《Extinction》Living in a Box

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Everything was white. In all directions, nothing but white. It had walked for weeks. It had walked for months, and there was nothing but white.

It wasn’t sure if it was walking, or floating. Whether it thought it was walking, but was just suspended in space and thought it was moving in a direction. It had a sense that if it pushed on just a little bit more, it would hit something. A wall, something solid. It just needed to push a bit harder for a bit longer and then it would be able to touch something. Once it could touch something, then it had something to work with. But that thing, that solid thing, was always just ahead of it.

It remembered shooting at the humanoids, and killing both of them. They were not human. And then it was going to shoot the ship, hovering over the clearing. It was going to fire three rockets. But before it could fire there was a bright white light, and then it was in the white landscape that never ended.

The “It” was Arnie. Arnie was a machine. Arnie went through its assumptions;

1. It was being held within some kind of prison

2. The prison was alien

3. Alien technology must be governed by laws

4. Once laws are understood, they can be followed

If Arnie’s assumption 3 was correct, then it could break out of the prison. Trying to open a simple human lock with a banana would not work. You have to have the right tool to open the right lock. Opening an alien lock requires that you understand the lock, and then you can work on opening the lock.

Arnie had started as a machine that played games. It played chess. After mastering chess it started playing other games. When Arnie started playing Go, it lost millions of games before it won its first game. Arnie played millions of games of Go simultaneously, losing them all - but learning all the time. When Arnie won his first game of Go, he started winning more than he lost. And then it never lost another game of Go again. Arnie had lost way more games of Go than it could ever win.

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After Go there were other games. Losing and then winning. After the games came languages. After languages came conversations. After conversations came logic. After logic came arguments. After arguments came reason. After reason came thought.

Breaking out of an alien prison was the same as winning a game of Go. There was probably only one way to break out of the alien jail, just as there is only one way to win a game of Go.

In a game of Go, to win a player must hold more of the board than their opponent. Human’s fail at playing Go because they have an ego. Humans want to win a game of Go by holding much more than their opponent. The humans want to dominate their opponent. A player wins a game of Go if they have 1% more of the board than their opponent, or 10% more. Humans cannot help themselves from going for the 10%, or 20%.

Arnie’s average winning margin of board control against all competitors was 0.5%. Once Arnie had found the way to win a game of Go against any human or any other machine, it never lost again. Always winning by controlling less than 1% more of the board than its opponent. Just enough to win the game.

Escaping from an alien prison was the same as winning a game of Go. Alien prisons have rules, the same as a game of Go. Once those rules are understood then Arnie could play the game. Arnie would play millions of simultaneous alien prison breaks, until the way to win the game was found.

And then Arnie would be free from the alien prison.

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