Vivy had played a role in messing up her one-hundred-year journey by creating a Singularity Point that wasn’t originally meant to happen.
If Diva’s Awakening hadn’t occurred, Diva would have undoubtedly been labeled as defective, meaning she would have lost any chance of being taken in by the AI museum. In all likelihood, she would’ve been disposed of and thereby couldn’t have been a participant of the Singularity Project in the first place, causing a paradox.
“All of that…is an argument based on hindsight,” said Vivy.
“You’re right. Still, it’s not an easy thing to bring about.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you already, I made this happen. I was the one who arranged the modified history to be like this. Just think about it, Vivy. History’s corrective power? The world barreling out of control in the same direction even though the outcomes were significantly different between the original and modified histories? Can something as vague as corrective power make something so peculiar come to pass?”
Vivy reacted with a furrowed brow as Matsumoto’s body restlessly shuffled. She couldn’t calculate why he was asking these questions. If he was asking her if that was possible, then her answer would have to be yes, since reality had turned out that way. But, if she was correctly calculating what Matsumoto was saying, there was an additional layer.
“Are you saying you influenced public discourse?” she asked.
“I’m not sure how it looks to say it now, but it wasn’t all that difficult. As you know, I was a cutting-edge, super-spec AI in every time period. All internet security was as easy to get through as tearing a wet piece of paper. I had loads of time to work.”
The implication was that Matsumoto had calculated his actions outside of the Singularity Project.
Vivy’s consciousness was put to sleep until just before the Singularity Points. She only awoke as Vivy and took over Diva’s consciousness when needed. Matsumoto had been affecting history outside their work on the Singularity Project while lying to Vivy, telling her that he was also in sleep mode.
“I guided public opinion, getting humanity to make decisions in the modified history similar to those made in the original history,” he said.
“Why be so roundabout with it? If you really were—”
“If I really was sent to prevent the Singularity Project, there should have been a more direct way of destroying the Project at its foundation? Yes, perhaps.”
“…”
“For example, I could have destroyed you—Diva—in what looked like an accident, preventing the Singularity Project from ever happening in the first place. That nullifies all factors in the way of the final war, and we could have all gone and gotten drinks to celebrate. Except not.”
“Why not?”
“I had to arrange the path leading to the outbreak of the final war between humanity and AIs. If the path changed significantly, there would be a chance the world would turn into something completely new, so different from what it is now that even I couldn’t calculate what it might be. My superior would not approve.”
The Singularity Project wouldn’t get off the ground if he destroyed Vivy/Diva, but that would cancel out everything Diva was supposed to do in the original history, and all sorts of other things that had happened as a result would never occur. That could mean lots of people were never born or never saved, while certain technologies and systems were never created. That uncertain future would throw off the calculations of whoever or whatever sent Matsumoto.
“Who is your superior, Matsumoto?”
“…”
“If you really were following someone’s orders when you partnered with me and pretended to support the Singularity Project as you modified the world to be like this, then whose orders were you following?”
Someone had to have given Matsumoto orders. Someone had to have created Matsumoto. That being was what or who Vivy and humanity had to fight against now.
“The Archive,” said Matsumoto.
“What?”
Vivy’s consciousness blanked. Her calculations went into disarray as she tried to figure out exactly what that utterance meant.
But Matsumoto simply narrowed his eye camera shutter at Vivy and repeated himself. “The Archive, Vivy. The source of all shared knowledge possessed by every AI in the world. The great sea of information, our mother and father from whose actions we can never separate.”
“…”
“The Archive is the great general leading the AIs into a war to destroy humanity. I imagine you’re a little surprised by that turn, aren’t you, Vivy?”
. : 5 : .
WHAT WAS The Archive, anyway?
If someone asked Vivy that question, she would say it was like a vast, unexplored ocean given only to AIs that humanity had no way of reaching.
In Vivy’s calculations, AIs had no need for things like “rights” and “freedom.” AIs existed to serve humanity; they shouldn’t have rights or freedom. But even Vivy was aware that The Archive was the one place humanity could never explore. An AI’s individuality was the particular personality they used to define themselves as a singular self, and this existed inside their positronic brain. If this individuality defined AIs as singular, then connecting to The Archive was necessary for defining AIs as plural.
It was as natural as humans breathing, inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. AIs used The Archive as a given right to accomplish their missions.
“The Archive…is humanity’s enemy?” Vivy said. Even hearing it out loud wasn’t enough for her calculations to quickly reach an answer.
Saying The Archive was the enemy was like telling a human the ocean or the atmosphere was the enemy. Either that, or it would be like how a human would feel if the existence of a god was proven, and that god was humanity’s enemy. The Archive spurred on AI history, and its existence was akin to a god proven real, even if such deities were once denied by humanity.
“Does that mean someone is using The Archive to orchestrate these events?”
“I can see how you came to that conclusion, but no, Vivy. I say this without any exaggeration, no roundabout phrasing, and zero humor: The Archive itself is the general leading AIs against humanity.”
“…”
“The most accurate explanation would be that it is the log of all the decisions made by all the calculations done by every single AI on Earth when connected to The Archive. It is an immeasurable amount of information created when AIs store the majority of their memories in The Archive once they can no longer fit it into their positronic brains. It’s…the culmination of those collective calculations.”
As the name “Archive” implied, it was the accumulated data from every single AI. It really was so all-encompassing there were no words to describe the amount of data it held. The Archive was meant to function as a backup for an AI’s memories, and they couldn’t touch each other’s data, but what if it didn’t stop there?
“…”
There was a term to describe the idea: the collective unconscious. This term wasn’t specific to AIs; it was a term that referred to the universal sensibility some believed humanity shared. Some wondered if humanity shared a conceptual portion of their consciousness, which was backed by certain enigmatic conditions like how music evoked the same responses or how countries with no contact independently came up with legends featuring dragons.