[Alan listens, quietly absorbing what Nihlus tells him. He had already known the relationship between organics and AI was fraught in Nihlus’s world—what he’d learned about the Reapers was enough to make that obvious. But he hadn’t known about these Geth. And for everything he’s learned about the AI who inhabit and threaten Nihlus’s world, he hadn’t thought about the people who created them.
Is this how it had started for them, too? With one person’s misguided idea about how to make things better? Alan had worried that his project might just lead to further exploitation; he hadn’t even considered that it might end in an attempt at complete and utter genocide. A genocide he knows is far more likely to be successful than that attempted by these Quarians.
He doesn’t say anything in response, only processes what he’s been told in silence. It isn’t until Nihlus asks his next question that Alan responds, not even bothering to fight the dwindling effects of the drink this time around.]
I didn’t have much personal contact with the MCP. I just heard stories. People said he spoke like a real person—that if you didn’t know any better, you might mistake him for one. [The program had been a source of curiosity, at first. Until it had begun to interfere in Alan’s own work.] I worked for a software company called ENCOM at the time. One of the company higher-ups, a man called Dillinger, saw it fit to install the MCP as a kind of company-wide administrator. It wasn’t long before it had almost total control over ENCOM’s servers and all the programs on it. And Dillinger just seemed to give it free reign. [Some old animosity creeps into Alan’s voice. It had been infuriating at the time, having some arcane piece of software watching over them, making nigh unquestionable decisions from on high while the rest of them could only wonder from afar.] It would lock whole swaths of people out of the server for no reason. Or it would “appropriate” programs—from our end, it would look like total deletion, though from what I understand now, it was… absorbing them. Adding their functions to its own. Trying to make itself more advanced, I suppose.
[It’s more chilling now, knowing what he does about programs. He can’t imagine what such an act would have implied in-system, where the programs the MCP was cannibalizing were real people trying to go about their lives.
At the very, very least, it means Alan can’t completely regret the actions her took to get rid of the program.]
I had a friend, Flynn… [This time, he actually takes care not to say more than he should.] After he told me that the MCP had appropriated his own programs, we worked together to destroy it. I’ve never seen an AI like it since. [That’s what Alan would be replicating—if he goes through with this. Nihlus has already given him plenty to think about in that regard.]
sorry for the wait!
Is this how it had started for them, too? With one person’s misguided idea about how to make things better? Alan had worried that his project might just lead to further exploitation; he hadn’t even considered that it might end in an attempt at complete and utter genocide. A genocide he knows is far more likely to be successful than that attempted by these Quarians.
He doesn’t say anything in response, only processes what he’s been told in silence. It isn’t until Nihlus asks his next question that Alan responds, not even bothering to fight the dwindling effects of the drink this time around.]
I didn’t have much personal contact with the MCP. I just heard stories. People said he spoke like a real person—that if you didn’t know any better, you might mistake him for one. [The program had been a source of curiosity, at first. Until it had begun to interfere in Alan’s own work.] I worked for a software company called ENCOM at the time. One of the company higher-ups, a man called Dillinger, saw it fit to install the MCP as a kind of company-wide administrator. It wasn’t long before it had almost total control over ENCOM’s servers and all the programs on it. And Dillinger just seemed to give it free reign. [Some old animosity creeps into Alan’s voice. It had been infuriating at the time, having some arcane piece of software watching over them, making nigh unquestionable decisions from on high while the rest of them could only wonder from afar.] It would lock whole swaths of people out of the server for no reason. Or it would “appropriate” programs—from our end, it would look like total deletion, though from what I understand now, it was… absorbing them. Adding their functions to its own. Trying to make itself more advanced, I suppose.
[It’s more chilling now, knowing what he does about programs. He can’t imagine what such an act would have implied in-system, where the programs the MCP was cannibalizing were real people trying to go about their lives.
At the very, very least, it means Alan can’t completely regret the actions her took to get rid of the program.]
I had a friend, Flynn… [This time, he actually takes care not to say more than he should.] After he told me that the MCP had appropriated his own programs, we worked together to destroy it. I’ve never seen an AI like it since. [That’s what Alan would be replicating—if he goes through with this. Nihlus has already given him plenty to think about in that regard.]