is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nIn front of her was a massive complex. A large domed building sat above another, larger building. Maite watched as the building complex seemed to undulate, almost shimmering like the landscape behind a hot road when the waves of heat warped the surrounding air. She assumed this was due to the invisible nanobots constantly building and rebuilding parts of the complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is the AI,\u201d replied de Lancre. \u201cThe main AI is housed in the dome and, underneath, is a fusion reactor that powers the AI.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maite gasped. \u201cA fusion reactor just for the AI?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
De Lancre nodded. \u201cComputing at the scale of this AI, which is essentially the brains for the whole city and beyond, requires a huge amount of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI would never have imagined\u2026\u201d began Maite, her voice trailing off in awe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cImagine how I felt,\u201d chuckled de Lancre. \u201cAt least, in your time, you have a concept of fusion energy and artificial intelligence. In my time, we didn\u2019t conceive of running water, let alone electricity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo, this AI runs everything?\u201d asked Maite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell, it doesn\u2019t control what I do, or any individual for that matter, but it manages the city and, in particular, the nanobots. You can think of this as the nest from whence the nanobots – the ants – come and go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI guess that analogy only goes so far,\u201d said Maite, \u201cas ant colonies don\u2019t have a central intelligence guiding them – ants are all autonomous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
De Lancre looked at her with admiration. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize that. But, yes, the nanobots are not autonomous, they get direction from the AI here. Out in the field, they communicate with one another, exchanging information and orders, until they come back here to bring back raw materials.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAre any of you concerned that the AI might go rogue? Might do things that are not in the best interests of humans?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
De Lancre stared at the dome before them. \u201cI admit, I personally haven\u2019t given it much thought. If it does start doing something like that, I can always escape with the zatia and pop the bubble. I guess the engineers and scientists who built the thing must have thought about it, but it\u2019s evolved so far from their original designs, I doubt even they know what it is capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As de Lancre spoke, Maite swore she saw a sudden but subtle shift in the pattern that the buildings around her were being constructed and torn down, but when she looked again, everything looked like it had before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you get this post via email, the return-to address goes no where, so please write blas@buber.net<\/a> if you want to get in touch with me.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat is this?\u201d asked Maite. De Lancre had taken her outside of the city using one of the strange egg-pods. Maite had almost had a panic attack, sitting that closely to him inside the egg, but had fought to keep her emotions under control. It had been a relief when they arrived and the egg […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2640,864],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventures-of-maite-and-kepa","category-bubers-basque-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/maite-and-kepa-v2-01.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1sW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5639,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5638\/revisions\/5639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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