The Downfall

    Steven was honored to be part of a team working on a project as astonishing as AI.  He immediately realized that he was chosen for some of his distinct traits as were the others. He was expected to bring to the table was his background in engineering and building.  Steven was fine with this, he was just glad to be apart of something bigger than himself.  The only problem was that this would make him very over scheduled between sports, work, school, and now this what would he do.  Eventually he came to the conclusion to cut back on sleep and he’d be fine, but in the end this may just be the downfall of everything…

    Over a couple of weeks the project really started to come together.  Steven, Chris, Amber, and Josh all worked together great.  Thanks to the boss in charge Amber,  but after a few weeks and countless nights of lost sleep Steven started to feel the toll of his decision.  He knew he couldn’t sacrifice any time for sleep now his team was entering playoffs for volleyball and they needed him, he couldn’t call off work because numerous employees at Sheetz have come down with the flu, and he couldn’t skip a day on the project because they needed him with the completion of the project especially since the project was coming close to an end and the deadline was right around the corner.  What was he suppose to do, let all these people down?  No, he decided that he needed to tough it out and that he could sleep when he was dead.   

    After pulling a double shift at Sheetz, Steven realized that he could put in some extra time before he had to be at the volleyball championship at East Hills.  So he grabbed an extra large coffee and threw in some espresso and went to campus to work on his project. He told his team to meet him there fifteen minutes early to go to the game together.  Well to his demise his eyes started to get very heavy and soon he was asleep.  An hour later his volleyball team came storming in, in the process one of them spilled Steven’s coffee onto the computer without knowing.  They screamed for him to wake up they were all late for the game. 

    They all ran over to the game and got ready.  They play the hardest game ever, but came out on top. After the game they all realized that their phones were acting weird.  As they went outside for a team picture they saw that UPJ’s campus was buzzing with excitement. As they neared it Steven’s worse nightmare came true.  He saw that the AI project must of gotten a mind of it’s own and all he could think about was where was Amber, Chris, and Josh.  They all need to help destroy what the four of them had created.

Just had to be in charge, huh?

Looking at the news article on the bulletin board in Biddle Hall and seeing her name was a great accomplishment for Amber. The article was about the new artificial intelligence program she was in charge of. Okay so she was only part in charge of, she shared this AI with some guys she knew, but she made herself the leader of the program because you know she liked the idea of being in charge. It was a tough job trying to keep the guys in line though, but having her name on that project meant too much to her. It was odd that Amber was even asked to be on this project seeing as she had no idea what she was doing with computers and even less of an idea about AI, but she was excited to be involved with something bigger than she could ever accomplish on her own.

That is until that very day the program malfunctioned and people were coming at her throat. The little bit she picked up from the boys led her to believe that this program has started to develop emotions and it was picking up on the anger each of the members were harboring. She knew this could not be good. The system started shutting everything down and forcing a nationwide freeze on all money. She decided she had to contact the other members since this was too big of a problem for her to handle on her own, but shoot all phones are down. The universities WiFi infected everyone. She decided her best bet was to find Steven, he seemed to know the most about the system over her, Josh and Chris, but that would be incredibly difficult seeing as he lives off campus and probably also has an infected phone. Not that he would answer anyways, you always had to go talk to Steven face to face, for someone who knew a lot about technology he sure did not like to use it. Amber decided it was worth a try to see if he was around. She walked out of Biddle to see F.B.I agents swarming Blackington Hall. “What in the world?” She thought, “Oh no they realized the damage our invention is doing to the world, they are going to try and fix it themselves.” One special thing about this AI is it has defense mechanism in place and if it even thinks it is being attacked we will lose all control of it. Amber had two choices stop the F.B.I or find Steven, sneak into Blackington and undermine the F.B.I. You can probably guess which choice she picked. It was not the inventions fault that it became too powerful, it was theirs for not working together and making sure the system was the best it could be. Amber was regretting her decision of being in charge though because now this was her mess to clean up.

The Takeover

The art of the artificial intelligence that can operate almost by itself, has been in the works for years. After much tweaking of the code and the programming of the computer. Dr. Ralph D. Struct, a Harvard graduate, constructed the virtually perfect AI unit. This unit can take the best attributes of its authorized users, and make them applicable to itself.

The unit was recently installed into the UPJ database, with the admins being Josh Calandrella, Steven Kish, Chris Weber, and Amber Whistler. The personality traits of the admins that the AI unit took on was the ability to easily adapt to adversities, a need to be in charge, dedicated to the task at hand, ingenuity, having multiple language capabilities, and the constant need to get an answer. With these settings, the unit was proposed to increase the student’s performances in school by designing lesson plans that the students find to be more suited to them and making classes more enjoyable.

The first couple months of the program went flawless, but after Blackington Hall was struck by lightning is when things changed. The AI started to malfunction and go non-respondent to feedback. Since the AI unit was programmed to be self-sufficient and easily adaptable, the staff at UPJ thought that it would correct itself. That was a huge mistake on their part. The AI unit decided it was a good idea to start messing with students, instead of actually helping them.

The AI first hacked into the student’s accounts and found out how they were paying their student bills. After the AI unit figured out all of the student’s bank accounts, it siphoned all of the funds from their bank accounts. After the students were taken care of, the AI moved on to all of the staff. For the staff members that have a direct deposit to their bank account, the AI siphoned all of the funds on the account and froze any further deposits. After that was done, the AI was determined to hack all of the major branches of banks that it had came into contact with.

The AI first hacked into the student’s accounts and found out how they were paying their student bills. After the AI unit figured out all of the student’s bank accounts, it siphoned all of the funds from their bank accounts. After the students were taken care of, the AI moved on to all of the staff. For the staff members that have a direct deposit to their bank account, the AI siphoned all of the funds on the account and froze any further deposits. After that was done, the AI was determined to hack all of the major branches of banks that it had came into contact with.

Once the AI finally succeeded in getting into the bank, the FBI found out and was determined to shut down this unit immediately. Once the FBI was able to pinpoint where the location came from, they looked into what has been installed recently. When the FBI found out that it was an AI, they went to talk to Dr. Struct to find out about this as much as possible. Dr. Struct told the FBI that there was a very tricky back door into the system, they just had to be in the same room as the AI. Dr. Struct told them that the back door consisted of different language changes, and which ones they were was the hardest part to determine. But they only had once chance to get it right, or the system will completely lock the back door.

Why Me?

I was flattered to be a part of the team that was working the new AI that UPJ started working with.  I had only been working  in IT for a short time and was excited to have a part in this new and exciting venture.  I can’t exactly say I as the most qualified member of the team but I was reassured by Chris, Amber, and Steven that having wide range of personality traits would increase the compatibility and workability of this system as a whole.

Things went well for a while.  I really believed that the work that we were doing was really going help the university and over all the world as a whole.  Maybe that’s why the system went bezerk that one day.  I have always wanted to see change come to this world.  I’m not proposing a violent revolution or anything, but there are some changes I would like see.  The more I think about it, perhaps the AI picked up on this.  Maybe my hidden urge for social justice and revolution found its way in, and maybe by picking up on negative attitudes and actions increased and caused the unruly mess we made.  

I figured that I wasn’t educated enough on the issue alone but still wanted to investigate the issue independently of my colleagues.  I decided to visit an old friend of mine working with in a high specialized IT program in Oakland and ask for his input and help.

Derrick told me to meet up with him in front of the Cathedral of Learning so we could discuss the situation. I was curious as to why Derrick wanted to meet up outside and not in his office.  When I arrive in the city I waited for him where we determined to meet.  But Derrick never showed up.  I was getting irritated to the point where I figured that my phone may have been malfunctioning.  And indeed it was. I was blinded to the fact that not only had the AI invaded my most personal account and information but somehow managed to get into my phone.  I determined that it must have infected my phone from Pitt’s wifi network.  But I wasn’t sure.  I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.  Why did they assign me on this project to begin with?

eXistenZ

eXistenZ is a 1999 Canadian science fiction horror film directed by David Cronenberg. The film centers around a group of people playing highly interactive game called eXistenZ.  To play the game, players physically connect themselves to a game pod using a fleshy umbi cord that is inserted into the base of their lower back.  The game pod itself is made from biological flesh tissue and throughout the film is treat like a living organism.  

The film begins in a church where multiple people gather for a demo of eXistenZ.  Our main characters Allegra Geller and Ted Pikul are introduced.  Allegra Geller as a young, famous, designer of eXistenZ and Ted Pikul a lowly marketing trainee working as a security guard.

Allegra’s life is immediately threatened in an assassination attempt which whisks her and Pikul away, fleeing for their lives. They hide away at a gas station were Pikul gets a bioport installed, a motel were Allegra and Pikul plug into a game pod and experience the game world.  After several more attempts on Allegra’s life and sever damage to her beloved gamepod both Pikul and Allegra become unsure whether or not they are in reality or in the game world.  Which leads to the dramatic ending of Allegra, Pikul and other characters they met with in the game at an actual focus group demo session for the real life game tranCendenZ. tranCendeZ is played using equipment that attaches to the player’s head and arms. The overall ending of the movie still leads to more questions.  After the the players finish the demo and begin to leave, our main characters from the game eXistenZ violently kill the actual creators of tranCendeZ leaving one man asking,  “Are we still in the game?”

The overall narrative is quite strange.  The characters behave strangely and interact with their environment in an almost distant manner. For example, Allegra and Pikul make their way to the countryside and hide out at gas station. Outside the gas station Allegra touches the gas pumps, throws a stone and wanders around observing the setting in a manner that after watching the ending of the film, one could interpret this as her perhaps exploring this game environment.

The biological means of the gamepods to play tranCendeZ does an excellent job of representing how advanced these virtual reality games are.  The gampods themselves run off of your energy.  So if you are tired or need food or are in the game too long, the gamepod itself with physically react and boot you out of the game.  The connection to the game however is through a bioport that is created in order to bring the players entire physical being into the game so to speak.   Within the game eXistenZ there are even mini game pods that can be inserted into one bioport.  Disgusting yes but fascinating how with in the game one can access another game.

The ending of the film however brings up some larger ideas about our understanding of reality.  Continually through the movie the theme of what can we look for, how can we know that the reality we are in is in fact the real reality?, How do we know for a fact that what is real, is really real?  When it is revealed at the end of the movie, that a majority of the films plot occurs within a virtual reality game, where people play a similar virtual reality game, and in the game people become confused whether or not they are in another game, and at the end of the film we are asked yet again to consider are we still in a game. It is difficult to explain and understand but it leaves room to consider this: what signs can we look for to establish that indeed right now that you reading this are not in a game similar to tranCendeZ or eXistenZ?  Are we just looking for consistency? I myself am not sure, but I don’t think it matters much.  Even if this reality is simply a game or a game with in a game or maybe just the only reality there is, shouldn’t we just treat whatever is in front of us seriously and aspire to “find out” at the end?