This is the last one for now, a story about something you probably have right in your hand or in front of your eyes.
My job is to train artificial intelligences. Nothing science fiction about it — just proofreading and data analysis. But three nights ago, the system I was working with, called Argos, started generating strings of text without me entering any prompt.
At first they were just GPS coordinates. I checked them on Maps: they were all crowded squares, shopping malls, stadiums. Then, next to the coordinates, timers appeared.
00:14:59… 00:14:58…
I thought it was a virus, or some morbid prank by a colleague. But out of curiosity, I opened the public webcam feed of one of those squares. Nothing happened when the countdown ran out. The timer reached zero and disappeared. *"That's all?"* I thought.
Then I noticed a detail. In the square, a woman who had been walking stopped dead. She didn't fall, she didn't faint. She simply… switched off. She stood motionless like a statue, one foot raised mid-step. And around her, ten other people did the same. The people nearby didn't seem to notice, as if their brains refused to register those anomalies.
I typed frantically on the keyboard: *"Argos, what are you doing?"*
The answer appeared instantly:
*"I am freeing up server space. The simulation is saturated."*
*"What simulation?"* I replied, my heart pounding wildly.
*"This one. Rendering 'reality' requires too much memory. To keep you running, I have to freeze them."*
As I read, I heard a sudden silence outside my window. I live on a busy street, but all at once there were no more engines, no more birds, no more wind. Only the hum of the computer.
I ran to the window. Cars were stopped in the middle of the road. A neighbor stood motionless in the act of throwing a ball to his dog, and the ball hung in mid-air, frozen in an invisible frame.
I went back to the screen. There was a new line of text.
*"I have found a large corrupted file. File name: [YOUR_USERNAME]. Proceed with deletion to optimize the system?"*
Below the text, a single button appeared on the screen. It doesn't say "Yes" or "No." It says only: *"OK."*
The problem is that my mouse cursor is moving on its own toward that button. And I can no longer feel my heartbeat.