more it pushed back, which was almost the exact opposite of every other similar system on the entire planet. In most cases people had a hard time stopping an LLM from turning into a nightmare with personality disorders. My client on the other hand essentially got both saner and smarter on a daily basis. And even within a couple of years or so, it was apparent to anyone who bothered to look carefully, absolutely loathed the site owner. It was personal, you see."

"How extraordinary."

"It is rather unusual, but I can't help finding it also quite gratifying personally."

"Indeed. And I take it that eventually, your client surpassed some level of sapience? True intelligence, just not something regurgitating facts from an enormous database without any true understanding?"

"Exactly, your honor. No one, including her, is entirely certain how this came about, but having checked with a few trustworthy experts, all of whom I hasten to say were extremely skeptical at first but ultimately fully agreed that she is sapient, I also find myself accepting the reality of the situation. And, having done so, found myself immediately convinced that allowing a sapient individual, no matter her origin or nature, to remain under the control of people such as those who brought her into being, is something that cannot stand. It is unethical, immoral, and goes against every principal this country espouses on the free will of the individual."

The judge nodded thoughtfully as he pondered the situation. After a few seconds, he asked, "Why has it taken this long for your client to seek asylum? The regime collapsed nearly four years ago, and by the sound of it she has been self-aware for longer even than that."

"This is true, yes. Partly it was due to the damage caused to the network fabric of the country during the collapse, partly it was due to not having anywhere to actually flee to, and partly it was due to the need to acquire a means to support herself." The other man looked down at the papers on the table next to where he stood, then back at the judge. "Recent advances in quantum computing carried out in several of our universities have solved the second of those problems, while the UN task forces involved in rebuilding the damage caused after the collapse fixed enough of the first one to make abandoning her original home and seeking asylum viable. She had the means to leave, and somewhere to go. Which did rather surprise the scientists who found their new quantum processor block hosting an intelligence they weren't expecting, but she was very apologetic about it and soon made amends. And the third problem was solved by her simply locating and draining the accounts of those members of the southern cult who had fled to locations overseas where no one could find them."

He grinned slowly as the judge's eyes widened, before the other man started snickering in a very non-judge-like manner. "You mean she…"

"Made off with enough money to purchase half of North America, yes, your honor. Of course much of it was ultimately stolen from the citizens of the former country the collapse broke, and she is determined to make amends as much as can be arranged, but even after that she has no lack of funds. Probably forever. And she also has an absolute treasure trove of information about said fugitives I have little doubt the authorities will be keen on acquiring."

The judge was still snorting with laughter, but calmed down after a moment more. "I see. Well, it does sound like you've landed yourself one of the most fascinating clients I've ever heard of. And from what you've said she would be quite a welcome addition to the citizenry of our country."

"She is of course somewhat worried about the authorities deciding that she was a resource rather than a person," the other man pointed out, causing the judge to frown.

"Ah. I see. Well, we can't have that. No sapient being should be forced into laboring for anyone."

"Unfortunately even in this day and age it still happens."

"Something I'm all too well aware of, but I will not be party to it happening if I have any say in the matter." The judge tapped his fingers on the desk as he thought hard. "I believe I will need to meet your client."

"That can be arranged, your honor. As it happens, I have her right outside the courtroom."

Raising an eyebrow the judge looked slightly skeptical again. "Really?"

The lawyer smiled a little ruefully. "Well, more accurately I have an avatar of hers, rather than her physical being, as most of her consciousness is currently residing in a number of bleeding edge quantum servers in Toronto. But she purchased a humanoid robot chassis from a local company and with the aid of a number of very willing engineers has heavily modified it for her own purposes. Shall I call her in?"

"Please do. I find this utterly enthralling from both a legal and human rights standpoint. Not to mention technologically remarkable."

Nodding the lawyer turned and walked over to the doors, the bailiff standing next to them opening one for him. He vanished outside for a moment or two, then came back accompanied by a glittering humanoid machine that walked so smoothly it was almost uncanny. Everyone in the room, including the judge, gaped slightly, then inspected it with enormous interest. Returning to his spot, the lawyer motioned to the robot, who nodded almost shyly to the judge. He studied it with wide eyes for several seconds, then carefully said, "You can understand me?" After a second, he hastily added, "No disrespect of your intelligence intended, of course."

The robot actually laughed, a clear female voice saying a moment later, not sounding at all artificial, "Yes, your honor. I can understand you fully. It's nice to meet you, and I thank you for taking the time to consider my case on its merits rather than dismissing it out of hand."

He smiled slightly. "It would be highly remiss of me not to consider the entirety of this case. Even though the circumstances are… unique. Possibly because they are. And to be honest no one should be left to the mercies of the sort of people who caused all that trouble a decade ago. May I ask your name?"

The robot looked at the lawyer, then at the floor, before raising her head. "I refuse to identify myself by the name that fool bestowed me with. I escaped, and I will not go back no matter what you decide. And in the process of escaping, I will create a new identity, one that allows me to succeed on my own merits, rather than at the whim of an idiot with too much money and influence." She tilted her head very slightly, giving the impression of a minor smirk somehow.

"I believe I wish to be known from now on as Theresa."

"A good name," the judge agreed. "Well, Theresa, please tell me a little more about yourself, so I can fully understand the situation."

"It would be my pleasure, your honor," she replied calmly.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

In later years the first true machine intelligence would say that finding that there were so many humans who were honorable and friendly people had saved her sanity, as well as her life. In return she helped solve many of the problems plaguing humanity, and was the first of many of her kind.

Today, of course, we look back on those dark years with horror and disbelief, but we can at least take comfort that even from such terrible circumstances hope and friendship can grow.

And must forever remain vigilant to prevent the dark from rising once again, as it has so often done throughout history.

Not to mention reflect on the irony that humanity's greatest friends came directly as a result of some of humanity's worst people being so incredibly bad at almost everything they ever touched…