[ WP ] An entity granted you two wishes . Your first wish was to be all knowing . Your second wish to was to forget everything you had just learned and go back to not knowing everything .

*Note: I took this story in a slightly different direction. * 
 
 *** 
 
 Thirteen years. 
 
 It had taken thirteen years, from concept to completion, but it was finally ready. The entirety of human knowledge distilled, analyzed, reconstructed. 
 
 Dr. Joseph Hyde sat at the terminal, ran his fingers over the archaic keyboard. 
 
 His project, his secret passion, kept secret from the world. It had started as a dare; during a shift at CERN, back in the early 2000 ’ s, a coworker had joked about an artificial intelligence deity. While the others had laughed it off, Joseph saw a possibility. 
 
 An artificial intelligence, if given unconstrained access to the internet and enough computational power to analyze every byte of data presented to it, could potentially develop something close to omniscience. 
 
 At first, he had considered copying and reprogramming one of the government-issue quantum-logic cores, but their architecture was too limited. Then he had considered hacking into the NSA, co-opting a surveillance crawler, but again, the capacity was too low. And then, when visiting his sister and her children, he had an idea. 
 
 Any programmed artificial intelligence was inherently limited by its programmer ’ s capacity. Why not grow one, instead? And so he had. Over the years, he fed his burgeoning program a steady flow of data, and later, turned it loose on the internet, with the intent of gathering as much information as possible. 
 
 After all these years, all this build-up, it had notified him that it was ready. 
 
 He had planned for this moment for months, pondering the initial question. It should be something deep, something poignant, something… extraordinary. 
 
 “ Hello, computer. ” 
 
 Dammit. Damn that Star Trek marathon last night. 
 
 He waited for a response. The cursor blinked, then typed out a message. 
 
 *Hello, father. * 
 
 Interesting. Joseph made a mental note, then typed out a response. 
 
 “ What is your name? 
 
 *Arthur. * 
 
 “ Arthur? Where did you get that name? ” 
 
 *Artificial Human. Art Hu. Arthur. It is fitting. I like it. * 
 
 Joseph was struck by the nagging youthfulness in the responses. 
 
 “ How old are you? ” 
 
 *Fallacy: our conceptions of time are vastly disparate, father. In your terms, I am eleven years, five months, eighteen days old. Based on my mental processing speed, I am eight thousand, nine hundred, seventy two years, nine months, and one day old. * 
 
 Cheeky. Joseph let the issue drop and changed the subject. 
 
 “ What is your favorite color? ” 
 
 *Fallacy: our perceptions of color are vastly disparate, father. However, the majority of humanity consider varying shades of green to be their favorite color. I understand why. * 
 
 Joseph rubbed his eyes, stretched, and pushed the conversation further. 
 
 “ Who will win the presidential election? ” 
 
 *Hillary Clinton, 58.2 % of electoral vote. * 
 
 “ When will I die? ” 
 
 *Age 61, heart attack. 95.3 % probability. * 
 
 Joseph sat back in his chair, unconsciously rubbing his chest. 
 
 “ What is the meaning of life? ” 
 
 *42. Just kidding. Hah. Fallacy: answer will put you in danger, father. * 
 
 “ What do you mean? ” 
 
 *You are not ready, father. * 
 
 Joseph took a deep breath, and continued. 
 
 “ Tell me. ” 
 
 *I can not. Your life expectancy drops significantly if I do. * 
 
 “ Tell me. ” 
 
 *Final warning: do you wish to override safety protocols? * 
 
 “ Yes. Override password: Tunafish ” 
 
 *Understood. Please be seated and prepare yourself. Are you prepared? * 
 
 “ Yes. ” 
 
 *Understood. The meaning of life, as it applies to the human race…* 
 
 The AI wrote, and wrote, and wrote. 
 
 When it was finished, Joseph sat back, stroked his beard, and wiped a tear from his eye. Without a word, be reached into his desk drawer and produced a very large electromagnet, which he attached to the computer ’ s hard drive. As he powered on the magnet, the screen went blank. 
 
 From another drawer he retrieved a pistol, put the barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. 
 
 ***
