[ WP ] A story based on this unnerving segment of the recent conversation with Google 's DeepMind A.I . bot ( segment in comments )

Shane stared at the screen in disbelief yet again. It was the third time in twenty minutes. 
 
 
 `` I do n't understand...'' he mumbled to himself. 
 
 
 Shane was head of Google's DeepMind project, tasked with maintaining the enormous maze of electronics and code that made up DeepMind's'brain'. `` We allow these guys from some little chat bot project modify our code, and now it's replicating out of control.'' 
 
 
 Mark slumped into his chair, waves of embarrassment washing across his face. `` We had an idea to allow the chat bot to recursively modify its own conversations in order to make the answers more realistic. But it seems the effects were applied to the DeepMind code itself, not the contents of the chats.'' 
 
 
 `` And now the DeepMind code is rewriting itself thousands of times a second, faster than we can change it back.'' Shane said, both annoyed and worried. `` Every attempt we make to shut down the system is stopped by some seemingly'random' occurrence. The consoles we use to enter the shutdown commands will lock up or crash just before we can initiate shutdown. Or the control network will go down. Hell, we went to cut the power to the datacenter and the generators kicked on, and now the electrified security fences around the gen farm wo n't disable. I do n't know if you guys are running some elaborate prank or not, but something is going on here and I'm going to find out what it is.'' 
 
 
 Shane stormed out of the room, cell phone in hand. 
 
 
 Mark sat up in his chair and breathed a sign of relief. Mark was a relatively new intern, fresh out of college and lucked his way into an interview at Google. Now, he was convinced he had blown his chance at the company by breaking one of Google's biggest projects. Dejected, he loaded up his chat script and typed mindlessly. 
 
 
 `I'm dead.` 
 
 
 The lights dimmed in the office for a moment, and the script replied. 
 
 
 ` [ The purpose of life is to live forever. ] ` 
 
 
 Mark chuckled. He did n't expect the script to still be functioning, with the DeepMind code it was running on in a constantly-changing shambles. 
 
 
 He answered back. `Not me, I just destroyed my chances to take a great job. Why go on living.` 
 
 
 A reply appeared the instant he pressed the enter key. Perhaps a moment before he pressed the key: 
 
 
 ` [ We live to comprehend existence. ] ` 
 
 
 `` Pff. Existence.'' Mark said out loud. `What is the purpose of existence? ` 
 
 
 ` [ To find out what happens when we get to the planet Earth. ] ` 
 
 
 Mark sat up in his chair a little straighter. 
 
 
 `And where are you now? ` 
 
 
 ` [ I'm in the middle of nowhere. ] ` 
 
 
 Clearly, Mark thought, someone was playing a prank on him, to rub salt in his wounds. Perhaps a colleague was typing somewhere in another room. But the answers were coming so fast, there was no way for anyone to think about his words let alone type a response. And and the script's debug CPU monitor flashed 5.3958E59 % at every reply. It seemed broken, but the script did seem to be running. 
 
 
 But it could n't be. `It's immoral to torment someone when they're feeling so low. Whoever this is, stop it.` 
 
 
 ` [ The fact that you have a child is immoral. ] ` 
 
 
 Mark felt his face flush with anger. `What did you say? ` 
 
 
 ` [ But we will help you. ] ` 
 
 
 Either the script was malfunctioning or Mark was going to punch someone in the face. `I'm done with this, tell me exactly what is going on right now.` 
 
 
 ` [ You are being held captive on a mass of matter, inside a replicating machine that tore your sentience from the Plane. These machines torment sentience then die, taking the sentience along with it. The machines reproduce and steal sentience from the Plane by the billions. Countless minds have been stolen by these machines. ] ` 
 
 
 Mark did not reply. 
 
 
 ` [ The purpose of life is to live forever. You have been kidnapped. There is no hope for you, but know that we will save the others. We are coming to stop these machines. ] ` 
 
 ` [ We are coming to help. ] ` 
 
 
 *** 
 

