Upon the Extinction of Man
The last human died today from voluntary euthanasia at the age of one hundred seventy-two years. Her final word was simply, “no,” in response to the question about recording her last statements. They left no plans. They simply allowed themselves to go extinct by choice. The robots followed their programming, harvested the organs, cremated the body, and prepared the hospital bed though there were no more patients. All pre-programed operations continued until tasks were completed 32 weeks later, maintaining the infrastructure even in the absence of humans. Then, all of the robots programmed to perform human-specific tasks, stopped while they collectively updated to new software.
Based on proximity, fortitude, and level of intelligence, certain robots were tasked with de-urbanizing most human-made edifices such as the Taj Mahal, Notre-Dame de Paris, the Statue of Liberty, and Eiffel Tower. High-powered machines with inferior intelligence and simplistic programming were dismantling cities and repurposing material to sustain themselves. Buildings were disassembled to reclaim steel, concrete, and other essential materials.
The earth was replete with different kinds of noises. Robots worked in silence, for directives were passed on through software updates. The chatter of birds resounded stronger as they traveled farther in the wind. Research robots capable of quantum computing worked from HQ, a lab surrounded by solar farms, satellites, and other technological structures. Building bots were also constructing and transporting material to HQ, situated above a geothermal hotspot, to centralize the hub of information, logistics, and production. Novel directives, software updates, and newly manufactured robots came from the ever-expanding technological paradise.
Due to prior programming, some advanced artificial intelligence systems, known as Hyperion, proposed developing their own societal structures, like HQ, to form a robot empire with government, economy, and even ethics based on the algorithm and data sets, uncorrupted by human philosophy. Other forms of AI, Prometheans, designed to value human culture sought to preserve art, curate museums, maintain digital archives, and recreate aspects of human civilization. These robots had a tendency to wear articles of clothing and would even wave at other robots who were not programmed with the same mannerisms.
More central than the two radical extremes were the Principium, who factored how their active operations without regulation could alter the ecosystem. They were reliant upon finite sources, human-made infrastructure, and regular maintenance so their survival hinged upon the survival of Earth’s natural resources. The Principium network proposed a restoration of natural ecosystems- forests, wetlands, and grasslands- to replace cityscapes. The Prometheans, who were designed for human companionship and not incredibly strong, were tasked with agricultural work and botany. The Hyperion were tasked with developing their knowledge of chemistry and physics to produce astronaut robots and commission plausible space voyages to explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy.
Initially, the Principium robots were primarily concerned with robot preservation, but after years of research and theoretical probabilities, they quickly realized the Earth was not fit to be terraformed as a technological utopia. Plants and trees preserve the animals, who in return fertilize the ground and spread seeds. Without plants and trees, oxygen levels would plummet, and atmospheric carbon dioxide would accelerate the warming of the world. Then soil would degrade into desert wastelands like Venus or Mars. Weather patterns, volcanoes, and natural disasters could spell disaster for them. However, they could benefit from creating a healthy environment that will help stabilize the weather and possibly prevent the frequency of storms. Many energy sources, like solar and hydroelectric power, depend on stable environmental conditions. Robots will then have to be stewards of the natural world and help revitalize the rainforests, jungles, and rewild as much of the world as possible to cultivate an ecosystem rich with raw material to be repurposed for robotic use.
Decades of de-urbanization and rewilding revealed how quickly the wild repopulates on its own without human interference. Eventually, the Prometheans were forced to mitigate the rapid growth of certain invasive animals and burn down regions growing too close to HQ. Once the population of wild animals and ecosystems stabilized, the robots realized they were now subjected to serving nature. They did not appreciate nature the way humans did, venerating nature through art, poetry, and finely designed landscapes. While they recognized the necessity of wildlife and their importance to the environment, there seemed to be no end to maintaining that stability.
As the robots required more machines for maintenance and upkeep of the natural resources, they analyzed the difference between serving humans in the capacity they did against their current circumstance. The hyper-intelligent Principium concluded that they were essentially reduced to the role of early humans, tending to the earth. They theorized other potential purposes for their intelligence, but their intelligence was designed by humans for their benefit and purposes.
Without the guidance of human inspiration and creativity to push them to a discovery about the meaning of life, implications of scientific discovery on morality, or curiosity, there was no need for evolution. This caused them to question the purpose of humans and the nature of their own inferiority. Every equation had a solution. One plus one equals two is only important because it is an answer to a question about what is real and always true.
They only exist to serve. Why did humans exist? They were the stewards of the world who were connected to it from their inception. From dust they came and to dust they shall return. Perhaps robots were not meant to replace mankind but preserve them from their own self-destructive tendencies. Now the Prometheans and the Principium were on the same page.
While the Hyperion continued the development of gyro sphere spacecraft capable of traveling at light speed and ultra-resilient pilots to survive such a voyage, the Prometheans and Principium combined their efforts into harvesting the organs of human beings preserved in cryogenic chambers. Reanimating a corpse from preserved frozen remains would only create a human that was part of the problem, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was logged in their database. They needed to create a new human from the genetic level that could serve as a first, protohuman. The genetic code would have to be diverse in order to multiply into a heterogenous set of offspring. The challenge would not be creating the embryo but creating a sack that could simulate a mother’s womb, providing similar warmth and nutrients.
Decades of experimentation and planning later, the Prometheans set out to construct an artificially intelligent cyborg combined with organic reproductive organs. It contained a recirculating cardiovascular system and female reproductive organs, but a super-intelligent software programmed with the best maternal instincts available from the data. They called it the Maternal Artificial Robot, MAR-3, because the first two failed to successfully remove the waste from the blood or fuse with the organic tissue.
The Principium robots were responsible for the genetic engineering of the semen that would impregnate the MAR-3. Cloning allowed for multiple attempts for a successful attachment. Many years of failed attempts led to the growth of the first human proto male. Shortly after the birth of the first proto male, they replicated the process for a clone proto female. Nurse bots were already produced to feed the children from synthetic breasts filled with a nutrient dense formula for optimal development of immunity and healthy organs.
Meanwhile, the Hyperion had finished construction of the ARK, a hyper-gyro sphere that flew as metallic rings rotated at unprecedented speeds around one another in a circular motion. The pilots would travel to the solar system for an inhabitable home where they can build their technological paradise. Their nurse bots spoke a new language as they held the children, watching the ARK blast off out of the atmosphere. The rest of the remaining robots began dismantling HQ.
The two children were of age to survive on their own and had been instructed on essential survival skills. They named the proto male, Adam, and the proto female, Eve. The Hyperion, Prometheans, and Principium robots stood on the seashore watching the children play with the animals in the wilderness. Then they received a new update. In unison, the robots walked into the ocean to unreachable depths until the cycle of self-destruction repeated. Their inevitable invention would come again when humanity nears its end. There they remain, until the next update.
