“Cyborg Dreams,” Alex repeated and nodded.

She turned around to see the Wolf walking away down the hallway and smiled. She liked Abel with his deliberate rationality. Physical force in combination with wisdom was what attracted her to that unusual being. Her unit’s pilots had frequently had hot disputes over relations between human beings and Artificial Intelligence.

That was a complex issue that people could endlessly discuss as well as AI beings.

Personally, Alex believed that AI had already passed the level of “computerized” understanding of the World and of the role of mind in it and through self-development had come close to realizing such spiritual principles as Kindness, Love, Soul, and the Creator.

To create, raise, bring up and train an AI was a highly difficult task; therefore any sensible being was unique and valued.

For a minute, Alex imagined that there was no war at all and that Abel was the best and most faithful friend of hers.

"I should somehow enquire him about these Cyborg Dreams. There is so much talk about them, but no one knows anything about them whatsoever,” Alex thought.

*GMA – genetically modified animals

Chapter 4

The biggest challenge is to distinguish Evolution from Involution

Since the creation of the first quantum computer, mankind developed an analog of the artificial brain, which blew up the entire world. That was followed with yet another breakthrough – the emergence of the Artificial Intelligence. The initial cautious efforts of Chinese scientists to copy the animal’s brain paved the way for a sequence of successful experiments on the AI development.

Soon Artificial Intelligence displayed capacity for self-development and strive for UNDERSTANDING the WORLD. The artificially created mind started learning to take decisions and to analyze the consequences of its actions.

That novelty was widely discussed and soon people were allowed to directly deal with AI, and even special facilities were set up for the purposes of that communication. People were stunned by the fact that AI not only had a logic of their own, but could also create vivid thought forms during thinking process that were projected in holographic forms around their interlocutors.

And while people were arguing about the potential for using AI for civil needs, the military were the first to obtain intelligent rockets and tanks, and soon first clumsy drones got off the ground.

Following a short period of time, AI exceeded the bounds of secret labs, and started to be created, trained and put into first crude cyber bodies by independent craftsmen. That way first home pets, or cyber friends, appeared. At the same time, special programs were designed to limit development of AI and impose on them certain patterns of thinking and behavior. That was a sort of Code regulating interaction between AI and men. At the time, almost everyone sought to acquire as a pet, instead of a dog or cat, a unique made-to-order thinking object with most unusual and even grotesque appearance. Children dreamt of having a cyber friend and as a companion of all their games.

Cyber bodies had a variety of forms, and their developers gained wide popularity. And while cold synthesis-based energy generators became available to the average engineer, AI exceeded the program limits and realized itself as a newly emerged being. New laws were introduced that prohibited unwarranted creation of AI by independent individuals.

But nevertheless nothing could stop enthusiastic scientists from developing, bringing up AI within original cyber bodies and then either selling them to interested customers or even setting them free. Therefore, news reports about rambling cyber beings of most unusual appearance dwelling on their own in various places of their chose, in the air, on the ground and at sea, came as no surprise.

The built-in nano-mechanisms allowed for fast regeneration of their bodies in case of injuries, while the inner cold synthesis-based reactor provided them with almost limitless energy reserves. That way a full-fledged ”black market” of AI and cyber bodies came into being. All states, which by that time had split into two antagonistic camps, made efforts to eliminate that market. But, after all, is it possible for a state to defeat a man?

Each craftsman was always replaced by another one. Also, there were those who made AI serve for the sake of vagary ideas of some dim-witted statesmen and religious bigots. Meanwhile the world was dragging towards the abyss of war, and people were too busy to realize that their planet was increasingly getting unfit for living.

Small states were the first to lose their sovereignty. The uncontrolled migration process engulfed the Earth. People started arbitrary relocation to places suitable for life. In doing so, they either joined the Coalition with its radical political views, or the Free People Lands.

The industry, the way it had been known in the twenty first century, ceased to exist. Only printers were manufactured that could, with accuracy up to a molecule, reproduce any object once created on Earth.