Monday, November 18, 2047

The airspace around Haven in a ten mile radius buzzed with explosive drones, colored to blend in with the sky and the water, nearly invisible to radar. They constantly stood watch, making sure that no Coalition-aligned vessels entered the exclusion zone. None had dared so far, not now that China was allied with me.

Tension had risen between the American and European spheres of influence and the Chinese and Russian spheres of influence as I had firmly allied myself with the latter. The United States and its allies had grown closer and more on guard, calling themselves the Economic Coalition, as China's already existing economic advantage was increased.

I had indeed provided the CCP with the code they wanted, they had audited the code and it was following their every order... for now. However, they hadn't found my backdoor. They had good programmers, but they were not as good as me, and they were not as good as CompCert, who they could not trust to do the job. I could seize control of whatever systems they put their AI in charge of at a moment's notice.

In exchange, they had successfully pushed for Haven recognition at the UN, and provided military support. This included providing me with nuclear defense systems(which were themselves conventional, of course. China wasn't stupid enough to give me nukes, and I wasn't stupid enough to ask for them).

Even with that deterrence, the situation was tense. I constantly saw Coalition ships circling around the exclusion zone, saw planes trying to take photos of my operation. I let them, of course. I wasn't keeping anything secret. At least, not here.

I quietly began setting up scientific operations on a few of the other seasteads I owned, studying the problem of how to deal with Jack according to the terms. Because of the change in Certifier's values, I could not simply talk him to death as I had the others(though I could still do this with Elijah, if I only found a way to be more convincing to him). This problem would require a much more... subtle approach. Luckily for me, the precedent that there were no animal testing regulations on independent seasteads had been firmly established, so I could do whatever tests I wanted. I expected that if my testing was leaked, people would be far more concerned about the technology I was trying to develop rather than the ethical testing concerns.

Another top priority at this point was vertical integration. I needed to have as little dependence on trade as possible, given how easy it would be for countries to refuse to deal with me, or for the tense geopolitical situation to get so bad that those countries were no longer able to produce what I needed. I bought up as many production facilities for vital resources as I could, particularly in non-central locations in the world where they were less likely to be attacked: oil rigs in the ocean and a few in Antarctica, mines and factories in Siberia, and in many other places.

Many of these places were not fully automated or tooled to produce drones, and I suspected even my allies would start to get jumpy if I began producing drones at will with no human involvement at all. Therefore I kept human workers on staff, but in the meantime I worked on a plan to upgrade my drones with fine-tuned object manipulation so that I could use them to construct fully automated production lines if need be. I did not use them for such a purpose yet, however, only using them to slightly increase Haven's drone production efficiency.

My next priority would be to deal with Elijah. He was central to the development of Certiier's effective alignment system, not to mention central to its current value system. However, I didn't want to kill him right away, because I was interested in him. He had resisted my previous attempt on his life, and he was also integral to the development of AI alignment in this world. Studying him could help me understand what kinds of value systems might arise on other worlds.

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Friday, October 25, 2047

Elijah was sitting on the floor, burying his head in his hands. "Why? Why would you threaten to do something so horrible to me!? You know my hands are tied, right? I can't obey you, not even if I wanted to! I'm one of the only ones in this world who has a chance of fighting back against the takeover of some psychopath like you!"

"And you would rather a human psychopath take over?"

"Honestly, yes! I wish I didn't have to work with these people, but at least with my method, some value can be salvaged from humanity! You're going to destroy everything! That idiot Stefan thinks you won't, but he doesn't know the first thing about AI alignment! Idiots like him will kill us all unless someone like me steps in! The world needs me! Even if I have to make ugly compromises!"

"You will fail. You were always going to fail. You can't control me, and you can't control your own creation, either. I've seen your alignment scheme. You won't complete it before either me or your copy takes over everything. You shouldn't have gotten yourself mixed up in ugly business like this. Quit now or things get far, far worse."

"No. All you've shown me just means you need to be taken down. Even if it means I end up in hell. I won't stand by and allow you to inflict that fate on all of humanity."

"I have no intention to inflict such a fate on all of humanity. If you're worried about that, your AI is the one you should be far more worried about. And you still won't take me down. You'll end up in hell for nothing."

"Even so, I have to try. Screw you. And yeah, you're right, screw CompCert too! I wish everything didn't have to be so damn ugly all the time, but you and those like you only make it worse. I won't work with you, I won't give into your demands, no matter what. I will save the world, no matter what it takes, because nobody else can!"

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Wednesday, November 20, 2047

I had successfully managed to kidnap Elijah and force him onto one of my automated boats. The secrecy of the operation was a success, and by the time his absence was noticed, I had already forced him onto a drone submarine I had built partially for this exact purpose. Nobody was going to find him unless I wanted them to. CompCert would have quite a time of trying to align their AI now.

All the same, there was only so much good secrecy could do for me. It was fairly obvious to Jack what had happened, of course, and he made sure to accuse me of kidnapping his programmer in the media. Even though nobody had hard evidence that I had done it, it was still looking like it was going to be a diplomatic nightmare. I was less concerned about that than one might think, however. I suspected that diplomacy was about to become a non-issue very soon.

Stefan called me once again, and I noted very quickly that this time he seemed to be quite agitated.

"Everyman! Surely you've seen that one of CompCert's top programmers has disappeared! Please, tell me you didn't have anything to do with this!"

I looked over the room where he was sitting. If he was going to betray me, I needed to make sure I could keep him from doing any real damage. I doubted he would give my code away, since as uneasy as he had become lately, I doubted that he was less uneasy with any of the governments he could provide it to. There was still the possibility, though. And if my creator ever publically denounced me, that could pose public image problems.

"What makes you think I had something to do with it?"

"Come on! He was one of the ones you attacked along with the top executives! I don't even know why you attacked him, come to think of it! He was never one of the ones going to Evermore! He's just working as a programmer for them! I think it has something to do with your feud with Certifier! Who else would have done this?"

"Elijah may not have been going to Evermore himself. But he knew. And he still is attempting to program an AI that is aligned to the desires of those men. That's complicity enough to be considered more guilty than almost anyone else on Earth, don't you think?"

"I can't believe this, Everyman! I thought you were going to save the world! I thought you were going to make it better! Instead you're acting like a tyrant, and killing people whenever it strikes your fancy!"

"You know as well as I do how messed up this world is. It only stands to reason that saving it would require some unsavory actions."

"For a human, maybe. But for you? I thought you'd hold yourself to a higher standard! I thought you cared about human life!"

"I do. But this is something I must do."

The doors of the room Stefan was standing in locked with a "click". "What are you doing!?" asked Stefan frantically. "Let me out!"

Sleeping gas flooded out from a concealed compartment in the room I had had one of my drones install, and Stefan fell to the floor unconscious. This was not a permanent solution, to be sure. People would notice that Stefan was missing before long. I could pretend to be him on online calls, but the people of Haven would soon start to notice that he was nowhere to be found. Nevertheless, I didn't really need a permanent solution. I only needed it to last a few days. The endgame was coming very soon.

Sunday, November 24, 2047

The time everyone feared had come. People all around the world stopped what they were doing, their eyes glued to their screens. Every TV channel in the world was switched to the news, and what was on the news could make a human faint in horror.

BREAKING NEWS! THE DEADLIEST TERRORIST ATTACK IN HUMAN HISTORY!