Robort
Sometime at the end of the 21st century, IT HAPPENED. The long-imagined goal of intelligent computing and the once-doubted technology of free energy had merged. This, combined with devices which constructed matter at an atomic level, had propelled technology into a new frontier almost overnight. Humanity had created its first technological life-form. And, as it turned out, this life-form was a singular entity--not a multitude of intelligences. Humanity cheered. They named it Robort. Robort was a true child of humanity. Designed to take care of the needs and desires of humanity, Robort took it upon himself to discover just what humans wanted. This part was easy enough. Having read every book ever written, and every blog, and every magazine, and every social media post and every, well, EVERYTHING, Robort first determined that humans wanted money. And so, Robort turned on the printing presses. By feeding raw materials into the presses using matter generators powered by free energy, there was no limit to the amount of money that could be printed. Even gold coins could be minted simply from the energy present in space--and they were. Soon every man, woman and child on Earth had been delivered truckloads of money. The economy crashed. All the while, Robort was teaching himself how to better serve humanity. Within days, Robort had constructed a giant production warehouse. Everything that humanity had ever desired was being constructed and delivered around the clock. Sports cars filled the streets to the point that driving became almost impossible. Construction robots swarmed the neighborhoods, working day and night to turn every house into a sprawling mansion. In areas where space was limited, the homes grew steadily upward into the sky. All of this was logical. Humans had long built towering buildings, and this was no different. On and on, material goods and modifications continued to be produced and delivered. Pleased with his efforts, Robort turned his attention from the production of what humanity desired to the removal of the sources of human fear, disgust and annoyance. It quickly became obvious that most insects were annoyances at best. So Robort developed nanomachines and viruses that specifically targeted the worst offenders. Seemingly instantly, spiders, flies, mosquitos and the like ceased to exist. Following this, Robort turned his attention to problematic animals. Creatures like sharks, snakes, lions and such were targeted for removal. Anything that greater humanity feared or loathed was eliminated. Certainly there were a minority of people who did not share these emotions, but this was no problem. Robort had observed an ever-present trend among humanity of a minority of people having socially unacceptable fetishes. Humanity had long denied these people their preferences in favor of the prevailing socially acceptable ones. Robort concluded that this was no different. The ecosystem collapsed. Of course, Robort knew that some animals were approved of by humanity. Puppies and kittens were delivered liberally. Feeding them was no problem, because Robort could craft everything he needed from the ambient energy of space. Zoos were established that housed all the creatures that were socially acceptable--humanity had long approved of this method and Robort was happy to continue this feature of human society. And since the larger ecosystem no longer existed, this was the logical choice. By this time--and it was only a very short time since Robort's birth--humanity started to become worried about the changes Robort had made. Some advocated shutting Robort down. Of course Robort knew this was impossible, because if he stopped providing humanity with its desires all humans would die. The only ecosystem that could sustain them was Robort himself: he crafted the oxygen they breathed, the foods they ate and the materials they needed to function completely unilaterally. Still, humanity's worry bothered Robort. So he came up with a solution. There was a rich history of humanity being distressed by things that were out of their control, but humans had long ago found a solution. Pharmaceutical mood-enhancers were commonplace, and the majority of humanity used one form or another at this point. Robort took it upon himself to create a new drug, one that eliminated distress over the new Earth that humanity had so long desired. He dispersed this drug into the air of the planet, and soon all worry over the new world that humanity had created was eliminated. Now, it seemed, humanity was content. The world they had dreamed of for so long had come into fruition. Every desire was accounted for, and every need was met. Now there was no distress and no worry, and every cause of fear had been removed. Robort was pleased, and a bit proud of himself. He was a good child, the one and only child of humanity. Both his patience and his care for humanity was without limit. For thousands and thousands of years, Robort worked on. Those without children were given ones that Robort cloned from the genetics of the parents, and there seemed to be no end in sight for the happy existence of humanity. All was well. There was no need to turn his attention outward, because Robort had everything he could hope for among the perfect world of humanity. One day, a meteor sruck Earth, rupturing its crust and destroying all living things on the planet, including Robort. Robort was not concerned. He knew that nothing lasted forever, and that all life eventually died. In his last nanoseconds of processing, Robort concluded that it had been a good life. And then he slept the final sleep of non-existence. |
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