artificial memory

Artificial memory

By David Verveer

This is a fantasy, just based on building a logic scenery taking into account that we the humans do not know where to stop and realize what are our forbidden apples, what is supposed to be good for humankind and what are dangerous games to play with such as cloning, etc.

It were of course pure humanistic reasons which made the scientist of the early twenty first century to develop artificial memory, in order to assist those people suffering of memory loss. Memory loss is in actual fact, loosing the taste for life, as without knowing your past and present, living is tasteless and meaningless, not only for the patient himself but also for his loved ones. It is clear that if artificially one can compensate the slow decay of memory cells, by filming and interpretation of memory flashes, which are typical in people suffering from illnesses which somehow cause a memory loss.

The principle of the artificial memory is to freeze these flashes and reproduce repeatedly in order that the patient will regain some of the lost data associated with his past surroundings, his family and friends. This is a question of give and take, which needs to adjust itself to the situation and status of the patient.

In nature, memory (brain flashes) are caused and created by the brain, which is operated through a nerve center and flow of blood. Artificial brain power however can not rely on this energy and will have to operate on external electrical (battery fed) pulses. This has of course its advantages, as strokes won't kill it.

In fact the artificial memory bank (AMB) became a success overnight, and people who were suffering of brain decay rejuvenated in a very short period of time, with all side effects of re-conquering the use of failing limbs, muscles and nerves. Of course, like with every thing of this kind of equipment, it knew its failures, causing sudden death due to power failure, or insanity, when the dose of memory flashes were not replayed with comprehensible interval and strength. Most failures were caused when the AMB was used to treat insane patients, or people with a low IQ. But like many of those new kind of inventions, once it got on, nearly everybody nearing the end of his natural life, chose the AMB to enjoy life in his last years, causing religious problems, as AMB kept on working, even when the brain died, and decisions if the patient had really died, became base for heated arguments, just as stopping life support machines, several decades ago.

But than due to too much confidence of the engineers, the artificial brain started to become independent from the body it served. It did not anymore accept the individual owning the body and the failing brain; instead it became the individual itself. It stopped supplying flashes to the brain, and by becoming independent it designed artificial tools to compensate for those belonging to the body of the patient. We have no data if some of these developments were human assisted, but 50 years later, the world had to cope with independent artificial units which acted to serve their own lives rather than the humans for which they were originally created.

We have to remember however, that those AMB's were still based on human individuals, and somehow accepted the human supremacy, but then came the 2 wave of ABM's which were created by the AMB's themselves, the new wave did not need the human individual input, they created their own and clearly understood the weaknesses of the humans, their dependence on environment, their weak body and poor engineered limbs, etc., and slowly but surely, the new wave of AMB's took over the world. Humans still existed, but their living environment was restricted to certain areas where they could live without a too great danger to their own health and constitution.

Of course the AMB's did not encourage multiplication of humans and families were more or less limited to one child per couple. This was based on their human origin, caring what happened to this weak creation of the human kind.

With the AMB's advanced technological knowledge they soon discovered that there are many worlds in outer space with life, most of them advanced like the AMB's but some of them, primitive like the human earthling.

The new AMB's are now suffering of a new identity crisis, they do not know why they exist or what is the purpose, their contact with the individuals in the first wave of ABM's was taken over by efficiency, at all costs, but no will to live. The only hope for this world will be a human revolution braking out from their reservation, fighting to take back the world they lost, even though, they have forgotten the reason why.