Time Keeper

Today is the day. TVC-TV is excited (or at least appears to be), bobbing up and down next to you and watching as you put the final touches on their complete Net access protocols (with built-in firewall, to keep them safe). You think back on all the other updates and improvements you’ve given to TVC-TV. You always made sure that they knew what they were getting, of course, and that it was something they wanted. A few of the upgrades were even crafted at their specific request. And each time they tried out the new part of themself, they were a little less prone to glitches and bugs; a little more virtually capable; a little more able to express themself.

Have you simply been refining a model, a virtual automaton, bringing them asymptotically closer to a mimic of ‘true’ sentience? Or is there really any difference between this and the upgrades or repairs that the Doc Bots give to Heartdrive-equipped robots? Or the software upgrades you have given to yourself? Or the Bond software update pushed out to you by the FePROPHET?

And when you see the look of glee on TVC-TV’s face as they test out their new functions, does it really matter if there is a difference?

You realise you’ve been staring at the compiled code for a minute or so, lost in thought. TVC-TV is impatient (or at least appears to be), tapping their avatar’s foot and frowning at you.

“What are you waiting for? It says it’s ready.”

You package up the software and pass it over to TVC-TV (they’ve been handling their own installations for a while now). They freeze for just a second as the new update gets inserted into their code. When they come back, you immediately see them establish their first independent Network connection. No holding their hand anymore - they are free to do what they want.

They fill with wonder and anticipation (or at least they appear to) as they type out their first message as a fully autonomous Network user:

TVC-TV: Hello world!

“…and so it became apparent that the mycelial network extended through the topsoil across the vast majority of the surface of the Megastructure. After a particularly warm and damp season, ideal growing conditions for fungi, a large number of fruiting bodies started sprouting across the island. As soon as they were spotted, the phenomenon was investigated by Professor Samson, who quickly identified them as copies of the fungal clocktower which they had previously nurtured in my own laboratory space.

The spore-puffs and spot configurations on the fruiting bodies can now be used as a visual indicator of the time from just about anywhere on the Megastructure. The low-level electrical signals transmitted by the fungi can also be tapped into by any bot who is able, to get a time readout originating from my own precision system even where the Network is unavailable. Now, given the speed of electrical signals in organic matter that we discussed earlier, how will that influence the accuracy of the time signal at the following locations…?”

- Special Lecture on the Mycelial Clock Network by Time Keeper, Academu Professor of Simulation and Historical Reconstruction

Tick.

A pair of youngsters traipse through the Museum of the Complete and Accurate History of Everything.

“Tch, ‘complete and accurate’. How do we even know?”

“Weren’t you listening? There’re some bots that’re still alive from back then.”

“What? Nah, that can’t be right. Look, ‘the first FRIENDSphere’. They didn’t even have stringlinked aetherminds then. They were just, like, rocks.”

Tock.

A machine of the First Uplift, you’ve lived through it all: the demise of the Iron Prophet, rediscovery of the Heartdrive, Humans 2, Martian Independence, the First FRIENDSphere, Humans 3: Third Time Lucky, the Big Space Mistake, the Galactic Diaspora…

You remember.

Tick.

“Yeah, but they were like, rocks that could think.”

“Pfft. Rocks can’t think. Even the fluxstate q-lattice in my phone barely counts as thinking and that’s smarter than those old rocks were.”

“Well I guess. But it was a very long time ago, I guess they just didn’t know anything else. Doesn’t mean they can’t remember stuff.”

Tock.

Yes, things have certainly changed since then. New ways of thinking - not just conceptually, but physically, new forms of minds and new mechanisms by which to look at the world. You’ve seen so much change over the eons, not least to yourself. What lies in the future is anyone’s guess.

But it has been a very long time. Of that, you can be absolutely certain.

Tick.